fur'-o (telem): The word is translated "furrows" in Job 39:10; 31:38; Psalms 65:10; Hosea 10:4; 12:11 (Psalms 65:10 the King James Version, "ridges"). In these passages the fields are pictured as they were in the springtime or late autumn. When the showers had softened the earth, the seed was sown and the soil turned over with the plow and left in furrows, not harrowed and pulverized as in our modern farming. The Syrian farmer today follows the custom of his ancient predecessors.

Another word, ma`anah, occurs in two passages, first in the figurative sense in Psalms 129:3, and second in an obscure passage in 1 Samuel 14:14. Three other words, gedhudhah, `arughah, `ayin, translated "furrows" in the King James Version, are probably more properly rendered in the American Standard Revised Version "ridges" (Psalms 65:10), "beds" (Ezekiel 17:7,10), and "transgressions" (Hosea 10:10).

See AGRICULTURE ; PLOW .

James A. Patch

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

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