THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
In the Jordan valley the barley-harvest begins
from the end of March to the first half of April;
in the hill-country, on the coast, and
Harvest, in the highlands, from a week to a month later. The cutting of the barley opens, that of the wheat closes, the harvest season. Altogether it lasts about seven weeks and from of old it has been a time of joy and festivity (Ps. iv. 7; Isa. ix. 3). The Feast of the First- Fruits, on which, according to the Priest Code, a barley-sheaf was offered (Lev. xxiii. 9-14), ushered in this festive time; the Feast of Weeks, seven weeks after the opening of the harvest, when an offering of two wave-loaves of the new wheat (Lev. xxiii. 17-21) was made, closed it. The grain was cut with a sickle (Deut. xvi. 9, xxiii. 25; Job xxiv. 24; Jer. 1. 16; Joel iii. 13). With the left hand the reaper grasped a bundle of ears (Isa. xvii. 5; Ps. cxxix. 7), and with the right he cut them fairly close to the head. The binder followed, gathering the cut grain into his arms (Ps. cxxix. 7) and making it into sheaves (Gen. xxxvii. 7; Lev. xxiii. 10; Deut. xxiv. 19; Ruth ii. 7; Ps. cxxvi. 6), which were then collected in stacks (Judges xv. 5; Ruth iii. 7; Job v. 26). The harvesters refreshed themselves during their toil by eating parched corn and bread dipped in a mixture of vinegar and water (Ruth ii. 14). According to old custom and the law, forgotten sheaves and the privilege of gleaning after the reapers belonged to the poor (Lev. xix. 9, xxiii. 22; Deut. xxiv. 19; Ruth ii. 2); the Priest Code provided also that the corners of the field were not to be wholly reaped (Lev. xix. 9, xxiii. 22). In like manner it was permissible to pluck ears from another's field to eat (Deut. xxiii. 25; Matt. xii. 1). The reaping was immediately followed by the thrashing. Small quantities of grain, and dill, cumin, and the like, were beaten out with a flail (Judges vi. 11; Ruth ii. 17; Isa. xxviii. 27); but in most cases wheat, barley, and spelt were taken to the thrashing-floor, which, if possible, was placed on high ground so that the wind might carry off the chaff. The kernels were trodden out by cattle or were separated by means of a rude thrashingsled or wagon (II Sam. xxiv. 22; Isa. xxviii. 27-28; Amos i. 3). Both custom and the law forbade the muzzling of an ox in treading out the grain (Deut. xxv. 4); and to-day it is commonly estimated that an ox will consume from three to four pecks of the grain daily during the thrashing-time. Winnowing was accomplished, with the help of the wind, by means of a shovel or a wooden fork having two or more tines (Isa. xxx. 24; Jer. xv. 7). The chaff is now used as fodder; according to Matt. iii. 12, it seems in ancient time to have been burned. The grain was sifted (Amos ix. 9) and shoveled into heaps. It was usually stored in cistern-like pits in the open field, carefully covered (Jer. xli. 8). Real barns are not mentioned till late times (Deut. xxviii. 8; II Chron. xxxii. 28; Jer. 1. 26; Joel i. 17). In general, Palestine may be called a fertile land, but its productivity has been greatly overestimated. To-day the mountain-lands of Judea yield on an average from two- to threefold; the valleys of Hebron, with fertilization, from four- to fivefold; the very fertile Plain of Sharon, carefully culti-
vated by German colonists, eightfold for wheat and fifteenfold for barley. There is no reason to believe that the average return was greater in ancient times.
Some of the laws have already been mentioned. Of greater importance in their effect upon agriculture were the laws aiming to prevent Laws. the alienation of landed property. The ancestral field was sacred (cf. I Kings xxi. 3). This provision explains the law of Lev. xxv. 25, according to which, if an impoverished Israelite had to sell his field, his kinsman had the first right of purchase (cf. Jer. xxxii. 6-12). The law also gave the original owner a perpetual right of redemption, and restored the field to him in the year of jubilee without compensation to the purchaser; a city house could be redeemed only within a year, and did not return in the year of jubilee (Lev. xxv. 27-34). The underlying thought here is that the land is not the private property of the Israelites, but belongs to God, and the Israelites have only the right of use. It may be questioned how far such laws were carried out; they are closely connected with the year of jubilee (see below). The same desire to preserve family possessions shows itself in the law of inheritance. In ancient time daughters did not inherit; if there were no sons, property passed to the nearest relative of the father, with the obligation to marry the widow (cf. the Book of Ruth). The Priest Code allows daughters to inherit when there are no sons, but they must marry within the family or, at least, within the tribe of the father (Num. xxxvi.). Still more important in its effect upon agriculture was the development of the Sabbath idea. It was an old custom and a law of the Book of the Covenant that every field should lie fallow one year in seven (Ex. xxiii. 10-11). The custom fell into disuse and Deuteronomy knows nothing of it. But the Priest Code revived it, imposed it upon the entire land at the same year (cf. Josephus, Ant., XII. ix. 5), and added the theoretic and impracticable year of jubilee (see Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee). Lastly, laws arising from ideas of ceremonial impurity must be mentioned, such as the prohibition of sowing unclean seed (Lev. xi. 37-38), of plowing with an ox and an ass together, and of sowing different kinds of seed in one field (Lev. xix. 19; Deut. xxii. 9-10). Of the age of these customs nothing is known. The Mishnah developed and added to these laws with great detail.
I. Benzinger. Bibliography: J. L. Saalschiitz, Das mosaische Recht, Berlin, 1853; E. Robinson, Physical Geography of the Holy Land, Boston, 1865; J. G. Wetzstein, in F. Delitzsch, Commentar zu Jesaia, pp. 389-599, 705-711, 2d ed., Leipbic, 1869 (treats of winnowing; neither in last ed. nor in Eng. transl.); idem, Die syrische Dreschtafel, in Zeilschrift fur Ethnologic v. (1873) 270-302; F. Hamilton, La Botanigue de la Bible, Nice, 1871; H. B. Tristram, Natural History of the Bible, London, 1873; idem, The Fauna and Flora of Palestine, in Survey of Western Palestine, ib. 1884 (authoritative); J. Smith, Bible Plants, their History and Identification, ib. 1878; C. J. von Klinggraff, Palastina und seine Vegetation, in Oesterreichische botanische Zeilschrift, xxx., Vienna, 1880; W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, 2 vols., New York, 1880-82; I. Low, Aramaische Pflanzennamen, Leipsic, 1881; E. Boissier, Flora orientalis, Geneva, 1884; J. H. Balfour. The Plants of the Bible, London, 1885; G. Anderlind, Ackerbau und Tier-