What does קָצִיר (qatsir) mean in the Bible?
The Hebrew noun qatsir most often names harvest, the crop gathered, the season of reaping, or the work and workers associated with it. In a smaller branch of its range it can name a cut branch or shoot.
Hebrew · H7105
קָצִיר
Severed , i.e. harvest (as reaped), the crop , the time , the reaper , or figuratively; also a limb (of a tree, or simply foliage)
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קָצִירH7105
Pronunciationqatsir
What does קָצִיר (qatsir) mean in the Bible?
The Hebrew noun qatsir most often names harvest, the crop gathered, the season of reaping, or the work and workers associated with it. In a smaller branch of its range it can name a cut branch or shoot.
Reader summary
Full entry for קָצִיר (H7105) · Open the biblical lexicon
Questions this entry answers
How does the BSB render H7105?
The BSB source-word alignment has 54 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include the harvest (8), harvest (7), of Harvest (4), of your harvest (4), . . . (3).
Where does קָצִיר (qatsir) appear in Scripture?
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 8:22. Its strongest book concentrations include Isaiah (8), Leviticus (7), Jeremiah (5), Proverbs (5).
What This Word Actually Means
The Hebrew noun qatsir most often names harvest, the crop gathered, the season of reaping, or the work and workers associated with it. In a smaller branch of its range it can name a cut branch or shoot. Genesis places seedtime and harvest within the continuing rhythms of the earth after the flood. Israel's law protects rest even during urgent farm seasons and commands landowners to leave harvest edges for poor people and foreign residents.
Ruth shows that access to gleaning also requires safety, dignity, water, food, and protection from harassment. Proverbs commends timely labor, but its concise contrast must not become a weapon against people facing illness, disability, unemployment, exploitation, or conditions beyond their control. Job uses the related cut-growth sense while voicing a sufferer's longing for renewal, and Joel turns ripe harvest into an image of God's judgment on nations.
The noun does not make every harvest a revival, every crop failure a personal verdict, or every judgment image a mandate for human violence. Responsible teaching follows the passage from season and labor to provision, justice, grief, hope, or judgment.
How the Bible Uses It
Qatsir gathers the concrete realities of crop, season, reaping, and cut growth. Scripture uses those realities to speak about creation's rhythms, protected rest, economic mercy, diligent work, fragile hope, and divine judgment.
- Gen.8.22
As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall never cease.”
After the flood, seedtime and harvest belong to the earth's continuing rhythms under God's commitment, not to a promise that every individual crop will succeed.
- Exod.34.21
Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in the seasons of plowing and harvesting, you must rest.
Sabbath rest remains commanded during plowing and harvest, resisting the claim that seasonal urgency makes people endlessly available for production.
- Lev.23.22
When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap all the way to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the foreign resident. I am the Lord your God.’”
Harvest practice must leave accessible provision for poor people and foreign residents, joining worship's calendar to concrete economic restraint and neighbor care.
- Ruth.2.23
So Ruth stayed close to the servant girls of Boaz to glean grain until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
Ruth completes the barley and wheat harvests beside Boaz's women, within a chapter concerned with work, food, safety, belonging, and care for Naomi.
- Prov.10.5
He who gathers in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son.
The proverb commends gathering at the proper season, offering a wisdom contrast about readiness rather than a complete explanation for poverty or hardship.
- Job.14.9
At the scent of water it will bud and put forth twigs like a sapling.
Within Job's grief over human mortality, a cut tree's branch budding at water's scent becomes a painful contrast to his uncertainty about renewal.
- Joel.3.13
Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes, for the winepress is full; the wine vats overflow because their wickedness is great.
Ripe harvest and overflowing winepress depict the Lord's judgment on gathered nations whose wickedness is great, not a human campaign of coercion or violence.
Source Word Evidence
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders Itthe harvest8×Leviticus 19:9, Leviticus 23:22, Joshua 3:15, Isaiah 18:5
harvest7×Genesis 30:14, Exodus 34:22, Judges 15:1, Ruth 1:22
of Harvest4×Exodus 23:16, Proverbs 25:13, Isaiah 18:4, Jeremiah 5:24
of your harvest4×Leviticus 19:9, Leviticus 23:10, Leviticus 23:22, Leviticus 25:5
. . .3×Deuteronomy 24:19, Ruth 2:23, 1 Samuel 6:13
at harvest3×Proverbs 6:8, Proverbs 26:1, Jeremiah 50:16
at harvest time2×Proverbs 20:4, Isaiah 9:3
his harvest2×1 Samuel 8:12, Job 5:5
of the harvest2×2 Samuel 21:9, 2 Samuel 21:10
a harvest1×Hosea 6:11
and harvest1×Genesis 8:22
and harvesting1×Exodus 34:21
and the branches1×Job 18:16
and your harvest1×Isaiah 16:9
during harvest1×Proverbs 10:5
harvest time1×2 Samuel 23:13
harvests1×Ruth 2:23
her harvest1×Jeremiah 51:33
its branches1×Psalms 80:11
its harvest1×Leviticus 23:10
on my branches1×Job 29:19
or harvesting1×Genesis 45:6
the reaper1×Isaiah 17:5
twigs1×Job 14:9
When its limbs1×Isaiah 27:11
when the harvest was1×Amos 4:7
yet the harvest1×Isaiah 17:11
your harvest1×Jeremiah 5:17
Show sample aligned rows
Genesis 8:22וְ֠קָצִירtoand harvestConjunctive waw | Noun - masculine singularGenesis 30:14קְצִיר־toharvestNoun - masculine singular constructGenesis 45:6וְקָצִּֽיר׃toor harvestingConjunctive waw | Noun - masculine singularExodus 23:16הַקָּצִיר֙toof HarvestArticle | Noun - masculine singularExodus 34:21וּבַקָּצִ֖ירtoand harvestingConjunctive waw, Preposition-b, Article | Noun - masculine singularExodus 34:22קְצִ֣ירtoharvestNoun - masculine singular constructLeviticus 19:9קְצִ֣ירtothe harvestNoun - masculine singular constructLeviticus 19:9קְצִֽירְךָ֖toof your harvestNoun - masculine singular construct | second person masculine singularLeviticus 23:10קְצִירָ֑הּtoits harvestNoun - masculine singular construct | third person feminine singularLeviticus 23:10קְצִירְכֶ֖םtoof your harvestNoun - masculine singular construct | second person masculine plural
Usage map
A compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
First aligned rowGenesis 8:22
Aligned rows54
Books represented17
Genesis3Exodus3Leviticus7Deuteronomy1Joshua1Judges1Ruth41 Samuel32 Samuel4Job4Psalms1Proverbs5Isaiah8Jeremiah5Hosea1Joel2Amos1
Source forms
קְצִ֥יר4xqə·ṣîrRuth 1:22, 2 Samuel 21:9, Isaiah 23:3, Joel 1:11
קְצִיר־4xqə·ṣîr-Genesis 30:14, Judges 15:1, 1 Samuel 6:13, 1 Samuel 12:17
קְצִ֣יר3xqə·ṣîrExodus 34:22, Leviticus 19:9, Leviticus 23:22
קָצִיר֙3xqā·ṣîr2 Samuel 21:9, 2 Samuel 23:13, Isaiah 18:5
קָצִ֖יר3xqā·ṣîrJeremiah 5:24, Jeremiah 8:20, Hosea 6:11
הַקָּצִ֖יר2xhaq·qā·ṣîrRuth 2:21, Jeremiah 51:33
קָצִ֣יר2xqā·ṣîrJob 14:9, Isaiah 17:5
קָצִ֑יר2xqā·ṣîrJeremiah 50:16, Joel 3:13
Parsing patterns
Noun - masculine singular15xJoshua 3:15, 2 Samuel 21:9, 2 Samuel 21:10, 2 Samuel 23:13
Noun - masculine singular construct12xGenesis 30:14, Exodus 34:22, Leviticus 19:9, Leviticus 23:22
Noun - masculine singular construct | second person masculine singular5xLeviticus 19:9, Leviticus 23:22, Leviticus 25:5, Deuteronomy 24:19
Preposition-b, Article | Noun - masculine singular5xProverbs 6:8, Proverbs 10:5, Proverbs 20:4, Proverbs 26:1
Article | Noun - masculine singular3xExodus 23:16, Ruth 2:21, Jeremiah 51:33
Noun - masculine singular construct | third person masculine singular3x1 Samuel 8:12, Job 5:5, Job 18:16
Conjunctive waw | Noun - masculine singular2xGenesis 8:22, Genesis 45:6
Noun - masculine singular construct | third person feminine singular2xLeviticus 23:10, Isaiah 27:11
Using This Word Well
Be careful not to...
- Apply diligence together with rest, access, safety, and structural justice so that harvest teaching does not glorify extraction or shame limited capacity.
- When harvest becomes an image for mission or judgment, identify that movement from the actual passage rather than importing it from a familiar slogan.
Avoid claiming...
- Do not claim that work, generosity, or faith guarantees a successful crop, stable income, bodily strength, or freedom from disaster.
- Do not claim authority to identify, uproot, punish, or exclude people on the basis of a harvest metaphor.
Evidence Summary
Hebrew word. Harvest as severed/cut thing: emphasizes completion, gathering, and death—literal crop or figurative judgment moment.
Source Gloss
severed , i.e. harvest (as reaped), the crop , the time , the reaper , or figuratively; also a limb (of a tree, or simply foliage)
Extended definitionSource: Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon + Brown-Driver-Briggs
Harvest as severed/cut thing: emphasizes completion, gathering, and death—literal crop or figurative judgment moment.
severed, i.e. harvest (as reaped), the crop, the time, the reaper, or figuratively; also a limb (of a tree, or simply foliage) BDB: harvesting Usage: bough, branch, harvest (man).
Grammatical Forms
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected Scripture Witnesses
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Old Testament Witnesses
harvest
the harvest season when crops are gathered
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 54 lexical occurrence verses.
Word Origins
Why This Word Matters
Harvest symbolizes critical moments when work must be done promptly.Hosea 6:7-11
Judgment imagery tied to covenant consequences.Proverbs 10:5
Canonical Themes
Part of These Phrases
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
For the Preacher and Teacher
Qatsir makes harvest more than a picture of successful results. Genesis locates it within dependable created rhythms while leaving room for the Bible's many accounts of famine and crop loss. Exodus protects Sabbath even when a narrow harvest window could tempt owners and workers to treat rest as expendable. Leviticus refuses maximum extraction by reserving field edges and gleanings for poor people and foreign residents.
Ruth shows what this provision looks like in lived experience: a migrant widow works, eats, drinks, remains near women, and receives protection from harassment while supporting Naomi. Proverbs values timely gathering, yet wisdom literature does not authorize readers to blame every struggling person for missed opportunity. Job's cut branch intensifies rather than solves his lament about death.
Joel uses harvest as God's own judgment image and gives no license for human purging. Together these texts call teachers to honor creation's seasons, dignified work, real rest, economic access, grief, hope, and divine accountability. Harvest should never become a formula that measures faith by output, excuses exploitation, or turns neighbors into targets.
Anchor passage
Lev.23.22
Doctrinal connections
- Genesis 8 places seedtime and harvest within God's preservation of the earth while not promising uninterrupted abundance to each household.
- Exodus 34 subjects harvest urgency to Sabbath, declaring that productive seasons do not cancel creaturely rest before God.
- Leviticus 23 joins firstfruits worship to gleaning access, so honoring God includes restraint that leaves food for vulnerable neighbors.
- Ruth 2 embodies gleaning through labor, hospitality, protection, and kinship care rather than treating charity as detached benevolence.
- Job 14 uses a renewed branch to sharpen a sufferer's unresolved longing, preserving lament instead of offering a quick resurrection formula.
- Joel 3 reserves the ripe-harvest judgment to the Lord, exposing wickedness without commissioning readers to punish people they label weeds.
Qatsir is a masculine Hebrew noun related to cutting or reaping. Its dominant range includes harvest, harvested crop, harvest season, and reaping activity, while several poetic texts use it for a branch or shoot. Context distinguishes crop from limb and literal season from figurative judgment.
From Old to New Testament
Jesus and the apostles use Greek harvest vocabulary for mission, judgment, resurrection, and patient labor. Those New Testament passages continue biblical cultivation imagery but do not make every H7105 occurrence evangelistic. Each text must identify the sower, crop, workers, time, and judge before a canonical connection is drawn.