“Abstain from wine and the vine”
he is to abstain from wine and strong drink. He must not drink vinegar made from wine or strong drink, and he must not drink any grape juice or eat fresh grapes or raisins. (Numbers 6:3 BSB)
What it sounds like today
An oddly strict, total ban on anything grape-related.
The cultural key
The sweeping scope, no wine, but also no grape juice, no grapes, no raisins, nothing from the vine at all, marks this as more than a rule about drunkenness. It is one element of the Nazirite vow (Hebrew nazir, 'consecrated one'), a way an ordinary Israelite, man or woman, could take on a period of special dedication to God. The vow had three visible signs: abstaining entirely from the grapevine (the source of wine and of feasting, so the Nazirite forgoes ordinary pleasures), never cutting the hair (letting it grow as a public banner of the vow, 6:5), and avoiding all contact with the dead (6:6). Together they set the person conspicuously apart as belonging wholly to God for the vow's duration. Samson and Samuel were Nazirites from birth, and the practice appears again with John the Baptist and Paul's vow in Acts. A modern reader sees puritanical fussiness; the first hearers saw a whole-life, visible act of devotion.
Recovered meaning
Renouncing everything from the vine (not just wine but grapes and raisins) was one of the three marks of the Nazirite vow, alongside uncut hair and avoiding the dead. It set a person visibly apart as wholly devoted to God for a time.