Works and Customs in Palestine Volume III: From Harvest to Flour. Harvesting, Threshing, Winnowing, Sifting, Storing, Grinding

By Gustaf Dalman

Volume III, continues where Volume II left off, with the harvest up to the milling and storing of the flour. It starts with the harvest weather, the human work force, the various harvest tools, continues with the work on the threshing floor, the threshing tools, the production of flour and groats together with the tools used, as well as the different kinds of storage equipment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Al Nasher Technical Services
• Release date: May 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9789950385986

Book preview

G. Dalman . Work and Customs in Palestine

III

Gustaf Dalman

Work and Customs in Palestine

Volume III

From Harvest to Flour

Harvesting, Threshing, Winnowing, Sifting, Storing, Grinding

Translated from the German

by

Robert Schick

Revised and edited by

Nadia Abdulhadi-Sukhtian

Al Nasher 2023

Originally published by C. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh, 1933

Re-published by Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim, Zürich, New York, 1987

English translation based on the 1987 Georg Olms Verlag edition

Translation copyright © Nadia Abdulhadi-Sukhtian 2023

This Dalman translation project is supported by the

Ghiath and Nadia Sukhtian Foundation

ISBN: 978-9950-385-98-6

Published by Dar Al Nasher

Tel.[phone]

[e-mail]

www.enasher.com

Preface to the English Edition of Volume III

of

Works and Customs in Palestine

Volume I; Part 1, Autumn and Winter, and Part 2, Spring and Summer, dealt with agriculture in general, because the seasons of Palestine could not be described without describing the various farming tasks connected to them, and the religious customs associated with them.

Volumes II, III and IV, on the other hand, deal with agriculture in the narrow sense of the word, describing its purely technological and organizational aspects and everything that is connected with it.

Together these three volumes are agricultural handbooks of Palestine, past and present.

Volume II follows daily agricultural work step by step, from the preparation of the field to the green cut preceding the harvest, with descriptions of the geological evolution of the Palestinian agricultural land, its different kinds of soil, various methods of artificial irrigation, methods of land division, measurement and demarcation and much more. Volume II also includes a comprehensive list and description of all field and garden plants, of when and how they are planted, as well as their culinary and medicinal uses and cooking methods.

Volume III, presented here, continues where Volume II left off, with the harvest up to the milling and storing of the flour. It starts with the harvest weather, the human work force, the various harvest tools, continues with the work on the threshing floor, the threshing tools, the production of flour and groats together with the tools used, as well as the different kinds of storage equipment.

The following volume, Volume IV, which will soon be ready for publication, deals with the production of bread, oil, and wine, as well as with fruit cultivation, bringing to an end the series dealing with the cultivation of the soil of Palestine and its conditions.

The same team that worked on Volumes I and II, continued to work on this volume.

As with the preceding volumes, the photographs for Volume III were provided by the Gustaf Dalman Institute at the University of Greifswald, in the form of high-resolution scans of Dalman’s collection of over 10 000 photographs of Palestine, which can be viewed at http://wissenschaftliche-sammlungen.uni-greifswald.de/

objektsuche selecting "Collection and then Gustaf-Dalman-Sammlung".

Amman, July 2023

Nadia Abdulhadi-Sukhtian

Preface to the English Edition of Volume III

of

Works and Customs in Palestine

Notes on the Translation and Transliterations

by Robert Schick

The same team that worked on Volumes I and II continued to work on Volume III. I prepared the draft translation, which Nadia revised, Isabelle Ruben edited the translation for English style, helped with proofreading and did the layout. Ana Silkatcheva and I prepared the indices and the internal page references and helped with proofreading.

In early 2020, when preparation of the draft translation of Dalman 3 was well underway, I discovered the deepL translation program. The translation that deepL offered was consistently more accurate and in better style than what I had come up with on my own, so I discarded my draft translation and started over using deepL, with a superior end result than is the case for Dalman I and II. Using deepL also lessened the amount of revising that needed to be done.

The general format of Volume III closely follows that of Volumes I and II. While the indices of Hebrew and Aramaic words, Arabic words, and Bible passages reproduce the original ones, we chose to completely redo the Subject Index. The scientific Latin names for plant and animal species cited in the text have been included in the Subject Index. As in Volumes I and II, an index of place names, which the original German edition does not have, has also been added.

The technical vocabulary that Dalman used sometimes proves a tough nut to crack. I want to thank Annette Hansen at Groningen University for her helping me to understand numerous cases of Arabic and German technical words, most notably by disentangling the Arabic and German words for straw and chaff on pages 158‒161.

The English translations of Arabic sayings and verses of poetry follow Dalman’s German translations; translations more exactly matching the Arabic versions are occasionally noted in a translator’s footnote. A few other explanatory footnotes have been added as translator’s footnotes.

At the end of Volume III, Dalman included several pages of addenda (as well as one addendum at the end of Volume IV). These have been placed in the text in footnotes marked as addenda. Typographical errors listed in the addenda have been silently corrected in the text.

While working on Volume I, we had overlooked that Dalman included an addendum for Volume I at the end of Volume III. That addendum belongs on Volume I, part 1, page 56 line 1: kaff el-‘adhra ‘hand’ (not sole of the foot) of the Virgin is the Arabic name for the Jericho rose, cf. Cana‘an, JPOS VIII, p. 161, Crowfoot-Baldensperger, From Cedar to Hyssop, p. 119ff.

Dalman cites verses from the Old Testament according to the verse numbering of the Hebrew Masoretic text, which occasionally differs from the verse numbering of modern Christian versions, such as the Revised Standard Version (RSV).

Several conventions that Dalman adopted have been kept, such as distinguishing Hebrew and Aramaic names of the months from Arabic ones, by having the Hebrew and Aramaic month names capitalized and the Arabic names in lower case and in italics. Arabic place names are transliterated and in italics, other than a handful commonly known by their English versions, e.g. Jerusalem and Hebron.

Dalman’s transliterations of Hebrew and Aramaic words are also reproduced here, but with sh for Dalman’s š; q for Dalman’s ḳ; and y for Dalman’s j.

For Arabic words, the standard library of Congress English transliteration system is adopted here, which differs in some cases from the German system that Dalman used:

أ = ’ ظ = ẓ

ب = b ع = ‘

ج = j غ = gh

ح = ḥ ف = f

خ = kh ق = q

د = d ك = k

ذ = dh ل = l

ر = r م = m

ز = z ن = n

ص = ṣ ه = h

ض = ḍ و = w

ط = ṭ ي = y

Preface

The volume appearing here accompanies the grain from the harvest only up to the milling and storage of the flour. The next volume will deal with bread, and at the same time with oil, wine, and fruit cultivation and so bring to an end this series devoted to the cultivation of the soil of Palestine and its conditions.

For the sake of clarity, a special section In Antiquity always concludes each section in this volume as well. The reader will do well to compare this carefully with the description of today’s conditions that always precedes it, in order to gain a full understanding of what must have existed in the past. It was impossible to make explicit reference to what corresponds today in every detail.

For the illustrations, the person to whom I owe them is always named. The firms Vester and Co. and C. Raad in Jerusalem have again contributed photographs, as well as the firm Uvachrom (L. Preiß) in Munich, Julius Hoffmann in Stuttgart, Superintendent G. Reymann in Parchwitz, Pastor Dr. K. Jäger in Köppern, Dr. G. Ribbing†, formerly in Bethlehem, and Bishop D. Aurelius in Linköping. I would like here to thank all of them and the unknown authors of some of the pictures.

Reference should be made to the addenda and corrections to the previous volumes provided at the end. They are intended to correct mistakes especially with Arabic expressions. Anyone who knows Palestine knows well that there is no unified Arabic dialect there in word usage and application of vowels, but only in local linguistic usage in cities and groups of villages in the different regions of the country. I have not always indicated where I heard and noted the expression I was told. It would be useful if Palestinians were to determine overall the language use of each village in the different parts of the country.

That all the work of this book also applies to the Bible does not really need to be emphasized again. If the Bible is not to become a dead book, the folk life assumed in it, which God influences at all times, must also be grasped in its full reality.

Greifswald, Palestine Institute, 28 June 1933.

G. Dalman

List of Illustrations

1a. Wheat ready for harvest.

1b. Sickles.

2. Agricultural and harvesting equipment.

3. North Palestinian farmer with cutting sickle and reaper’s glove.

4. Sickle smith.

5. Harvest with tearing sickle.

6. Harvest of bitter vetch by uprooting.

7a. Women head gleaners.

7b. Women gatherers.

8a-d. Carrying frame, angled pieces of wood.

9. Donkey transport to the threshing floor

10. Transport by people and camels.

11a. Harvest comb.

11b. Results of winnowing (kinds of chopped straw, chaff, soil).

12. Threshing floor of Nazareth.

13. Threshing with cattle under the yoke.

14. Threshing with coupled cattle.

15. Threshing animal with wooden ring and muzzle.

16. Theshing board with stones, threshing shovel, winnowing fork, turning fork.

17. Threshing board with saws.

18. Threshing board with saws, winnowing fork, turning fork, lower side.

19. The same, upper side.

20a. Threshing board, pulled by horse and mule.

20b. Threshing board, pulled by cattle with yoke.

20c. d. Collar and small draft board for mules.

21. Threshing sledge and threshing board with stones.

22. Threshing sledge, threshing board with stones, axes, sticks, weapons.

23. Threshing sledge in side view, threshing roller in section.

24. Egyptian threshing sledge at work.

25. Knocking out grain.

26. Placing sesame seeds on the threshing floor.

27. Five-pronged and seven-pronged winnowing fork, wooden rings, dung catcher, threshing floor broom.

28. View and section of the five-pronged and seven-pronged winnowing fork.

29. Agricultural tools in the Museum of the Palestine Institute in Jerusalem.

30. Winnowing on the threshing floor.

31. Grain sieving.

32. Grain sieve and flour sieve.

33. Grain sieving and sorting.

34. Wheat measuring.

35. Grain and fruit baskets.

36. Grain chests.

37. Single chest and double chest in cross section.

38. Grain chests in combined form in the vaulted house.

39. The same in the arched house.

40. Decorated grain chest.

41. Heap of chopped straw.

42. Heap of dung cakes.

43. Ancient grinding stones.

44. Ancient pestles and grinding mortar.

45. Stone meat mortar.

46. Wooden coffee mortars.

47. Hand mill, bottom stone, top stone.

48. The same, reversed.

49. Hand mill, milled by two women.

50. Hand mill, milled by one woman.

51. Hand mill with flour bowl.

52. Roman mill, view.

53. Roman mill, cross section, ancient hand mill, grinding stone, grinding mortar.

54. Mule mill for grain.

55. Mule mill for sesame.

56. Bulgur mill.

57. Personnel of a mule mill with sieves and rocker.

58. Water mill with mill channel and shaft.

59. Water mill with water runoff.

60. Interior of a water mill.

61, 1-8. Grinding stones and mortars, ancient and contemporary.

62. 9-15. Contemporary and Roman mills.

63. 1-5. Contemporary mill works (mule mill, groats mill, horse-gin mill, treadmill).

64. 6-9. Water mill in cross section, mill wheels.

65. I-lII. Types of flour (flour, bran, semolina).

66. IV-VII. Wheat grains and kinds of groats (groats of raw kernels, of boiled kernels, of lentils).

Table of Contents

Preface by Nadia Abdulhadi-Sukhtianv

Preface by Robert Schickvii

Preface III

List of IllustrationsVI

I. The Harvest1

A. The Time of the Harvest1

1. Generalities1

2. Tables a) Overview of the Time of Blossoming and Ripening of the Most Important Grain and Vegetable Crops3

b) Overview of the Harvest Months4

c) Overview of All the Works of the Year7

3. The Harvest Weather 8

In Antiquity10

B. The Human Work Force17

In Antiquity21

C. The Harvest Tools23

1. The Tearing Sickle23

2. The Cutting Sickle25

3. The Toothed Branch Sickle28

4. The Untoothed Branch Sickle29

In Antiquity29

D. The Reaper33

In Antiquity36

E. The Organization of the Work37

In Antiquity 39

F. The Progress of the Harvest41

1. Uprooting41

In Antiquity42

2. Reaping44

In Antiquity50

3. Gathering 53

In Antiquity56

G. Transport to the Threshing Floor65

In Antiquity70

H. The Levy for the Poor and the Ear Gleaning72

In Antiquity75

II. The Threshing Work80

A. The Threshing Floor80

1. The Location of the Threshing Floor80

In Antiquity84

2. The Time of the Threshing Floor89

In Antiquity91

B. The Threshing94

1. Threshing Tools94

a) The Threshing Board95

In Antiquity 98

b) The Threshing Sledge102

In Antiquity106

c) The Threshing Roller109

d) The Threshing Stick110

In Antiquity 111

e) The Turning Fork112

In Antiquity113

f) The Threshing Broom115

In Antiquity116

g) The Muzzle117

In Antiquity118

h) The Dung Catcher119

In Antiquity 119

2. The Work Force120

a) The People120

In Antiquity123

b) The Working Animals124

In Antiquity128

3. Carrying Out the Threshing130

In Antiquity136

C. Winnowing139

1. The Winnowing Tools139

a) The Pitchfork139

α) The South Palestinian Pitchfork139

β) The North and East Palestinian Pitchfork141

In Antiquity142

b) The Winnowing Shovel145

In Antiquity147

c) The Winnowing Rocker149

d) The Winnowing Sleeve149

2. Carrying Out the Winnowing150

In Antiquity156

3. The Result of the Winnowing158

a) The Soil, b) The Coarse Chopped Straw, c) The Finer Coarse Chopped Straw, d) The Fine Chopped Straw,

e) The Chaff, f) The Kernels, Kernel Mounds159

In Antiquity162

D. Sieving167

1. Sieving Equipment167

a) The Coarse Grain Sieve167

b) The Fine Grain Sieve169

In Antiquity171

2. Sieving172

In Antiquity176

E. Measuring179

In Antiquity182

F. The Yield184

In Antiquity192

G. The Taxes on the Yield198

In Antiquity203

Sabbatical Year and Jubilee Year219

State Taxes223

H. Storage of the Grain225

Pests235

In Antiquity236

III. The Production of Flour and Groats249

A. The Tools249

1. The Rubbing Stone249

In Antiquity250

2. The Mortar255

a) The Stone Mortar255

b) The Wooden Mortar256

In Antiquity258

3. The Hand Mill263

In Antiquity270

4. The Roman Mill276

5. The Mule Mill282

a) The Simplest Form282

In Antiquity284

b) The Horse Gin Mill287

c) The Treadmill290

6. The Water Mill291

In Antiquity297

7. The Groats Mill and the Starch Mill298

In Antiquity300

8. Wind Mills and Motor Mills300

9. Sharpening the Mill301

In Antiquity302

10. The Wood Tool for Collecting303

11. The Shovel303

12. The Rocker 304

13. The Sieve305

a) The Grain Sieve 305

In Antiquity305

b) The Flour Sieve306

In Antiquity308

B. Work on Grain Kernels and Their Result311

1. Milk Ripe Kernels Scorched311

In Antiquity312

2. Fully Ripe Kernels Raw and Boiled312

In Antiquity313

3. Fully Ripe Kernels Roasted315

In Antiquity317

4. Groats318

a) Groats of Milk Ripe Grain318

In Antiquity318

b) Groats of Fully Ripe Grain . 320

In Antiquity322

c) Groats from Boiled Grain325

In Antiquity328

d) Ball Groats . . . 328

5. Flour and Semolina. . . 329

a) The Cleaning of the Grain before Grinding329

In Antiquity333

b) The Grinding335

In Antiquity337

c) Sorting What Has Been Ground and the Kinds of Flour338

In Antiquity346

6. Starch357

In Antiquity358

7. Barley, Sorghum, Lentils, Lupines, Fenugreek, Chickpeas359

In Antiquity360

8. Sesame361

C. Safekeeping the Flour362

1. The Sack362

In Antiquity363

2. The Bag363

In Antiquity363

3. The Bin364

In Antiquity364

4. The Wooden Chest365

In Antiquity365

5. The Clay Jar366

In Antiquity366

6. The Flour Basket 367

In Antiquity367

7. The Pests of Flour367

Indexes

I. Index of Hebrew and Aramaic Words371

II. Index of Arabic Words376

III. Subject Index385

IV. Index of Bible Passages398

V. Index of Place Names404

Photographs and Illustrations408

III

IV

Abbreviations

ZDPV = Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästinavereins

ZDMG = Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft

PJB = Palästinajahrbuch

PEFQ = Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

From Harvest to Flour

I. The Harvest

A. The Time of the Harvest

1. Generalities

The prerequisite for harvesting is the ripening of the grain,¹ which can be recognized by the fact that the stem and ear become dry and change color.² Wheat becomes almost white and barley yellow. It is important that the grains have passed beyond the state of milk ripeness to the stage of yellow ripeness and full ripeness.³ The time when this occurs cannot be calculated according to the time of sowing, because late sowing means rapid development. The latest sowing of wheat is called sab‘īn seventy,⁴ because it is assumed that what is sown in March is nevertheless ripe at the beginning of July. Also, different crops develop at different rates. Legumes ripen before grain; bitter vetch (kirsenne) is said to be ibn arba‘īn, because it can ripen in forty days.⁵ Barley ripens before wheat, the winter crop naturally before the summer crop; among the summer crops chickpeas before sorghum, sorghum before sesame. Faraḥ Tābri mentions for es-Salṭ the last third of April for bitter vetch, followed by lentils and the winter crop of chickpeas. The barley harvest then begins in the second third of May, followed by the wheat harvest in June. In the New Aramaic Contest of the Months and the Dispute of the Wheat with the Gold,⁶ the wheat sown in October and November sprouts in March, in April the plant develops, in May the ears appear, in June the harvest takes place, in July threshing, and in August and September taking into the houses.

The absolute calendar time depends on the climatic character of the year, how the rain ended and the arrival of the east wind and summer warmth. For the area of Jerusalem, I noted for the years 1910‒13, 1921, and 1925 the following dates: bitter vetch on 19, 14, 7, 9, and 8 May; barley in 1911 on 3 June, in 1913 on 21 May, in 1921 on 16 May, in 1925 on 24 May; wheat in 1909 on 11 June, in 1925 on 1 June. Bauer⁷ names 10 April as the average time for the barley harvest for the Jordan Valley (around Jericho), for the coastland 15‒25 April, for the eastern slopes of the hill country 25‒30 April, and for the top of the hill country 10‒30 May. The wheat harvest begins 10‒14 days later, and the legume harvest about 10 days earlier. In addition, the harvest of the summer crops begins with chickpeas in the hill country in July, continues with sorghum in August, and ends with sesame in September. The times and dates given in Vol. I, p. 424ff., 566ff., are only given as approximate figures according to the information above. That also applies to the following table, the contents of which for the most part I thank the senior teacher Giryus Yūsif Manṣūr in Jerusalem, who collected the necessary information in Birzēt and Arṭās, i.e. at the top of the hill country, which probably does not take into account irrigated land. He distinguishes the time of blossoming (mata yizhar) from the time of ripening (mata yindaj). The calendar provided by Bauer, Volksleben, p. 142ff. is similar.

2. Tables

a) Overview of the time of blossoming and ripening of the most important grain and vegetable crops.⁸

February (shbāṭ): Blossoming of broad beans, observed by me in Merj ‘Ayūn at the beginning of March, around Jerusalem also still in May, by Eig⁹ February to May.

April (nīsān): Blossoming of barley, oats, lentils, potatoes, bitter vetch, in vegetable land Arabic lettuce, spinach. Ripening of broad beans.

May (iyyār): Blossoming of wheat; in vegetable land ‒ tobacco, peas, European beans, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumbers, hairy cucumbers, zucchini, squash, lettuce, spinach, carrots, radishes, paprika, mint, parsley, celery, cress. Ripening of lentils, bitter vetch, lupine, chick-peas (winter crop), also barley.

June (ḥzērān): Blossoming of water melons, hairy cucumbers, onions, garlic, tomatoes. Ripening of barley, wheat, oats, chickpeas (winter crop); in vegetable land ‒ zucchini, spinach.

July (tammūz): Blossoming of tomatoes, okra, egg-plant, turnips, beets, Arab beans. Ripening of chickpeas (summer crop), cauli-flower, cabbage, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, hairy cucumbers, watermelons, European beans, Arab lettuce, mint.

August (āb): Ripening of sesame, sorghum, tomatoes, okra, egg-plants, Arab beans, radish, celery, turnips, beets, carrots, paprika, mint, Arab lettuce, tobacco.

September (ēlūl): Ripening of sesame, potatoes, maize, onions, garlic.

Duhm’s report on the vegetable market of Jerusalem (PJB 1921, p. 63ff.) serves as a supplement because of the times in which the individual vegetable varieties appear on the market. For Damascus, similar news is given by Bergsträsser, Zum arabischen Dialekt von Damaskus I, p. 76ff. But it has to be considered that a large area with different climates, ripening times, and possibilities for irrigation supplies such major cities. On 14 June 1925, in the market of Jerusalem, I found watermelons from Jedda in Arabia and from Wādi Eḥnēn near er-Ramle, tomatoes from er-Ramle, cucumbers and egg-plants from Yāfa, head lettuce from Ḥaifa, okra from Lidd, paprika from Jericho, and zucchini from Bēt Jāla.

b) Overview of the harvest months

The following overview of the harvest times completes the overview given in Vol II, p. 253f. with respect to the harvest. The reporters are the same as at that time: for Bethlehem Pastor Sa‘īd ‘Abbūd, for el-Qubēbe Father Müller, and for the Ghuwēr Father Sonnen.

F = Field V = Vegetable Land

c) Overview of all the works of the year

All important details are considered in the overviews given by J. Elazari-Volcani in The Fellah’s Farm (1930) pp. 19, 83, both of which apply to the Jezreel plain. They provide the following picture:

Pre-plowing for the winter crop . . . . . . . . . . . November, December

Plowing and sowing of the winter crop . . . . . December, January

First pre-plowing for the summer crop . . . . . . February

Second pre-plowing for the summer crop . . . . March

Sowing of chickpeas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . –

Weeding and hoeing of the winter crop . . . . . . March, April

Sowing of sorghum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . April

Third pre-plowing for sesame . . . . . . . . . . . . . –

Sowing of sesame. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . May

Weeding and hoeing of the summer crop . . . . . –

Harvest of barley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June

Uprooting of broad beans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . –

Harvest of fenugreek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . –

Harvest of wheat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June, July

Harvest of chickpeas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . July

Threshing of wheat, barley, broad beans,

chickpeas, fenugreek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . June‒September

Harvest of sorghum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . August

Harvest of sesame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . September

Threshing of sorghum and sesame . . . . . . . . . September, October

Winnowing and sifting of wheat . . . . . . . . . . July‒October

3. The Harvest Weather

The time of day as well as the choice of the appropriate day for the harvest depend on the weather, because if the air is too dry, the pods of legumes can easily break off or open, and the ears of grain can become detached from the very brittle stalks during cutting and loading. That is why, in Ḥezma, during the harvest one sings:

bārak allāh fin-neda

en-neda lōla en-neda

sammam ez-zar‘ urada.

God blessed the fog,

The fog, were it not for the fog,

The crop would be dry and spoiled.

Also around Jerusalem, the dew-bringing fog is said to be the same,¹⁰ although not without irony:¹¹

wen-neda yā mabrak hū

hadd ḥēli waḍnaku.

And the fog, how blessed it is!

It destroyed my strength and weakened it

(because I have to harvest).

Because thunderstorms mean humid air, around Jerusalem the crop is called out to:¹²

yā zrē‘ allāh yā māl en-neda

mā sma‘t er-rā‘id yōm inno dauwa.

You grain of God, you wealth of the dew,

Didn’t you hear the thunder, on the day it rolled?

For that reason one avoids the days of the east wind as much as possible, because ḥasīdet es-smūm harvest with an east wind¹³ means loss, and for the harvest one chooses days when dew fell at night,¹⁴ but one must also be aware that the rising sun can soon soak up the dew again. Around 10 o’clock one would stop pulling up legumes even on a dewy day and stop loading the legumes on an easterly wind day. It would be foolish if the reaper did not want to use the cool hours after sunrise for his work. Harvesting and loading up could start before sunrise, with moonlight after midnight.¹⁵ That is why the song says:

yā sha‘īr abu ṣaffēn

qauwamtni min tāli-l-lēl

yā qamḥ ed-dubbīye

mā btiṣlaḥ illa·l-effendīye.

You two-rowed barley,

You made me get up at the end of the night!

You wheat, you full one,

You are appropriate only for the gentlemen.

In Antiquity

In antiquity the ripeness of the grain (Joel 4:13 bāshal) or rather its becoming white (John 4:35) or dry (Rev 14:15), as well as the actual presentation of the fruit (Mark 4:29), was the precondition of the harvest, which therefore, as today, depended on the location of the field and the climatic conditions of the year. In Mark 4:28, only the progression from the stalk to the ear and to the full grain in the ear is taken into account. In Jewish law the fully-ripe grain, in contrast to the stage of milk ripeness (ābīb) after which April was once called (cf. Vol. II, p. 363), is called dāgān,¹⁶ because only then has it become the fully edible grain, which is called dāgān and includes five kinds (Vol. II, p. 284).¹⁷ In determining the time in which the field crops growing in the Sabbatical year may be consumed, a distinction is made between mountain land, hill land, and plains,¹⁸ because the ripening times of the grain are not the same. The task of the farmer is to find the right time for the harvest. If a field is harvested too late, even the chopped straw of the yield is not good.¹⁹ The early rise of the Pleiades in May is considered a sign for the start of the harvest,²⁰ but can of course only initiate its period.²¹ It is certain that the beginning of summer time is connected with the harvest.²² It is also known that because of the early ripening of barley, the barley harvest precedes the wheat harvest (Ex 9:31; 2 Sam 21:9; Ruth 1:22, 2:23) and that the barley harvest is connected with the time of Passover, and the wheat harvest with Pentecost,²³ cf. further below.

It was an established theory in the Jewish period that grain needed six months to ripen; for the future,²⁴ referring to Joel 2:23, many expected that only one month or a half month would be necessary, because early rain and late rain would then fall in Nisan.²⁵ It was considered to be a fact that barley, which as the earliest ripening grain was taken for the ‘ōmer offering, could ripen in fifteen days.²⁶ Rabbi Yochanan described how in the time of Joel one sowed from 2 to 4 Nisan, after the first early rain had fallen on 1 Nisan, the second early rain followed on 5 Nisan, and on 16 Nisan, i.e. after eleven days, the ‘ōmer offering could be brought into the Temple.²⁷ The stem of the grain is said to have been a span and the ear two spans long. The truth of the matter is that Jewish law did indeed firmly link the presentation of the ‘ōmer, which according to Lev 23:10ff., first took place when the harvest begins, with the second day of Passover and that the order of the calendar had to take that into account by inserting an intercalary month.²⁸ In any case the beginning of the harvest was now tied to this date, and it was an exception when Jericho was allowed not only to harvest the grain, but also to pile it in heaps, before the presentation of the ‘ōmer.²⁹ It is important to note that in accordance with the precept for the offering of the first fruits (Lev 2:14),³⁰ the ‘ōmer is to be taken in the state of milk ripeness (ābīb), i.e. before the harvest threshed on the threshing floor. As the owner of Jericho and Bethel, the Tribe of Benjamin had the advantage of both an early and late harvest.³¹ On irrigated land in the plains, harvesting was allowed before 16 Nisan, but not heaping up the grain.³² Barley could be harvested in a cool shaded place (meqērat deṣillaiyā) in the intermediate holidays of Passover, if it otherwise would fail and spoil,³³ provided that in such a place the effort of the work would not be too great and that the presentation of the ‘ōmer had taken place on 16 Nisan. But the prohibition of the harvest before 16 Nisan only applied to the five grain species of wheat, barley, kussemīm, shibbōlet shū‘āl, and oats, so that legumes and vegetables, including green cut (Vol. II, p. 416f.), are not affected.³⁴ Also flax, which according to Josh 2:6, cf. 5:11 was harvested in Jericho before Passover, would have been independent of the cut of the ‘ōmer.

According to the current order of the Jewish calendar, 16 Nisan falls between 27 March and 25 April. If in the past, through the intercalary month, which had to be announced in the entire land³⁵ before the end of the month of Adar, or according to one view already before 14 Adar, it was ensured that on 16 Nisan the presentation of the ‘ōmer of barley was possible, it was not ruled out that, in the hill country, the harvest began later. The ‘ōmer offering simply opened the way for the harvest; that offering, by the way, in case of an emergency can be presented from grain, small sheaf piles, or even grain brought in (āṣūr), even though it should actually be taken from standing grain.³⁶

The harvest festival (Ex 23:16) was considered to be a festive conclusion of the harvest, which originally took place seven weeks after the beginning of the harvest (Deut 16:9, cf. Jer 5:24: shebū‘ōt ḥuqqōt qāṣīr the fixed weeks of the harvest), but by Jewish law is placed fifty days after 16 Nisan, so that it falls on 6 Siwan (June)³⁷ and thus also comes under the influence of the intercalary month. Because of the first fruits and loaves of bread of the first fruits³⁸ to be presented on it, it was considered to be especially connected with the wheat harvest.³⁹ But since no law connects the actual end of the harvest with the Festival of Weeks, but only generally three months (from Nisan to Siwan) are taken up for the harvest,⁴⁰ no difficulties arose here, especially since the presence of wheat from the new harvest was not considered absolutely necessary for the official two loaves of bread of the first fruits of Lev 23:17, 20. Wheat from the stores of the loft could be used for that in case of need,⁴¹ because the law mentions only dwellings as the place of origin of the two loaves of bread. According to the current Jewish calendar, the festival falls between 15 May and 16 June, so when the festival occurs early, it could, in fact, be impossible to bring harvested wheat from the hill country. It is reported that it was brought once from ‘Ēn Sōkhar, i.e. from the plain of Sichem,⁴² lying at only 472 m elevation and so warmer.⁴³

The summer crops, which Israelite antiquity scarcely knew (Vol. II, p. 247ff.), with their harvest at a later time, could not fall into the harvest period before the Festival of the Weeks. Jewish law even assumes that up to 1 Tishri rice, foxtail millet, common millet, and sesame have not yet been harvested.⁴⁴ Something similar is also said of pōl miṣrī, probably the Arab bean (Vol. II, p. 314f.), and aphūnīn gamlōnīn (Vol. II, p. 320), a type of chickpea, thus of other summer crops.⁴⁵

In ancient times it was certainly the timing of work in the field and fruit garden that determined the course of the festivals. Judaism first gave the festivals a precise temporal arrangement in which agriculture could fit, because it did not originally lack all flexibility (see above). For the time of salvation, the possibility based on Lev 26:5 is considered that each work of cultivation can occur at any time, i.e. that one plows at harvest time and harvests at the time of plowing.⁴⁶

The fact that the harvest is necessarily connected with the beginning of the hot season means that it falls at a time when people need refreshment. David longs for fresh water at harvest time (2 Sam 23:15), the cold of the snow would be a blessing (Prov 25:13), whereas the Palestinian of today would think of a drink cooled by snow brought from Lebanon⁴⁷ or by artificial ice, for the poet of Proverbs this snow would have only been a wish, whose fulfilment would be satisfying, but which can not be fulfilled, because snow in summer and rain at the harvest are against the rules (Prov 26:1). If in addition the east wind comes, one can imagine that the health of someone who exposes himself to the heat of the day, even without working, is put to a hard test. The son of the Samaritan woman dies of heat stroke (2 Kings 4:18ff.), and Manasse in Judith 8:3 suffers the same fate, even during the barley harvest, certainly because there was a hot east wind.⁴⁸

The work itself, in addition to the benefits of the morning coolness, calls for an early start. It would be a disgrace for the father if the son would give in to long sleep during the harvest (Prov 10:5). Even nighttime harvesting can occur according to Jewish law.⁴⁹ For harvesting the ‘ōmer offering, which should be done from standing grain (see above), nighttime is