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Threshing
Floor
Floor
gotquestions.org
There are
dozens of references to a “threshing floor” in the Bible, some literal and some
symbolic.
In
biblical days there was no machinery, so after the harvest, the grain was
separated from the straw and husks by beating it manually.
First
there had to be a flat surface that was smooth and hard, and this was known as
the threshing floor.
The
process of threshing was performed generally by spreading the sheaves on the
threshing floor and causing oxen and cattle to tread repeatedly over them,
loosening the edible part of cereal grain (or other crop) from the scaly,
inedible chaff that surrounds it (Deuteronomy 25:4; Isaiah 28:28).
Then
winnowing forks were used to throw the mixture into the air so the wind could
blow away the chaff, leaving only the good grain on the floor.
Both the
Old and New Testaments refer to the threshing floor as a symbol of judgment.
Hosea
prophesied that, because Israel has repeatedly turned from God to false idols,
His judgment upon them would scatter them to the winds as the chaff from the
threshing floor.
“Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that
disappears, like chaff swirling from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping
through a window” (Hosea 13:3).
Jeremiah
pronounces a similar fate on the Babylonians who persecuted Israel, likening
their fate to the trampled sheaves on the threshing floor (Jeremiah 51:33).
John the
Baptist uses the imagery of the threshing floor to describe the coming Messiah
who would separate the true believers from the false.
The true followers of Christ will be gathered into the kingdom of God
just as grain is gathered into barns, while those who reject Christ will be
burned up “with unquenchable fire,” just as the
worthless chaff is burned (Matthew 3:12; Luke 3:17).
The
wicked are often described as chaff that the wind drives away (Psalm 1:4; Isaiah 17:13).
Similar
imagery of the good grain being separated from the worthless weeds appears in
the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:36–43)
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