Yesaya 17:11

17:11 The day you begin cultivating, you do what you can to make it grow; ¹ 

the morning you begin planting, you do what you can to make it sprout.

Yet the harvest will disappear ²  in the day of disease

and incurable pain.

Yesaya 33:4

33:4 Your plunder ³  disappears as if locusts were eating it; ⁴ 

they swarm over it like locusts! ⁵ 

Yeremia 51:33

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

‘Fair Babylon ⁶  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.’ ⁷ 

Yoel 3:13

3:13 Rush forth with ⁸  the sickle, for the harvest is ripe!

Come, stomp the grapes, ⁹  for the winepress is full!

The vats overflow.

Indeed, their evil is great! ¹⁰ 

Matius 13:30

13:30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At ¹¹  harvest time I will tell the reapers, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned, but then ¹²  gather ¹³  the wheat into my barn.”’”

[17:11]  ¹ tn Heb “in the day of your planting you [?].” The precise meaning of the verb תְּשַׂגְשֵׂגִי (tÿsagsegi) is unclear. It is sometimes derived from שׂוּג/סוּג (sug, “to fence in”; see BDB 691 s.v. II סוּג). In this case one could translate “you build a protective fence.” However, the parallelism is tighter if one derives the form from שָׂגָא/שָׂגָה (saga’/sagah, “to grow”); see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:351, n. 4. For this verb, see BDB 960 s.v. שָׂגָא.

[17:11]  ² tc The Hebrew text has, “a heap of harvest.” However, better sense is achieved if נֵד (ned, “heap”) is emended to a verb. Options include נַד (nad, Qal perfect third masculine singular from נָדַד [nadad, “flee, depart”]), נָדַד (Qal perfect third masculine singular from נָדַד), נֹדֵד (noded, Qal active participle from נָדַד), and נָד (nad, Qal perfect third masculine singular, or participle masculine singular, from נוּד [nud, “wander, flutter”]). See BDB 626 s.v. נוּד and HALOT 672 s.v. I נדד. One could translate literally: “[the harvest] departs,” or “[the harvest] flies away.”

[33:4]  ³ tn The pronoun is plural; the statement is addressed to the nations who have stockpiled plunder from their conquests of others.

[33:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “and your plunder is gathered, the gathering of the locust.”

[33:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “like a swarm of locusts swarming on it.”

[51:33]  ⁶ sn Heb “Daughter Babylon.” See the study note at 50:42 for explanation.

[51:33]  ⁷ 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.

[3:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “send.”

[3:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “go down” or “tread.” The Hebrew term רְדוּ (rÿdu) may be from יָרַד (yarad, “to go down”) or from רָדָה (radah, “have dominion,” here in the sense of “to tread”). If it means “go down,” the reference would be to entering the vat to squash the grapes. If it means “tread,” the verb would refer specifically to the action of those who walk over the grapes to press out their juice. The phrase “the grapes” is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[3:13]  ¹⁰ sn The immediacy of judgment upon wickedness is likened to the urgency required for a harvest that has reached its pinnacle of development. When the harvest is completely ripe, there can be no delay by the reapers in gathering the harvest. In a similar way, Joel envisions a time when human wickedness will reach such a heightened degree that there can be no further stay of divine judgment (cf. the “fullness of time” language in Gal 4:4).

[13:30]  ¹¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[13:30]  ¹² tn Grk “but.”

[13:30]  ¹³ tn Grk “burned, but gather.”