BARN

barn (meghurah, "a granary," "fear," Haggai 2:19; acam, "a storehouse," Proverbs 3:10; mammeghurah, "a repository," Joel 1:17; apotheke, Matthew 6:26; 13:30; Luke 12:18,24): A place for the storing of grain, usually a dry cistern in the ground, covered over with a thick layer of earth. "Grain is not stored in the East until it is threshed and winnowed. The apotheke in Roman times was probably a building of some kind. But the immemorial usage of the East has been to conceal the grain, in carefully prepared pits or caves, which, being perfectly dry, will preserve it for years. It thus escaped, as far as possible, the attentions of the tax-gatherer as well as of the robber--not always easily distinguished in the East; compare Jeremiah 41:8" (Temple Dictionary, 215).

Figurative of heaven (Matthew 13:30).

See AGRICULTURE ; GARNER .

M. O. Evans

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.