ARCHAEOLOGY DAY

ARCHAEOLOGY DAY

Monday, February 13, 2012

AGRICULTURE IN BIBLE TIMES



Jer 51:33  
like a threshing-floor, it is time to thresh her — rather, “like a threshing-floor at the time of threshing,” or “at the time when it is trodden.” The treading, or threshing, here put before the harvest, out of the natural order, because the prominent thought is the treading down or destruction of Babylon. In the East the treading out of the corn took place only at harvest-time. Babylon is like a threshing-floor not trodden for a long time; but the time of harvest, when her citizens shall be trodden under foot, shall come [Calvin]. “Like a threshing-floor full of corn, so is Babylon now full of riches, but the time of harvest shall come, when all her prosperity shall be cut off” [Ludovicus De Dieu]. Grotius distinguishes the “harvest” from the “threshing”; the former is the slaying of her citizens, the latter the pillaging and destruction of the city (compare Joe_3:13; Rev_14:15, Rev_14:18).

Isa 28:27  
The husbandman uses the same discretion in threshing. The dill (“fitches”) and cummin, leguminous and tender grains, are beaten out, not as wheat, etc., with the heavy corn-drag (“threshing instrument”), but with “a staff”; heavy instruments would crush and injure the seed.



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