206. Olive Gathering

By: James M. Freeman

• 1 min. read • grade level: 9

Deuteronomy 24:20²⁰When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow. (Deuteronomy 24:20). When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger; for the fatherless, and for the widow.

This refers to one of the modes of gathering olives still practiced in the East, that is, by beating the branches with sticks. It was mercifully ordered that the Israelites should give the trees but one beating, leaving for the poor gleaners all the fruit that did not by this means drop off.

Olives are gathered also by shaking the trees. This is referred to in Isaiah 17:6⁶Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel. (Isaiah 17:6) and 24:13. In these passages the mode of gleaning seems to be referred to.

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