This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Babylon is like wheat on a threshing floor, about to be trampled. In just a little while her harvest will begin.”
Parallel translations
- WEB For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden. Yet a little while, and the time of harvest shall come for her.”
- KJV For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; The daughter of Babylon is like a threshingfloor, it is time to thresh her: yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come.
- BSB For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “The Daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time it is trampled. In just a little while her harvest time will come.”
- NKJV For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor When it is time to thresh her; Yet a little while And the time of her harvest will come.”
- NASB ¶For this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel says: “The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor At the time that it is tread down; In just a little while the time of harvest will come for her.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The Lord likens Babylon to a threshing floor at the moment of treading; soon her harvest of judgment will come. Babylon is ripe and the time to thresh her is near.
Overview
Threshing imagery, where grain is trampled and beaten, pictures the crushing judgment about to fall, with 'harvest' marking its appointed time. The 'little while' stresses that the delay is short and the outcome certain. The harvest of judgment is a recurring biblical figure that ultimately points to Christ, who comes to gather the wheat and execute final justice.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Isa 21:10You are my threshing, and the grain of my floor!” That which I have heard from Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.
- Hos 6:11“Also, Judah, there is a harvest appointed for you, when I restore the fortunes of my people.
- Joel 3:13Put in the sickle; for the harvest is ripe. Come, tread, for the wine press is full, the vats overflow, for their wickedness is great.”
- Isa 41:15–16Behold, 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.
- Mic 4:13Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion; for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs brass; 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.
- Rev 14:15–20Another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, “Send your sickle, and reap; for the hour to reap has come; for the harvest of the earth is ripe!”
- Hab 3:12You marched through the land in wrath. You threshed the nations in anger.
- Isa 18:5For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and he will cut down and take away the spreading branches.
- Isa 17:5–11It will be like when the harvester gathers the wheat, and his arm reaps the grain. Yes, it will be like when one gleans grain in the valley of Rephaim.
- Amos 1:3Yahweh 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;
- Matt 13:39The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.
- Matt 13:30Let both grow together until the harvest, and in the harvest time I will tell the reapers, “First, gather up the darnel weeds, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 51:33 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.