Hebrew word · H4173

מוֹרַג

vehammorigim

threshing sled

A threshing sledge: a heavy board, usually several planks fastened together and curved up at the front, with sharp stones (often flint or basalt) or later iron set into the underside.

Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

thresher, threshing-sledge

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 Isaiah 41:15

Range of meaning

A threshing sledge: a heavy board, usually several planks fastened together and curved up at the front, with sharp stones (often flint or basalt) or later iron set into the underside. Oxen dragged it in circles over sheaves spread on a threshing floor, and the driver often stood or sat on it to add weight.

Against the English

KJV's "threshing instrument" is vague. BSB, NIV and ESV say "threshing sledge," which is the actual tool. Modern readers who picture a flail (a hand-held stick) or a machine miss the image of a heavy, toothed board grinding over the ground.

How it drifted

Older English had no everyday word for this tool, because European threshing used flails.

Used elsewhere in the period

Hebrew Bible: 2 Sam 24:22 and 1 Chr 21:23 (Araunah's sledges and oxen). The tool is well documented across the ancient Near East and survived in the Mediterranean and Middle East into the 20th century (the Latin tribulum, which is where the English word "tribulation" comes from). Archaeologists have recovered flint blades used as sledge teeth. The Greek Septuagint here paraphrases it as "wheels of a threshing cart," a different threshing device.

Where it appears

2 Samuel · 1

  1. 2 Samuel 24:22 וְהַמֹּרִגִּ֛ים and the threshing-sledges

    Araunah said to David, “May my lord the king take whatever seems good to him and offer it up. Here are the oxen for a burnt offering and the threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood.

1 Chronicles · 1

  1. 1 Chronicles 21:23 וְהַמּוֹרִגִּ֧ים and the threshing-sledges

    Ornan said to David, “Take it! May my lord the king do whatever seems good to him. Look, I will give the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering—I will give it all.”

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 41:15 לְמוֹרַג֙ <into> a threshing-sledge

    Behold, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff.

    Here: "Into a threshing sledge." This was a heavy wooden board studded underneath with sharp stones or iron and dragged by oxen over harvested grain. The same word names Araunah's threshing sledges, which David burned as fuel for a sacrifice (2 Sam 24:22).

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.