Numbers 6:4

nothing that is produced by the grape-vine R.V. -made of the grape-vine," though a literal rendering of the Hebrew, is misleading. The meaning is evidently that of Judges 13:14 -nothing that cometh forth (יצא) from the grape-vine." This meaning of עשה -to make," or -produce," in the course of nature is found with some frequency; e.g. Genesis 1:11 f., Genesis 41:47; Isaiah 5:2; Isaiah 5:4; Isaiah 5:10.

from the kernels even to the husk The Heb. idiom -from … to …" frequently represents the English -either … or …" or - neither … nor … " Cf. Genesis 14:23, lit. -from a thread to a shoe-latchet"; Genesis 31:24; Genesis 31:29 -from good to bad."

The words rendered -kernels" (ḥarẓannîm) and -husk" (zâg) are not found elsewhere in the O.T. and their meaning is uncertain.

It is not very natural to speak of the kernels (i.e. the stones or pips) and the husk (i.e. the skin) of the grape as producedby the vine. But no better rendering of the words has been proposed. The general sense, however, is clear. The eating of any sort of grape product is prohibited, even the most trifling or unpalatable parts of the produce of the vine.

The custom of abstaining from wine and intoxicants may have arisen in a remote past from a primitive belief that the spirit or numenof the vine entered into a man when he drank (see Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 359 f.); or, as Jeremiah 35:6 f. suggests in the case of the Rechabites, it arose from a desire to conform closely to ancient nomadic habits after the nation as a whole had become an agricultural community (W. R. Smith, Prophets of Israel, 84 f.). Whatever the origin may have been, the Naziriteship had, in prophetic times, a valuable moral significance as a protest against luxury and sensuality. See Driver on Amos 2:11.

Again, the prohibition of wine is distinct from that of all intoxicants1 [Note: On intoxicants other than wine see Hastings" DB. ii. 33b.]. The former is probably the more primitive. And the form of the regulations found here may very possibly have been the result of the fusion of ancient practices which were at one time unconnected, and not all observed by earlier Nazirites.