Furrow

A furrow is the groove or channel cut in the ground by the plough, and it appears in Scripture primarily in agricultural and metaphorical contexts. Psalm 65:10 uses the image of God watering the earth's furrows and softening it with showers, "blessing the springing thereof" — a picture of divine provision for the agricultural cycle that Israel depended on for survival. Hosea 10:4 describes judgment and injustice springing up "as hemlock in the furrows of the field," using the agricultural image for the inevitable harvest of covenantal unfaithfulness.

Hosea 10:10 speaks of the nations gathering against Ephraim to bind them "in their two furrows" — a figure possibly drawn from oxen being yoked together for plowing, suggesting subjugation. Job 31:38 invokes the furrows themselves as witnesses against him: "If my land cry against me, or that the furrows likewise thereof complain" — an oath of innocence that personifies the earth as a moral witness. The psalms also use the furrow image for human oppression: Psalm 129:3 describes Israel's persecutors as ploughers who made long furrows on her back — an image of prolonged suffering from which the LORD ultimately delivered her.