Bible Strands
Joel 3:13
Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes, for the winepress is full; the wine vats overflow because their wickedness is great.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God speaks through Joel to the gathered nations at the moment they have advanced to the Valley of Jehoshaphat for divine judgment.
The words — The imperative שִׁלְחוּ (shil.chu) commands to "send out" or wield the מַגָּל (ma.gal), the sickle, while בָשַׁל (va.shal) states the harvest has grown ripe.
The thread — The same command appears in Revelation 14:15, and the agricultural action is described in the indicative mood in Mark 4:29 when the grain is ripe.
Why it lands — The text commands the wielding of a sickle and the trampling of grapes to depict a full winepress overflowing from great wickedness, requiring a reader to recognize the literal harvest metaphor before any applied judgment.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great.
Cross-references
- Revelation 14:15 Then another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the One seated on the cloud, “Swing Your sickle and reap, because the time has come to harvest, for the crop of the earth is ripe.”
- Hosea 6:11 Also for you, O Judah, a harvest is appointed, when I restore My people from captivity.
- Mark 4:29 And as soon as the grain is ripe, he swings the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
- Isaiah 63:3 “I have trodden the winepress alone, and no one from the nations was with Me. I trampled them in My anger and trod them down in My fury; their blood spattered My garments, and all My clothes were stained.
- Jeremiah 51:33 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.”
- Matthew 13:39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
- Genesis 18:20 Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great. Because their sin is so grievous,
- Deuteronomy 16:9 You are to count off seven weeks from the time you first put the sickle to the standing grain.
- Lamentations 1:15 The Lord has rejected all the mighty men in my midst; He has summoned an army against me to crush my young warriors. Like grapes in a winepress, the Lord has trampled the Virgin Daughter of Judah.
- Genesis 13:13 But the men of Sodom were wicked, sinning greatly against the LORD.