The strong wine to be poured unto the Lord— See Leviticus 10:9. This strong wine, of whatever sort it was, was to be the best of the kind; it being but reasonable that the best should be offered to God. The same reverence for religion taught the heathens to offer to their gods the most excellent wine they had; which is imitated in those words we meet with so often in Homer, both in the Iliad and Odyssey, of men's pouring out upon their sacrifices, αιθοπα οινον, black wine, or of the deepest colour, red as blood, which was the richest of all. Herodian, describing the sacrifices of Heliogabalus, says, he poured out many flaggons of the oldest and most excellent wine on the altars, οινου παλαιοτατου και καλλιστου, lib. 5: cap. 13. In like manner Virgil, mentioning a libation of wine offered to the gods, calls it, honorem laticum, the honour or prime of the liquor. See Scacchi, Myrothec. I. 11. c. 42.
REFLECTIONS.—The generation to whom these laws had been given were dead; their children, therefore, hear a solemn recapitulation of them. They were ready to enter upon a state of warfare, and might be tempted to neglect the Divine institutions; but there was double need to secure their peace with God, when they were at war with the Canaanites. The daily sacrifice is first ordained for a continual burnt-offering, typical of that sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, who ever appears with his blood before God, to make atonement for our sins.