Proverbs 23:31 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Look not thou upon the wine, &c.— Red wine is more esteemed in the east than white; and we are told in the travels of Olearius, that it is customary with the Armenian Christians in Persia, to put Brazil wood or saffron into their wine, to give it a higher colour, when the wine is not so red as they like; they making no account of white wine. He mentions the same thing also in another place. These accounts of their putting Brazil wood or saffron into such their wines to give them a deeper red, seem to discover an energy of the Hebrew word יתאדם yithaddam, here used, as I never saw remarked any where. It is of the conjugation called hithpael, which, according to grammarians denotes an action that turns upon the agent itself: it is not always, it may be accurately observed, but in this case it should seem that it ought to be, taken according to the strictness of grammar, and that it intimates the wine's making itself redder, by something put into it. Look not upon the wine when it maketh itself red. It appears indeed from Isaiah 63:2 that some of the wines about Judea were naturally red; but so are those wines in Persia, only more deeply tinged by art; and this colouring is apparently to make it more grateful and tempting to the eye. See the Observations, p. 191.