Wheat

Wheat — primarily emmer in the earliest periods and durum/hard wheat by the New Testament era — was the most important crop in Israel. It was sown after the first autumn rains softened the ground in October or November, grew through the cool winter, and ripened to a golden head in the dry warmth of May. The harvest itself was a community event: workers cut the stalks low with a sickle, gathered them into sheaves, and carried them to a flat threshing floor — a circular, packed-earth platform on a windswept ridge. Oxen dragged a heavy sledge across the sheaves to break the kernels free; the mixture was then tossed into the evening breeze with a winnowing fork. The chaff blew aside; the heavier grain fell back to the floor. Jesus uses every step of this process. The sower scatters seed on four kinds of ground (Mat.13). The wheat and the tares grow together until harvest. And in John 12 he says: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." The grain itself preaches resurrection.