threshing floor

The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Ge’ez, and Latin that is translated as “threshing floor” in English is translated in Kim with twal or “termite mound” which are used to build threshing floors. (Source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)

In Cherokee it is translated as “seeds — the place for knocking them off.” (source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 16)

See also thresh.

festival of Tabernacles

For translations of the Greek, Ge’ez, and Hebrew that is translated in English as “festival of Tabernacles” see here.

complete verse (Deuteronomy 16:13)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Deuteronomy 16:13:

  • Kupsabiny: “Eat/celebrate the Festival of Shelters when you have completed the harvest and the squeezing of grapes.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “After you gathered all produce from threshing floor and your winepress, you are to celebrate the festival of shelter huts for seven days.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “‘You (plur.) celebrate the Feast of Erecting/[lit. causing-to-stand] Roofed-Shelters for a period of seven days at the end of harvest-season, after you (plur.) threaded the wheat and pressed-out the grapes.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “‘Each year, after you have threshed all your grain and pressed the juice from all your grapes, you must celebrate the Festival of Living in Temporary Shelters for seven days.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Deuteronomy 16:13

Since this is the beginning of a new section, translators should reintroduce Moses as the speaker.

You shall keep the feast of booths seven days: it is better to say something like “You will celebrate for seven days the Festival of Shelters.” For comments on the translation of this Festival, see the “Section Heading” paragraph above.

When you make your ingathering from your threshing floor and your wine press: Good News Translation puts this at the beginning of the verse, making for a better style. It has “After you have threshed all your grain and pressed all your grapes.” The threshing floor is the flat ground or wooden platform on which the grain is removed from the harvested plants by beating or dragging a heavy object such as a sledge over them. The farmer then tosses the grain into the air so that the chaff is blown away from the grain. Another way to express ingathering from your threshing floor is “After you have beaten the grain to separate it from the chaff.” In cultures where a general term for “grain” is unavailable, we may use “seed” or even “fruit”; but it must be clear that this refers to “seed” or “fruit” from some sort of grass-like plant. The wine press was “a large wooden or stone vat or container which was connected to a lower container by a pipe or channel. As the grapes were mashed in the upper vat, the juice ran into the lower one.” Ingathering from … your wine press may also be expressed as “the juice that you press [or, tread out] from your grapes.”

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• After you have beaten your grain out and separated it from the chaff, and have treaded out all your grapes, you must celebrate the Festival of Shelters for seven days.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .