JU6-13: How One Tiny And Obscure Phrase In Scripture Can Speak Volumes

“Then the angel of Adonai came and sat under the pistachio tree in ‘Ofrah that belonged to Yo’ash the Avi‘ezri. His son Gid‘on was threshing wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from Midyan.”-Judges 6:11

Sometimes just one isolated, seemingly insignificant verse or phrase in Scripture can speak volumes.

That’s exactly what we have in verse 11 when the Angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon and we’re told at that instant he was “threshing wheat in the winepress”.

This tiny obscure statement tells us a couple of important things.

FIRST, it tells us this event occurred during mid-summer (around our June time) because that’s when the wheat harvest takes place.

SECOND, the very fact Gideon is using a wine press to thresh wheat informs us all was NOT well in the neighborhood.

Why?

Because wheat is usually threshed on a large flat section of a rock or a well packed firm piece of ground.

This allows the wind to blow away the chaff after the wheat has been threshed or tamped on.

Also, even for a small family, a ton of wheat stocks is necessary to produce enough wheat kernels to feed everyone.

So normally an ox or some other large animal was used to pull a log over the wheat to separate the heads of wheat from the stalks in large amounts at a time.

That’s what normally occurred.

However, in this situation, we have Gideon using a freakin’ wine press do the threshing!

Which means only a very tiny amount of amount wheat could be produced in one threshing session.

Which also meant a helluva lot of work to get enough wheat to make enough bread for one family.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen an ancient winepress (see the picture above) but it’s basically a large hole in a rock where a bunch of grapes were placed.

Someone would then trample on top of the grapes in his bare feet or a use a staff to squash the grapes in order to get the juice out.

Usually, the ground or flat rock used for threshing was slanted a bit so as the grapes were squashed the juice would run down the surface and be captured in a receptacle prepared for that purpose.

Anyways, the point I’m getting at is that one phrase telling us that Gideon was threshing wheat with a wine press speaks volumes in portraying the tragic situation Israel was in at the moment.

We can see that wheat was in such short supply due to the invaders from the east that even the daily process of threshing wheat had to be done in such a way so as not to catch the attention of Israel’s oppressors at this time.

And that’s the takeaway for today.

When reading Scripture, sometimes it’s not what’s directly said that speaks volumes but sometimes it’s what’s indirectly inferred that teaches us the most.