THRESH
This operation was carried out by oxen that trampled the grain, as seen from the provision that prohibits muzzling the threshing ox (Deut. 25:4). There were also threshing instruments, with which the grain was beaten.
Threshing was also carried out by dragging over the grain a kind of toothed threshing machine with the driver on top, with which the straw was also crushed (2 Sam. 24:22; Isa. 41:15, etc.).
The incident of Gideon shaking the wheat in the winepress shows how far the Midianites’ oppression of the Israelites had reached, who were forced to the most painful extremes to eke out a miserable subsistence under the foreign yoke (Judg. 6:11).