What Does the Bible Teach Us When It Talks about a Threshing Floor?
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A threshing floor is a violent thing.
Our modern culture seeks happiness, comfort, and relief—although that’s not unique. Humanity has sought its own desires and ways since history began. Our modern context expresses the same problem through better technology. Understandably, we avoid pain. Even Jesus asked for the cross to be taken from him the night before the crucifixion. However, he obeyed the Father.
The Bible using a threshing floor to describe spiritual reality causes some discomfort. Yet its other narratives and symbols for spiritual growth highlight the same thing: it is a difficult and painful process. Jesus tells us to take up our cross and follow him. The way to destruction is wide, yet the narrow road leads to eternal life. And that road is narrow due to its difficulty.
As C.S. Lewis said in his book God in the Dock, “If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”
Taken alone, separate from the process, these biblical symbols discourage us from following Jesus. But the cross isn’t the final statement for Jesus or those who follow him. God allows and uses these painful moments to bring us from death to life. In that context, we understand the need for the threshing floor.
What Is a Threshing Floor Used For?
A threshing floor separates grain from chaff during the harvest season. Threshing has been an essential agricultural step since ancient times.
Farmers bring harvested grains to the threshing floor, typically a flat, open area. Then, they employ various methods to separate edible grain kernels from inedible chaff. One common technique involves spreading the talks, which contain both grain and chaff, across the floor’s surface. The farmers loosen grain from husks by beating the stalks with flails or driving animals over them; the applied force is called threshing. Heavier grains fall to the ground while lighter chaff is blown away.
Sometimes, the process includes manually winnowing the chaff. For example, the farmers might toss the mix into the air with wooden forks, allowing the wind to carry the chaff away, leaving the grain behind. Many times, the farmer burns the chaff, destroying it.
The threshing floor first serves a practical purpose: to ensure a bountiful grain yield. Beyond this function, the floor becomes a gathering place for farmers to collaborate during harvest season. Shared labor and community contribute to solidarity and fellowship among farmers and others involved in agriculture. Naturally extending from the size and use, threshing floors could be employed for social and religious gatherings, especially when seeking divine aid in the coming crop.
For these reasons, historically, the community set threshing floors in areas central to local, rural life. Further, the threshing floors appeared in farming folklore and art, such as songs and stories passed through generations to symbolize unity and hard work vital to farming communities.
What Bible Stories Mention a Threshing Floor?
Since biblical cultures relied upon farming, especially once Israel settled in the Promised Land, the threshing floor appears in Scripture. These references provide insight into Israel’s agricultural practices and become spiritual metaphors.
One notable mention occurs in Ruth’s story. A Moabite woman, Ruth becomes King David’s ancestor and, by extension, the Lord Jesus Christ. In Ruth, her journey leads her to the fields of Boaz, a wealthy landowner and her deceased husband’s relative. Ruth gleans barley from Boaz’s fields. Her dedication and humility capture Boaz’s attention. Ruth seeks the man’s protection and provision as her relative, invoking the kinsman-redeemer custom. Boaz agrees to redeem her and her late husband’s land, his Promised Land inheritance. This redemptive act culminates in a legal transaction at the threshing floor, where Boaz publicly declares his intention and ultimately redeems Ruth.
In Judges 6-7, the Bible introduces Gideon as a young man threshing wheat in the winepress, not in the usual location. Gideon hid this economic act from the oppressive Midianites. God calls Gideon to deliver Israel from the Midianite overlords. Before agreeing to the fight, Gideon seeks confirmation through a miraculous sign involving a fleece and dew. After God performs this miracle, Gideon assembles an army that confronts and defeats the Midianites.
A major biblical reference happens when David purchases the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite (2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles). After David sins by conducting a census, God judges the nation and brings a plague on Israel. David seeks to make amends by offering a sacrifice to God. When God’s angel appears, David pleads for mercy and seeks to avoid further punishment. Since the angel stands upon the threshing floor, David purchases it to build an altar for sacrifice. Araunah tries to give David the land and the oxen to sacrifice, but David famously insists on paying the full price, refusing to offer God that which costs him nothing. The threshing floor becomes a sacred space where David’s son, Solomon, eventually builds the Temple.
When Does the Bible Use Threshing Floors as a Symbol?
To begin with, every narrative included above has symbolic meaning. While not explicit in the text, each carries meaning. This doesn’t mean the narratives are allegories without any historical basis. It means that as we look at the details, we see how images (of the threshing floor, for example) in the story speak to something larger about what God was doing. Sometimes, these common cultural images appear again in Jesus’ story, and we see how those images become redeemed.
Regarding Ruth, the threshing floor becomes a place for community leaders to come and decide important local matters, including Boaz’s offering and agreeing to redeem Ruth and restore her deceased husband’s Promised Land inheritance. Threshing floors required a spacious area, so these functioned easily for gatherings. In addition, the area symbolizes the grief and poverty Ruth had been through, yet her grief wasn’t the end of the story. Just as the violent threshing floor produces grain for bread and life, her difficulties result in a new life and becoming part of the Messianic line.
Gideon didn’t use such a large area—if he did, the Midianites would have discovered what he was doing. Instead, he used the smaller winepress, which symbolized the oppression he lived under. Wine also symbolizes Jesus’ blood, and as mentioned above, threshing grain produces bread. These combine in Communion, the bread and wine. Gideon suffered these hard times of oppression. Yet when God got involved, he witnessed the miraculous victory over the Midianites.
Finally, in David’s story, the threshing floor’s violence embodies the judgment he and Israel endured because of the king’s sin. Once again, the judgment wasn’t final. God appears and brings forgiveness and redemption. As the threshing floor functioned as a gathering area, David chose this site for Solomon to build the most sacred spot, the Temple, where all Israel would gather.
The Bible primarily focuses on separating the chaff and the grain, the good from the bad, regarding people but could be stretched to include all evil and good. Psalm 1:4 compares wicked people to chaff, with no stability or permanence, which the wind carries away. Isaiah 41:16 mentions the winnowing process, “You will winnow them, the wind will pick them up, and a gale will blow them away. But you will rejoice in the Lord and glory in the Holy One of Israel.” God’s judgment operates like a winnowing fork to separate those who follow God and the wicked. In the threshing process, the useless chaff is burned in the fire, as expressed in Jeremiah 23:28-29, “For what has straw to do with grain?” declares the Lord. “Is not my word like fire?” God’s powerful word judges and separates life-giving grain from the empty straw. Hosea 13:3 also uses the threshing floor and chaff to describe humanity’s temporary nature: “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.”
John the Baptist brought the same message, discussing Jesus’ coming judgment and how Christ would use the winnowing fork and the threshing floor to separate the righteous from the wicked and the wheat from the weeds (Matthew 3:12). Jesus taught the same word with a parable about tares (weeds) growing up among the wheat. The farmer waits until harvest time to separate the two and burns the weeds.
What Can We Learn from the Threshing Floor Today?
Jesus promises his followers two things: we will have difficult times in this world, and he has overcome the world, including its troubles (John 16:33). First, we should remember that the threshing was only part of the process, not the final or the whole. Threshing lasts for a certain time and will end. So will our difficult times and testing.
Second, God gives a purpose to these hardships. He uses the worldly struggles to perfect our faith, strengthen us, and give us confidence in him (James 1:2-4). Just as the cross only lasted a day, and the resurrection came on Sunday, following Jesus through suffering leads us to abundance and completeness. Within these hard times, God purifies us, burning away the useless and empty from our lives, leaving us with only that which sustains others. Our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29). Yet God’s purpose is our good. Despite life’s trying moments, all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).
Interestingly, gathering appears in many narratives featuring threshing floors, which makes sense. When the wheat and chaff are separated, the farmer gathers both, one to sell or trade and the other for destruction. On one threshing floor, David had Solomon build the Temple. The Bible calls us to gather as Christ’s body, his church, the redeemed ones (like Ruth). When we gather with other followers of Jesus, we declare that we have endured the hard times of this world through faith, God’s Spirit, and might, and we look forward to the ultimate redemption in the life to come.
Hebrews teaches the necessity of gathering together (Hebrews 10:25). In this community of faith, we bear each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), build one another up (1 Thessalonians 5:11), and spur the community to love and good works (Hebrews 10:24).
Jesus and the Scripture use the threshing floor on a meta-level to symbolize Judgment Day. God will one day judge the living and the dead, separating the born again in Christ from those who rejected the gospel and remained spiritually dead. In the end, God collects those who have dismissed Christ and throws them into the everlasting “lake of fire” along with the Devil and evil angels.
Thankfully, there is another option. God also gathers his new creation people unto himself and builds us into the New Jerusalem upon the New Heaven and New Earth, where we will live eternally in perfect and joyous union with our Father through the Son.
Peace.
Photo Credit:©GettyImages/Sunan Wongsa-nga
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