Places & biblical world
Threshing floor
A place for separating harvested grain from stalks and separating grain from chaff.
Also called · threshing place
What it means
In Ruth 3, Naomi says Boaz will winnow barley on the threshing floor that night. Ruth goes there and lies at his feet after he has eaten and lain beside the grain heap.
In 2 Samuel 24, David follows Gad’s instruction to build an altar at Araunah’s threshing floor. He refuses Araunah’s offer of a free gift, pays for the floor and oxen, and offers sacrifices. The plague then ends.
How it appears in the Bible
Chronicles calls the owner Ornan and records David sacrificing there and identifying the place for God’s house and altar. In Matthew 3, John the Baptist describes the one coming after him with the image of gathering wheat and burning chaff.
Translation note
Follow Araunah in Samuel and Ornan in Chronicles as the selected translation names them. A threshing floor is an agricultural workplace; an altar at one particular floor does not make every floor a sanctuary.