Harvest

The season for gathering grain or fruit. On the 16th day of Abib (or April) a handful of ripe ears of corn was offered as a first-fruit before the Lord, and immediately after this the harvest commenced (Lev. 23:9-14; 2 Sam. 21:9, 10; Ruth 2:23). It began with the feast of Passover and ended with Pentecost, thus lasting for seven weeks (Ex. 23:16). The harvest was a season of joy (Ps. 126:1-6; Isa. 9:3). This word is used figuratively Matt. 9:37; 13:30; Luke 10:2; John 4:35. (See AGRICULTURE.)

[Agriculture]

HAR'VEST occurred in the months of March and April, and the term is frequently employed to designate this season of the year. Josh 3:15; Prov 6:8. The harvests of the different grains happened in regular succession, and are known as the "wheat-harvest," 1 Sam 12:17, and the "barley-harvest," Ruth 1:22. The grain was reaped with sickles, Jer 50:16, gathered in handfuls, Ruth 2:16, and done up into sheaves. Ps 129:7. It was then conveyed to the barns or threshing-floors, sometimes in carts. Am 2:13, where it was threshed or winnowed. One mode of threshing was by the treading of oxen, which it was forbidden to muzzle, Deut 25:4. Harvest was a season of great joy and merriment, Isa 9:3. In the book of Ruth we pass through it as in a panoramic vision. In the N.T. our Lord refers to the end of the world under the term of harvest. Matt 13:39, whose reapers will be the angels. The angel is represented figuratively as at that time thrusting in his sickle, "for the harvest of the earth is ripe," Rev 14:15. Feast of. See Pentecost.

Part of speech: noun (n.)

1. The gathering of a crop of any kind; the ingathering of the crops; also, the season of gathering grain and fruits, late summer or early autumn. Seedtime and harvest . . . shall not cease. Gen viii. 22. At harvest, when corn is ripe. Tyndale.

2. That which is reaped or ready to be reaped or gath Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Joel iii. 13. To glean the broken ears after the man That the main harvest reaps. Shak.

3. The product or result of any exertion or labor; gain; reward. The pope's principal harvest was in the jubilee. Fuller. The harvest of a quiet eye. Wordsworth. Harvest fish (Zoöl.), a marine fish of the Southern United States (Stromateus alepidotus); -- called whiting in Virginia. Also applied to the dollar fish. -- Harvest fly (Zoöl.), an hemipterous insect of the genus Cicada, often called locust. See Cicada. -- Harvest lord, the head reaper at a harvest. [Obs.] Tusser. -- Harvest mite (Zoöl.), a minute European mite (Leptus autumnalis), of a bright crimson color, which is troublesome by penetrating the skin of man and domestic animals; -- called also harvest louse, and harvest bug. -- Harvest moon, the moon near the full at the time of harvest in England, or about the autumnal equinox, when, by reason of the small angle that is made by the moon's orbit with the horizon, it rises nearly at the same hour for several days. -- Harvest mouse (Zoöl.), a very small European field mouse (Mus minutus). It builds a globular nest on the stems of wheat and other plants. -- Harvest queen, an image pepresenting Ceres, formerly carried about on the last day of harvest. Milton. -- Harvest spider. (Zoöl.) See Daddy longlegs.

Part of speech: verb (v.)

To reap or gather, as any crop.