Hebrew word · H3951
לֶ֫קֶט
veleket
gleaning
"What is picked up": the gleanings. Specifically, the stalks of grain that fall to the ground during reaping. It comes from the verb laqat, to gather or pick up.
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
gleaning
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
From the study of Leviticus 23:22
- Range of meaning
"What is picked up": the gleanings. Specifically, the stalks of grain that fall to the ground during reaping. It comes from the verb laqat, to gather or pick up.
- Against the English
"Gleanings" is accurate. Modern English mostly uses "glean" for gathering bits of information, so some readers may not picture the literal stalks on the ground. But the translations are sound.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Lev 19:9 (parallel law). Ruth 2 repeats the verb laqat again and again as Ruth gleans in Boaz's field during the barley and wheat harvests. Isa 17:5 uses the picture of someone "gathering ears in the Valley of Rephaim." Mishnah Pe'ah 4:10 defines leqet as what falls at the moment of reaping, and limits it to one or two stalks at a time (three falling together still belong to the owner).
Where it appears
Leviticus · 2
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Leviticus 19:9 וְלֶ֥קֶט and [the] remnant of
When you reap the harvest of your land, you are not to reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.
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Leviticus 23:22 וְלֶ֥קֶט and [the] remnant of
When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap all the way to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the foreign resident. I am the LORD your God.’”
Here: The stray stalks that fall from the reaper's hand or sickle while cutting. The farmer may not go back over the ground to pick them up.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.