Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas
The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.
Sowing, harvest and threshing
The farming year every hearer lived by: seed scattered on thin and thorny ground, weeds that look like wheat, the harvest rush, and grain winnowed in the wind while the chaff burned.
Every farmer knows some of the seed will be wasted, and a good year still pays for it. Most of Jesus' hearers grew their own food. They sowed by hand, often before plowing, so seed fell on paths, rocks and thorns. At harvest the grain was cut, carried to the village threshing floor and tossed in the wind so the light chaff blew away to be burned.
Most people in the empire, and in Galilee, lived on the land. Jesus' stories stay with farmers, where later rabbinic parables favor royal courts (Keener). Seed was often, though not always, sown before plowing, so it met all the fates in the parable of the sower. Blomberg, citing Philip Payne, says both orders were used and some waste came either way. A tenfold yield was average for much of the land; thirty, sixty and a hundredfold were very good harvests. Darnel, a poisonous weed, looks like wheat until it heads, and its roots tangle with the wheat's. Dried, it could be burned as fuel. Grain was winnowed by tossing it into the wind, and the chaff was burned. Ripe grain had to come in quickly, so landowners hired extra hands. Jewish writers already used harvest as a picture of the end (4 Ezra 4:30-32). God as sower and people as soil were standard Jewish images (Blomberg). In Judea the first rains came in autumn, in October and November. The winter rains, about three quarters of the year's total, came from December. The late rains of March and April readied the grain. The wheat harvest ran from mid-April and was over by late May, sooner than in Greece or Italy. Grapes were picked around August or September and tipped into long troughs of wood or stone. There they were trodden, often to a flute, and wine was called the blood of grapes (Genesis 49:11). Harvest and vintage were the high points of joy in the farming year (Wright).
An analogy: a farm family watching the weather in the last week before harvest. Everyone knows what a good yield looks like, what a weed costs, and that when the grain is ready, the work cannot wait.
Farm images were the common stock of village speech, so a sower, a weed or a harvest worker needed no explanation. Harvest and winnowing were already pictures of God's judgment, which is how John uses them at Matthew 3:12. The yields in Mark 4:8 are very good harvests, not impossible ones, and the urgent harvest of Matthew 9:37-38 is a call for hired hands.
Not a farm with machines, forecasts and crop insurance. An ancient family sowed by hand, waited on the autumn and spring rains, and had nothing to fall back on if the crop failed. A bad harvest meant hunger. The images are also not gardening tips; they come from work that fed the family.
Two farming questions. On sowing before plowing, Keener says seed was often sown first, and Blomberg, citing Payne, says both orders were in use. On an enemy sowing weeds in a field, Keener's cultural backgrounds notes say ancient legal sources show feuding farmers did it. Blomberg says Roman laws against it show it happened somewhere, but not that it happened in Palestine in Jesus' day.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/matthew-3-1-12\/","n":"Matthew 3:1-12, John at the Jordan","s":"John preaches repentance in the Judean wilderness because the kingdom of heaven has come near. He calls Pharisees and Sadducees a brood of vipers and warns of the winnowing fork.","r":"Matthew 3:1-12"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/matthew-9-35-10-15\/","n":"Matthew 9:35-10:15, The Twelve sent with nothing","s":"Seeing the crowds as sheep without a shepherd, Jesus sends twelve apostles to the lost sheep of Israel, with no money, bag or staff, to stay with whoever will have them.","r":"Matthew 9:35-10:15"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/matthew-13-1-23\/","n":"Matthew 13:1-23, The sower","s":"From a boat Jesus tells the parable of the sower to the crowd on the shore, explains why he speaks in parables, and interprets the story for his disciples.","r":"Matthew 13:1-23"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/matthew-13-24-52\/","n":"Matthew 13:24-52, Darnel, mustard, yeast, treasure and a net","s":"More parables of the kingdom: weeds sown among wheat, a mustard seed, yeast in flour, treasure in a field, a pearl, and a dragnet, with the weeds and the net explained as the judgment at the end of the age.","r":"Matthew 13:24-52"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/matthew-20-1-16\/","n":"Matthew 20:1-16, A day's wage for an hour's work","s":"A landowner hires laborers for his vineyard at dawn and again through the day, then pays everyone a full denarius, starting with the last. Those hired first complain.","r":"Matthew 20:1-16"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/luke-13-10-21\/","n":"Luke 13:10-21, A bent woman freed on the Sabbath; mustard and leaven","s":"Teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath, Jesus frees a woman bent double for eighteen years. The synagogue ruler objects, and Jesus answers with an ox untied for water, then compares God's kingdom to a mustard seed and to leaven.","r":"Luke 13:10-21"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/1corinthians-15-35-58\/","n":"1 Corinthians 15:35-58, Seeds, stars and the last trumpet","s":"Asked what kind of body the dead will have, Paul answers with the seed that dies and rises as a plant and with the differing glories of sun, moon and stars, sets the first Adam beside the last, and ends with the trumpet and death swallowed up.","r":"1 Corinthians 15:35-58"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/galatians-5-13-6-10\/","n":"Galatians 5:13-6:10, Flesh and Spirit, burdens and teachers","s":"Called to freedom, the Galatians are to serve one another in love, which fulfills the law; Paul sets the works of the flesh against the fruit of the Spirit and urges them to restore the fallen gently, carry each other's burdens, share with their teachers and keep doing good.","r":"Galatians 5:13-6:10"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/james-5-7-12\/","n":"James 5:7-12, Early and late rains, Job, and no oaths","s":"James tells the oppressed to be patient until the Lord comes, as a farmer waits for the autumn and spring rains, to stop grumbling, to remember the prophets and Job, and above all not to swear.","r":"James 5:7-12"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-passages\/revelation-14-6-20\/","n":"Revelation 14:6-20, Babylon fallen, the harvest and the winepress","s":"Three angels announce an eternal gospel, the fall of Babylon and the undiluted cup of God's wrath for those who worship the beast, and a voice blesses those who die in the Lord. Then one like a son of man reaps the earth's grain with a sickle, and an angel gathers its grapes into the great winepress, from which blood flows as high as the horses' bridles.","r":"Revelation 14:6-20"}
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Matthew 3:12, 13:1-9, 13:3-4, 13:8, 13:25-30 and 13:36-43
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Matthew 3:12, 9:37-38, 13:3, 13:4, 13:8, 13:25, 13:26-29 and 13:30
- CSB Study Bible, note on Matthew 13:24
- Craig L. Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables, 6.7 The Wheat and the Tares, and 7.3 The Sower
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on James 5:7-8
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on James 5:7
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Revelation 14:19-20 and 14:20
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Revelation 14:17-19
- N. T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone, comment on Revelation 14:14-20
