,גתGath. Torcular. Græc. Ληνός.PRESS, Torcular; in Hebrew, Gath. Mention is often made in Scripture of a Press. But this Word is used, not only for the Machine by which the Grapes are squeezed, but also for the Vessel, or Vat, wherein the Wine runs from the Press, in which it is received and preserved, and which, in Hebrew, is call’d Jekeb; and in ,יקב Jekeb. Græc. Λάκκος, or Λῆνος. Isai. v. 2. Mat. xxi. 33. Joel iii. 18. Prov. iii. 10. Hag. ii. 16. Judges vii. 25.Greek, Laccos. Whence proceed these Expressions: He digged a Wine-press in his Vineyard; Your Presses shall run over with Wine; Thy Presses shall burst out with new Wine; To draw out of the Press; Zeeb they slew at the Wine-press of Zeeb. It was a kind of subterraneous Cistern, in which the Wine was received and kept, ‘till it was put into Jars or Vessels of Earth or Wood. See Plin. l. 14. c. 21. Columel. l. 12. c. 18. Cato de re Rust. c. 113. where they speak of these Cisterns under-ground, wherein the Wine was put. We have spoken at large of the Presses, and of all that belongs to the Manner of Keeping the Wine, in the Commentary upon Jeremiah, chap. xlviii. 11.
In the Psalter, we read several Titles of the Psalms, which intimate, Pro Torcularibus, For the Presses, which is differently explain’d. Some think,1 that the Psalms are Songs of Rejoycing for the Vintage, which were chiefly sung at the Feast of Tabernacles, after the Harvest and the Vintage. Others think,2 that Gittith, which is the Hebrew Word translated by Presses, signifies an Instrument of Musick. The Fathers3 explain them in a spiritual Sense, of the Church of Jesus Christ, who is the mystical Vine in which the Press is built, according to the Description of our Saviour in the Gospel. We think that we may translate the Hebrew by, A Psalm addressed to the Master of Musick, who presided over the Band of Gittites. In the Temple were several Bands of Singers, of which some might be of the City of Gath.
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