Yeremia 51:33

51:33 For the Lord God of Israel who rules over all says,

‘Fair Babylon ¹  will be like a threshing floor

which has been trampled flat for harvest.

The time for her to be cut down and harvested

will come very soon.’ ² 

Hosea 6:11

6:11 I have appointed a time to reap judgment ³  for you also, O Judah!

If Israel Would Repent of Sin, God Would Relent of Judgment

Whenever I want to restore the fortunes of my people, ⁴ 

Matius 13:39

13:39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.

[51:33]  ¹ sn Heb “Daughter Babylon.” See the study note at 50:42 for explanation.

[51:33]  ² tn Heb “Daughter Babylon will be [or is; there is no verb and the tense has to be supplied from the context] like a threshing floor at the time one tramples it. Yet a little while and the time of the harvest will come for her.” It is generally agreed that there are two figures here: one of leveling the threshing floor and stamping it into a smooth, hard surface and the other of the harvest where the grain is cut, taken to the threshing floor, and threshed by trampling the sheaves of grain to loosen the grain from the straw, and finally winnowed by throwing the mixture into the air (cf., e.g., J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 760). The translation has sought to convey those ideas as clearly as possible without digressing too far from the literal.

[51:33]  sn There are two figures involved here: one of the threshing floor being leveled and stamped down hard and smooth and the other of the harvest. At harvest time the stalks of grain were cut down, gathered in sheaves, taken to the harvest floor where the grain was loosened from the husk by driving oxen and threshing sleds over them. The grain was then separated from the mixture of grain, straw and husks by repeatedly throwing it in the air and letting the wind blow away the lighter husks and ground-up straw. The figure of harvest is often used of judgment in the OT. See, e.g., Joel 3:13 (4:13 Hebrew text) and Hos 6:11 and compare also Mic 4:12-13 and Jer 51:2 where different steps in this process are also used figuratively in connection with judgment. Babylon will be leveled to the ground and its people cut down in judgment.

[6:11]  ³ tn Heb “a harvest is appointed for you also, O Judah” (similar ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[6:11]  ⁴ tc In the verse divisions of the MT (Leningrad Codex and Aleppo Codex), this is the last line of 6:11. However, the BHK and BHS editors suggest that it belongs with the beginning of 7:1. The ancient versions (Greek, Syriac, Latin) all reflect textual traditions that connect it with 6:11. The English versions are divided: some connect it with 6:11 (KJV, NASB, NLT), while others connect it with 7:1 (RSV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NJPS). The parallelism between this line and 7:1a favors connecting it with 7:1.