“The Flame Consumeth the Chaff”

(Isa. 5:24)

On blustery days after the harvest, the Israelite farmer took advantage of the wind to winnow his threshed grain. The threshed mixture of chaff, chopped stubble, and seed would be gathered upon a winnowing board or fork and tossed into the air. There the wind would catch the light chaff and stubble and blow it away while the heavy, clean kernels would fall back to the earth for the farmer to collect. Once the grains were removed, the remaining chaff and stubble would be dispersed by the wind or burned in a fire that was extremely hot, fast, and furious. Isaiah saw the fleeting chaff and stubble as a type of the temporality of the wicked. He warned that just as the “chaff of the mountains” is chased “before the wind” (Isa. 17:13) and as the “fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff” (Isa. 5:24), so shall Jehovah destroy the enemies of the covenant people and the apostates of Israel (see Isa. 29:5; 33:11; 40:24; 41:2, 15; 47:14).

(Terry Ball, Thy People Shall Be My People and Thy God My God: The 22nd Annual Sidney B. Sperry Symposium [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1994], 25.)

Winnowing was accomplished by the use of either a broad shovel or of a wooden fork which had bent prongs. With this instrument, the mass of chaff, straw, and grain was thrown against the wind. Because there was generally a breeze blowing in the evening, this was the time when it was normally done… . (Ruth 3:2)… .

(Jer. 15:7). When the grain and straw, not as yet separated, are thrown into the air, the wind causes the mass of material to fall as follows: Since the grain is the heaviest, it naturally falls beneath the fan. The straw is blown to the side into a heap, and the lighter chaff and the dust are carried beyond into a flattened windrow… . (Ps. 1:4). The chaff is burned as Scripture often indicates. “And the flame consumeth the chaff” (Isa. 5:24) … (Matt. 3:12; Luke 3:17).

(Fred H. Wight, Manners and Customs of Bible Lands [Chicago: Moody Press, 1953], 184–85.)