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Bible Dictionaries
Threshing
People's Dictionary of the Bible
or Thresh, Threshing. Different modes of threshing are used in the East. A level spot was selected for the threshing-floor, generally in an exposed situation where advantage might be taken of the wind for winnowing or separating the corn from the chaff when the threshing process was completed. Robinson observed several of these floors near together of a circular form hardened by beating down the earth, and about 50 feet in diameter, the sheaves being thickly spread on them. Near Jericho "were no less than five such floors, all trodden by oxen, cows, and younger cattle, arranged in each case five abreast, and driven round in a circle, or rather in all directions, over the floor... By this process the straw is broken up and becomes chaff. It is occasionally turned up with a large wooden fork having two prongs, and when sufficiently trodden is thrown up with the same fork against the wind in order to separate the grain, which is then gathered up and winnowed. The whole process is exceedingly wasteful."
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Rice, Edwin Wilbur, DD. Entry for 'Threshing'. People's Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/rpd/t/threshing.html. 1893.
