John Lightfoot on Luke 1:15

[Neither wine nor strong drink.] That is, if the Jews may be our interpreters properly enough, "neither new nor old wine"; Numbers 6:3. Greek, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. Targum, He shall separate himself from wine new and old. So Deuteronomy 14:26.

"R. Jose of Galilee saith, Why doth the Scripture double it, wine and strong drink? For is not wine strong drink, and strong drink wine?" Strong drink is wine no doubt, Numbers 28:7; Thou shalt cause the strong wine to be poured out before the Lord. Targum, a drink offering of old wine.

Whilst I a little more narrowly consider that severe interdiction by which the Nazarite was forbidden the total use of the vine, not only that he should not drink of the wine, but not so much as taste of the grape, not the pulp nor stone of the grape, no, not the bark of the vine; I cannot but call to mind,

I. Whether the vine might not be the tree in paradise that had been forbidden to Adam, by the tasting of which he sinned. The Jewish doctors positively affirm this without any scruple.

II. Whether that law about the Nazarites had not some reference to Adam while he was under that prohibition in the state of innocency. For if the bodily and legal uncleannesses, about which there are such strict precepts, Numbers 5, especially the leprosy, the greatest of all uncleannesses, did excellently decipher the state and nature of sin; might not the laws about Nazarites which concerned the greatest purities in a most pure religion, be something in commemoration of the state of man before his fall?

There was, as the doctors call it, the wine of command; which they were bound by precept to drink. Such was "that wine of the tithes," Deuteronomy 12:17,18, that twas commanded to be drunk at Jerusalem, and the cup of wine to be drunk at the Passover. What must the Nazarite do in this case? If he drink, he violates the command of his order; if he do not drink, he breaks the command about tithes and the laws of his fathers. Let Elias untie this knot when he comes.