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Farming

Harvesting Olives

Harvesting the olive crop. The Arabs harvest their crop of olives in the Holy Land by beating the trees with sticks in order to knock off the fruit. Instead of hand picking them, they beat the limbs and thus cause the fruit to fall. The tender shoots that would ordinarily bear fruit the following year are thus apt to be damaged, so as to interfere ...

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Binding Sheaves

Binding the grain into sheaves. The cut grain is gathered on the arms and bound into sheaves. The Psalmist makes a reference to the mower filling his hand, and the binder of sheaves filling his bosom (Psalm 129:7). And the Song of Solomon speaks of an heap of wheat (Song of Solomon 7:2), and Joseph in his dream saw "binding sheaves in the field" (G...

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Allowing Neighbors to Eat Grain

THE FARMER'S LAW OF HOSPITALITY Eating grain in the field. When the grain in the wheatfield has passed the "milk-stage," and has begun to harden, it is then called "fereek" and is considered to be delicious to eat raw. Natives of the land will pluck the heads, and then rub them in their hand and eat them. For centuries the unwritten law of hospita...

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Leaving Grain for the Poor

Grain left for the poor. The Mosaic Law also had a provision in it to help take care of the poor, in connection with the grain harvest. "And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the po...

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Birds

ENEMIES OF THE GRAIN Birds. The birds of the air are foes of the grain. In the East, large flocks of birds often follow the farmer as he sows his seed in order to snatch up, if they can, what he has scattered. Some of the grain is therefore lost before the plough can succeed in covering it up. That which chances to fall on the path would readily b...

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Ploughing After the Rain

Getting ready for ploughing. The farmer gets ready for ploughing after the first rain starts falling, if he has not already done so before. He will spend the time making sure that his plough is in good repair and ready for action. He may need to cut and point a new goad to use in prodding his team of oxen. He must also see to it that his yoke is sm...

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Oxen

ANIMALS USED IN PLOUGHING Use of oxen. In Bible times oxen were used almost exclusively for ploughing. For this reason the expression "a yoke" was used by the Hebrews to mean the measure of land which a yoke of oxen could plough in a day (cf. I Samuel 14:14, and Isaiah 5:10). "Oxen" as the Hebrews used the term, meant both sexes of the animal, cow...

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Tares

Tares. The tares are also enemies of the grain. In his Parable of the Tares, JESUS said: "While men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat" (Matthew 13:25). In the Holy Land, tares are something called "wild wheat," because they resemble wheat, only the grains are black. Thomson has this to say about the tares: "The Arabic name for ...

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Ploughing

PREPARING THE SOIL FOR THE CROP Ploughing. The ploughing of the ground in Oriental fashion is quite primitive. The plough, which at best is a slight implement, can be carried if necessary two miles to the farmer's place of work. Of course by comparison with modern ploughs, it could be said merely to scratch the surface at the soil. The ploughman h...

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Fire

Fire. Fire is another enemy of the grain farmer. In Israel, the Arabs let the wheat become dead ripe, and therefore as dry as tinder, before they cut it. Thorns usually grow all around the wheat fields and intermingle with the grain, and thus it would be easy for a fire starting with the thorns to spread to the wheat, and it would be difficult to k...

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