Strong's Number: H8354
Original Word: shatâ
Usage Notes: "to drink." This verb appears in nearly every Semitic language, although in biblical Aramaic it is not attested as a verb (the noun form mishteh does appear). Biblical Hebrew attests shatâ at every period and about 215 times.
This verb primarily means "to drink" or "to consume a liquid," and is used of inanimate subjects, as well as of persons or animals. The verb shaqâ, which is closely related to shatâ in meaning, often appears both with animate and inanimate subjects. The first occurrence of shatâ reports that Noah "drank of the wine, and was drunken" (Gen 9:21). Animals also "drink": "I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking" (Gen 24:19). God says He does not "drink the blood of goats" (Psa 50:13).
"To drink a cup" is a metaphor for consuming all that a cup may contain (Isa 51:17). Not only liquids may be drunk, since shatâ is used figuratively of "drinking" iniquity: "How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water" (Job 15:16). Only infrequently is this verb used of inanimate subjects, as in Deut 11:11: "But the land, whither ye go to possess it … drinketh water of the rain of heaven…"
Shatâ may also be used of the initial act of "taking in" a liquid: "Is not this it in which my lord drinketh …" (Gen 44:5). "To drink" from a cup does not necessarily involve consuming what is drunk. Therefore, this passage uses shatâ of "drinking in," and not of the entire process of consuming a liquid.
This word may be used of a communal activity: "And they went out into … the house of their god, and did eat and drink, and cursed Abimelech" (Judg 9:27). The phrase "eat and drink" may mean "to eat a meal": "And they did eat and drink, he and the men that were with him, and tarried all night …" (Gen 24:54). This verb sometimes means "to banquet" (which included many activities in addition to just eating and drinking), or "participating in a feast": "… Behold, they eat and drink before him, and say, God save king Adonijah" (1Kings 1:25). In one case, shatâ by itself means "to participate in a feast": "So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared" (Esth 5:5).
The phrase, "eating and drinking," may signify a religious meal, i.e., a communion meal with God. The seventy elders on Mt. Sinai "saw God, and did eat and drink" (Exod 24:11). by this act, they were sacramentally united with God (cf. 1Cor 10:19). In contrast to this communion with the true God, the people at the foot of the mountain communed with a false god, they "sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play" (Exod 32:6). When Moses stood before God, however, he ate nothing during the entire forty days and nights (Exod 34:28). His communion was face-to-face rather than through a common meal.
Priests were commanded to practice a partial fast when they served before God, they were not to drink wine or strong drink (Lev 10:9). They and all Israel were to eat no unclean thing. These conditions were stricter for Nazirites, who lived constantly before God. They were commanded not to eat any product of the vine (Num 6:3; cf. Judg 13:4; 1Sa 1:15). Thus, God laid claim to the ordinary and necessary processes of human living. In all that man does, he is obligated to recognize God's control of his existence. Man is to recognize that he eats and drinks only as he lives under God's rule; and the faithful are to acknowledge God in all their ways. The phrase, "eating and drinking," may also signify life in general; "Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry" (1Kings 4:20; cf. Eccl 2:24; Eccl 5:18; Jer 22:15). In close conjunction with the verb "to be drunk (intoxicated)," shatâ means "to drink freely" or "to drink so much that one becomes drunk." When Joseph hosted his brothers, they "drank, and were merry with him" (Gen 43:34).
