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—Historical Aspects:

Israel Originally Pastoral.

Agriculture was the basis of the national life of the Israelites; state and Temple in Palestine were alike founded on it. At the outset the Hebrews are represented as a pastoral tribe. "A roaming Aramean was my father," said the Israelite when offering his first-fruits as a thanksgiving before the Lord (Deuteronomy 26:5, Heb.). The Patriarchs are mainly herdsmen, pasturing their sheep and cattle on commons, without generally cultivating the soil: at the same time Isaac "sowed in that land [Gerar], and received in the same year a hundredfold" (Genesis 26:12); and Joseph's dream of sheaves of corn in the field (Genesis 37:6,7) seems to betoken familiarity with agricultural life. But Jacob and his sons enter Egypt as shepherds only (Genesis 47:3); and this pastoral life was adhered to until even a later period by the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and by half of the tribe of Manasseh, inhabiting the trans-Jordanic plain (Numbers 32:1), and by the clans dwelling in the highlands of western Palestine (1 Samuel 25:2). A certain dislike to agricultural life was, however, manifested among the sons of Rechab (Jeremiah 35:7). The entire Mosaic legislation was conditioned upon Israel's possession of Canaan as the land promised to Abraham. The Sabbath had chief significance to a people that had passed the pastoral stage and that employed man and beast in agricultural labor (Exodus 34:21). Still more closely connected with agricultural life were the three festivals of the year (Exodus 23:14-16). The system of public provision for the poor was based upon agricultural life: the Law claimed the gleanings of the harvest, of the vineyard, and of the olive-grove for the poor and the stranger (Leviticus 19:9,10; Deuteronomy 24:19-21). The Sabbatical year of release—the produce of which was reserved for the poor, the stranger, and the cattle (Exodus 23:11)—and the Jubilee year, with its restitution of the ancestral possessions (Leviticus 25:28), were based upon an agricultural economy (see Agrarian Laws; Land Tenure; Sabbatical Year).

Direct Relations with God.

The whole conception of God as the bountiful giver, as well as that of His retributive justice—dealing blessings to the observer of the Law, and sorrows or "curses" to the transgressor—is founded altogether upon the fact of Israel's agricultural enjoyment of Canaan (Exodus 23:25; Leviticus 26:3-6,10,20,26; Deuteronomy 8:7-10, 28:3-5,12, etc.). Canaan was totally dependent for its fertility upon the rain of heaven, which God would grant or withhold according as Israel was faithful or unfaithful (see Driver, "Commentary on Deut." pp. 129 et seq.). The impression which Palestine—with its brooks and fountains, its valleys and hills, its fields of wheat and barley, its plantations of vines and figtrees and pomegranates—made upon the Israelites, unaccustomed as they were to Agriculture, is vividly portrayed in the episode of the spies (Numbers 13:23 et seq.). It appears that when the magnificent fruit of the country was shown to the people, far from awakening a desire to take possession of the land that "flowed with milk and honey," it filled them with fear by reason of its very size, just as did the uncommonly tall men and strong cities that the spies had seen. Canaanite agricultural development presented to the Hebrew shepherd-tribes a superiority from which they shrank with a self-depreciating awe.

Agriculture Learned from the Canaanites.

Centuries had to elapse before Judah and Israel could dwell safely "every man under his vine and under his fig-tree, from Dan even to Beer-sheba" (1 Kings, 4:25), and before the Hebrew farmer could feel that it was his God who instructed him how to plow and to sow and to cast in the wheat and the barley and the rye (Isaiah 28:26). The subjugated Canaanites no doubt were made to initiate their Israelitish conquerors into the practises of agricultural life. The land hitherto held to be watered and made fruitful by the Canaanite gods, Baal and Astarte, was conceived to be henceforth under the tutelage of the national deity of Israel, but the art of its cultivation had to be learned from its former owners, and here was a fruitful cause for the people's continual lapses into Canaanite idolatry. The unbridled joy of the harvest and the vintage filled the land with songs and dancing (Judges, 9:27); and the "high places," as centers of idolatrous worship, continued to exert a baneful spell upon the farming population settledin the vicinity. This was in the main the contest between Baal and YHWH in the time of the early prophets; and Hosea (2:10) complained that Israel did not know that it was God, and not Baal, who gave the corn and wine and oil. Only when the name of Baal should no longer be mentioned (ib. 18) would the blessings of Agriculture have no admixture of loss and suffering. "Baal" remained the name for the fructifying rain down to the time of the Mishnah (see Sheb. 2:9, and elsewhere; compare bet Baal, the expression for a field watered by rain; see below).

That the Israelites practised Agriculture with success is learned from the statement that Solomon sent to Hiram annually 40,000 kor (about 440,000 bushels) of wheat and barley and 40,000 baths (340,000 gallons) of oil (1 Chronicles 2:9 [A. V. 10]). In Ezekiel's time Judah traded extensively with Tyre; sending thither wheat, honey, oil, and balm (Ezekiel 27:17). On the other hand, in the time of the Judges, the Midianites and Amalekites regularly destroyed the produce of the soil when the sowing-time had passed (Judges, 6:2,3); and in King Saul's time there was no smith found in the land to sharpen the plowshares, because the Philistines would not allow the Israelites to furnish themselves with weapons of war (1 Samuel 13:19,20). The great stride forward made during the reign of Solomon indicates that a very large class of the Canaanite population must have been subjugated to perform the main labor of farming for Israel.

Estimation of Agriculture in the Bible.

The cultivation of the soil is described by the Bible as the destiny and duty of man from the beginning. Adam is placed in the Garden of Eden to dress it and keep it; and when expelled he is sent forth to till the ground (Genesis 2:15, 3:23; Psalms 104:14). The millennium of peace will see a people given only to agricultural pursuits (Isaiah 2:4; Jeremiah 31:11; Hosea, 14:7; Amos, 9:13; Micah, 4:4; Malachi 3:11; Psalms 81:17 [A. V. 16]). The blessings of the Patriarchs and the Prophets were founded upon agricultural life (Genesis 8:22, 27:28; Deuteronomy 33:13,16,28). Judges, prophets, and kings (Judges, 6:11; 1 Kings, 19:19; 1 Samuel 11:5) are called from the plow to be leaders in Israel. King Uzziah is especially mentioned as a lover of husbandry (2 Chronicles 26:10). If at times the cultivation of the soil was regarded as a curse (Genesis 3:17, 4:12), it was because the blessing of God was withdrawn from the soil for man's sin. If it was not always an easy task, all the greater was the joy of the harvest that rang through their psalms (Psalms 65,; Isaiah 16:9,10)—a joy which expressed itself in gratitude to God and in making the needy to be sharers in His gifts (Deuteronomy 16:11-15, 11). "He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread," says the Book of Proverbs (12:11, R. V.). "The king himself is served by the field" (Ecclesiastes 5:8).

Division of Fields in Modern Palestine.(From a photograph by Bonfils.)

In Post-exilic Times.

The love for Agriculture became so ingrained in the Jew that he contemptuously gave the trader the name of "Canaanite" (Zechariah 14:21; compare Hosea, 12:8 [A. V. 7]). This attachment to the soil and its cultivation increased rather than diminished during the Babylonian Exile. "Houses and fields and vine-yards shall be possessed again in this land"—this was the divine message sent to the people through the prophet Jeremiah before the catastrophe came upon the land (Jeremiah 32:15). In fact, it was only because the land did not have its Sabbath years of rest, as the Law prescribed, that the people were delivered into the hands of the enemy, according to the warning of Leviticus 26:34,43. Every prophetic vision of the future contained the promise of great agricultural prosperity for the exiled Jew (Amos, 9:13 et seq.; Isaiah 351; Ezekiel 34:26 et seq.). Not only those who wandered into Babylonian captivity, but those also who were left in Judea, became peaceful tillers of the soil (Jeremiah 29:5; 2 Kings, 25:12). The words of Nehemiah 13:15 give us an insight into the wine and fruit production of the Judean colony, which was considerable enough to induce the Tyrians to erect markets in Jerusalem, wherethe Jews exchanged their produce with them even on the sacred Sabbath.

We have an excellent description of the fertility of the soil by a non-Jewish observer in the Letter of Aristeas (§§ 107-114), written in the second century b.c., and in Hecatæus, fragments of which are preserved by Diodorus, 3, 7. Josephus ("Contra Apionem," 1:22) says: "Unlike other cities which, having a large population, neglect agriculture, the inhabitants of the highland of Samaria and the neighborhood of Idumæa devote great labor to the cultivation of the soil. The land has large plantations of olive-trees, of wheat, barley, and other cereals, and an abundance of wine, dates, and other fruit. It is well adapted both for agriculture and commerce." In the same work (1:12) he says: "We neither inhabit a maritime country nor do we delight in merchandise; having a fruitful country for our habitation, we take pains in cultivating that only." In his "B. J." 2:3, §§ 2-4, he describes Galilee as "exceedingly fertile, full of plantations of trees of all sorts, no part of it lying idle; its many villages full of people owing to the richness of the soil." So Perea, "in spite of its rougher soil, is richly planted with fruit-trees, chiefly the olive, the vine, and the palm-tree." "Still more fruitful are the hills and valleys of Samaria and Judea. Besides their abundance of trees, they are full of autumnal fruit, both such as grow wild and such as require cultivation." Especially of the Ḥasidim or Essenes we are told by Philo ("On the Virtuous Being Free," , and in the fragment preserved by Eusebius, "Præp. Ev." 8:10) that they devoted all their energy and skill to the cultivation of the soil as a truly peaceable pursuit of life. Indeed, it required no small share of self-sacrifice and piety to live as a farmer and observe the Mosaic laws concerning the tithes and other gifts claimed by priest and Levite, the altar and the poor, the Sabbatical year of release and similar precepts, while at the same time many a year's produce was spoiled by locusts and drought or other irresistible cause. What such a calamity meant for the nation may be learned from the Book of Joel and from Megillat Ta'anit. But, unlike the Israelites during the First Temple, the Jews of the second commonwealth conscientiously observed the seventh year of release (see Josephus, "Ant." 12:9, § 5; 14:10, § 5). Still the rural population ('am ha areẓ) was not as strict in these matters as the doctors of the law wished them to be, and they were consequently treated with suspicion. All the more rigorous were the Ḥasidim or Pharisees in their exclusivism. It is chiefly owing to this feature that we find agricultural life so extensively treated of in the Mishnah, the whole first section, Zera'im (with the exception of the first treatise), being devoted to it.

In the East.

Love for Agriculture was assiduously inculcated by the Jewish sages. "Hate not toilsome occupation and husbandry appointed by the Most High" (Ecclus. [Sirach], 7:15, Greek). In Vita Adæ et Evæ, 22, it is the archangel Michael who instructs Adam in paradise how to sow and to plant. In the Book of Jubilees, Abraham is represented as the inventor of an improved method of plowing the field so as to protect the seeds against birds. In Ex. R. we are told that the faithful observance of the agricultural seasons by the inhabitants of Palestine induced Abraham to make his stay there. In the Testaments of the Patriarchs it is Issachar, the model of Essene piety (compare Gen. R.; Targ. Genesis 49:15), who says (Testament of Issachar, 3:5): "I became a husbandman for my parents and brethren, and brought in the fruits of the field according to the season, and my father blessed me, for he saw that I walked in simplicity. . . . Keep therefore the Law of God, my children, and get simplicity. Bow down your back unto husbandry and labor in tillage of the ground in all manners of husbandry, offering gifts unto the Lord with thanksgiving, for with the first-fruit of the earth did the Lord bless me, even as He blessed all the saints from Abel even until now." Accordingly, many prominent rabbis in Judea and in Babylonia were industrious cultivators of the soil, notwithstanding Ecclus. 38:25: "How can he get wisdom that holdeth a plow?" (compare Ber. 35b); many instances in the Talmud (Peah, 2:6; Shab. 150b; Ḥul.105a) illustrate this fact. Rabba's pupils were exempted from attending his lectures in the months of Nisan and Tishri, as these sowing and harvest seasons required their presence in the field (Ber. 35b).