Sickle

A large, curved knife with a short wooden handle used for cutting grain or grapes.

Man cutting grain with a sickle
Man cutting grain with a sickle (The Pictorial New Testament, The Religious Tract Society 1881, Public domain) Sickle

About Sickle

The sickle was a large, curved knife used for cutting ripe grain. It had a short wooden handle (15–20 centimeters, 6–8 inches).

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Key References

Revelation 14:14

And I looked and saw a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was One like the Son of Man, with a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand.

Deuteronomy 23:25

When you enter your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pluck the heads of grain with your hand, but you must not put a sickle to your neighbor’s grain.

Jeremiah 50:16

Cut off the sower from Babylon, and the one who wields the sickle at harvest time. In the face of the oppressor’s sword, each will turn to his own people, each will flee to his own land.

All Scripture References (20)

Leviticus (4)
Leviticus 23:10

“Speak to the Israelites and say, ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you and you reap its harvest, you are to bring to the priest a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest.

Leviticus 23:11

And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD so that it may be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath.

Leviticus 23:12

On the day you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a year-old lamb without blemish as a burnt offering to the LORD,

Leviticus 23:15

From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, you are to count off seven full weeks.

Deuteronomy (3)
Deuteronomy 16:9

You are to count off seven weeks from the time you first put the sickle to the standing grain.

Deuteronomy 24:19

If you are harvesting in your field and forget a sheaf there, do not go back to get it. It is to be left for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

Ruth (2)
Ruth 2:7

She has said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the harvesters.’ So she came out and has continued from morning until now, except that she rested a short time in the shelter.”

Ruth 2:15

When Ruth got up to glean, Boaz ordered his young men, “Even if she gathers among the sheaves, do not insult her.

1 Samuel (1)
1 Samuel 13:20

Instead, all the Israelites would go down to the Philistines to sharpen their plowshares, mattocks, axes, and sickles.

Job (1)
Job 24:10

Without clothing, they wander about naked. They carry the sheaves, but still go hungry.

Jeremiah (1)
Jeremiah 50:16

Cut off the sower from Babylon, and the one who wields the sickle at harvest time. In the face of the oppressor’s sword, each will turn to his own people, each will flee to his own land.

Joel (1)
Mark (1)
Mark 4:29

And as soon as the grain is ripe, he swings the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

Revelation (6)
Revelation 14:14

And I looked and saw a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was One like the Son of Man, with a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand.

Revelation 14:15

Then another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the One seated on the cloud, “Swing Your sickle and reap, because the time has come to harvest, for the crop of the earth is ripe.”

Revelation 14:16

So the One seated on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.

Revelation 14:17

Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle.

Revelation 14:18

Still another angel, with authority over the fire, came from the altar and called out in a loud voice to the angel with the sharp sickle, “Swing your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the vine of the earth, because its grapes are ripe.”

Revelation 14:19

So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the grapes of the earth, and he threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath.