This may refer either to the thief who takes all the grain, even that which is mixed with thorns, or to a custom which Dr. Thomson mentions as illustrating this text. He says, “The farmers, after they have threshed out the grain, frequently lay it aside in the chaff in some private place near the floor, and cover it up with thorn-bushes to keep it from being carried away or eaten by animals. Robbers who found and seized this would literally take it from among the thorns” (The Land and the Book, vol.1, p. 537).