It was probably one of these that Araunah meant (II. Sam. xxiv. 22) when he said unto David: ‘Let my lord the king take and offer up what seemeth good unto him: behold, here be oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing instruments and other instruments of the oxen for wood.’ And it is certainly mentioned in Isaiah xli. 15: ‘Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth.’ The threshing-floor is many times mentioned in the Bible. There were those of Atad, Nachon, and Araunah (or Ornan), the value of whose floor, etc., is variously stated in II. Sam. xxiv. 24, where it says that David bought the flour and oxen for 50 shekels of silver, or about 6_l_ of our money; whilst in I. Chron. xxi. 25, he gave him 600 shekels of gold in weight, or 1200_l_ of our currency, which seems a large sum for a small level piece of ground; for the floors, so-called, were out of doors, so that the wind might carry away the chaff, as we read in Hosea xiii. 3: ‘They shall be ... as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor.’ See also Psalm i. 4. These floors were used for other purposes than threshings, as we read in I. Kings xxii. 10: ‘And the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah sat each on his throne, having put on their robes, in a void place (_or floor_) in the entrance of the gate of Samaria; and all the prophets prophesied before them,’ a statement which is repeated in II. Chron. xviii. 9. Harvest-time was appointed by Moses as one of the great festivals—Exodus xxiii. 14, etc.: ‘Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year. Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty). And the feast of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.’ And again, in Exodus xxxiv., this is repeated, with the addition (v. 21): ‘Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.’ This holiday was, and is, called the feast of tabernacles, and we read in Deut. xvi. 13, etc.: ‘Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine: and thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates. Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord shall choose: because the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the works of thine hands, therefore thou shalt surely rejoice.’