אָדַשׁ
a.dash (H1758)
to thresh
AI Word Study
# Adash (אָדַשׁ): Threshing in Ancient Hebrew The Hebrew word *adash* denotes the agricultural process of threshing—separating grain from its chaff and stalks. This was a fundamental operation in ancient grain processing, occurring after harvest and before winnowing. With 16 biblical occurrences, the word appears with sufficient frequency to indicate it was a standard element of agricultural vocabulary and practice in ancient Israel. The threshing process itself involved beating or trampling grain to break apart the outer husks, typically performed on a threshing floor using tools, animals, or human labor. Because threshing was essential to food production and appeared regularly in the agricultural calendar, the word likely carried practical weight in daily life and in descriptions of harvest activities. The relatively modest number of occurrences suggests the term was used straightforwardly for this specific agricultural task without extensive metaphorical development in the biblical texts. Understanding *adash* requires recognizing it as a concrete, functional term rooted in the material conditions of ancient Mediterranean agriculture. It represents one component of the larger harvest-to-storage sequence that sustained communities, making it a window into the agricultural realities embedded within biblical narrative and law.
AI synthesis uses only provided lexicon data -- never training knowledge.
You shall not muzzle the ox when he treads out the grain.
Gideon said, “Therefore when Yahweh has delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers.”
For he didn’t leave to Jehoahaz of the people any more than fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria destroyed them, and made them like the dust in threshing.
Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
and forgets that the foot may crush them, or that the wild animal may trample them.
For Yahweh’s hand will rest in this mountain. Moab will be trodden down in his place, even like straw is trodden down in the water of the dunghill.
For the dill are not threshed with a sharp instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned over the cumin; but the dill is beaten out with a stick, and the cumin with a rod.
Bread flour must be ground; so he will not always be threshing it. Although he drives the wheel of his threshing cart over it, his horses don’t grind it.
Behold, I have made you into a new sharp threshing instrument with teeth. You will thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and will make the hills like chaff.
“Because you are glad, because you rejoice, O you who plunder my heritage, because you are wanton as a heifer that treads out the grain, and neigh as strong horses;
Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh; so I will put a yoke on her beautiful neck. I will set a rider on Ephraim. Judah will plow. Jacob will break his clods.
Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Damascus, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron;
Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion; for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs bronze; and you will beat in pieces many peoples: and I will devote their gain to Yahweh, and their substance to the Lord of the whole earth.
You marched through the land in wrath. You threshed the nations in anger.