Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:
[AGRICULTURE
Concise Bible Dictionary:
With Israel the harvest was associated with the Feasts, which should have kept ever before them the goodness of God. Barley harvest was at the feast of first fruits; the wheat harvest at the feast of weeks; and the vintage at the feast of tabernacles (Lev. 23:10,16,34). Harvest was a joyful time (Isa. 9:3), and the poor were not to be forgotten (Deut. 24:19-22).
The harvest is used symbolically in the New Testament for the gathering of souls to God (Matt. 9:37-38; John 4:35). Also of the judgment of the kingdom at the end of the age, when the angels as reapers will first gather the tares and bind them in bundles for burning, and then the wheat will be gathered into God’s barn (Matt. 13:39-41). There will also be a harvest of judgment for the earth: the earth will be reaped; and the vine of the earth, that should have produced fruit to God, will be cast into the winepress of the wrath of God (Rev. 14:15-20). In the harvest there is discrimination in judgment.