Physical space, imagined space, and "lived space" in ancient Israel

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Spring, 2003 by Victor H. Matthews

Behavior and Place: the Threshing Floor

One graphic example of how recurrent patterns of behavior lead to an expansion in the understanding of spatial usage can be found in the agricultural practices of ancient Israel. Farmers in the village culture of ancient Israel brought their harvested stalks of grain to a centrally located, communal threshing floor (Deut 16:13; Hopkins: 226). They processed the grain there using a threshing sled to separate the stalks or chaff from the grain (2 Sam 24:22). This was followed by a winnowing and sieving process that eventually resulted in piles of grain arranged around the facility (Ruth 3:3). At that point, the threshing floor took on an enhanced social character and takes on the connotations of both thirdspace and secondspace. Instead of just being a communal place of work, processing grain, it became a place associated with the future plans of the community, embodied in the distribution of their harvest (Borowski: 59-62; Aranov: 132-33). In this way the old world comes to an end and a new world begins (see the harvest celebrations in Isa 9:3 and Ps 126:5). When harvesting and herding are done, then bills are paid and all debts are reconciled. Then negotiation for the new world begins when the heads of households establish covenants to breed and graze their herds, and to obtain grain, as well as additional land and laborers for their crops.

The economic understandings associated with this process include the determination of property rights based on the amount of grain brought by the harvesters. However, an additional formula also comes into play designed to provide for the "powerless" groups in society: widows, orphans, freed slaves, and strangers. For instance, when an Israelite debt slave has completed his six years of labor and is freed in the seventh year, the law mandates that he should not be sent out "empty-handed"(Deut 15:12-15; Matthews 1994: 127-29). Instead, he is given a financial stake from the flock, the threshing floor and the wine press (Phillips: 62-64). This is simply one of many examples in which the threshing floor and the wine press are coupled as economic indicators of prosperity or the abundance of the land that in turn is to be distributed to its people, as well as a portion to the Levites and, as in this case, to freed debt slaves (see Num 18:27; Deut 16:13; 2 Kgs 6:27).

Still, this does not exhaust the social implications of the threshing floor. In 2 Sam 24:18-25, David goes to the threshing floor of Araunah and there carries out a business transaction, purchasing that property as well as the animals for sacrifice. The transactional dialogue is very similar to that between Abraham and Ephron the Hittite in Gen 23:10-16 (see Tucker; Steinberg: 28-57). In both cases an emergency (a death and a plague) has necessitated purchase of land, and in both cases the owner is a non-Israelite, who begins the dialogue by making a magnanimous gesture, offering to freely give what the Israelite asks to purchase. It could be concluded that this is simply bargaining strategy, but since land is sacred and not often simply sold (especially to someone who is not a member of the family or the defined population group; see 1 Kgs 21:1-3), there are three things that occur. First there is a transfer of the use of space in perpetuity. Its thirdspace qualities in this way are tied to the economic value of the land. Secondly, there is a formal transfer of its physical dimensions (firstspace), which would be determined by the placing of boundary stones (see below in the discussion of "defined space"). For legal purposes, there must be no possibility of future claims being made against the land or the recipient. Finally, the idea of the land, its social connotations that determine place within society, and its tie within the Israelite community to membership in the covenant, provide the secondspace aspects of the transaction.