The Hebrew word yeqev refers to a wine vat or wine press — the trough or pit cut into rock where grapes were trodden and juice collected during the harvest. It appears in Numbers 18:27, Joel 2:24, Isaiah 16:10, and in the parables of Jesus as the essential structure of the vineyard.
The wine vat (yeqev) is central to the vineyard imagery that runs from Isaiah's song of the vineyard (Isaiah 5) through Jesus's parable of the tenants (Matthew 21). Every well-prepared vineyard had its press — the expectation of fruitful harvest was built into its construction. When the vineyard fails to produce or the tenants refuse to give the owner his fruit, the yeqev stands as silent accusation. In Revelation 14, the winepress becomes the great image of eschatological judgment — the grapes of wrath pressed outside the city. The same instrument of joy and harvest becomes, in judgment, an instrument of wrath. Every yeqev asks: what kind of fruit will it press?