📖 Biblical Definition
"The wicked are... like chaff that the wind drives away" (Ps 1:4). John the Baptist on Messiah: "His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire" (Matt 3:12). Chaff burns easily and produces nothing of value; the wheat is gathered, the chaff is burned. The judgment is absolute; the sorting is permanent. In the wind, chaff blows away while the heavier grain stays — the wind of God's judgment distinguishes the real from the insubstantial.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
CHAFF, n.
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CHAFF, n. [Sax. ceaf.] The husk, or dry calyx, of corn and grasses, separated by threshing. In Scripture, chaff is the perfect image of the worthless: light, flammable, wind-carried, consumed. The wicked are as chaff, driven away by the wind. The Messiah's winnowing fork separates wheat from chaff — gathering the one into the barn, burning the other with unquenchable fire.
📖 Key Scripture
Psalm 1:4 — "The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away."
Matthew 3:12 — "His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
Jeremiah 23:28 — "What has straw in common with wheat? declares the LORD."
Hosea 13:3 — "Therefore they shall be like the morning mist or like the dew that goes early away, like the chaff that swirls from the threshing floor."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Every life produces either wheat or chaff. The wind comes; only grain remains.
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Psalm 1's contrast is absolute: the blessed man meditates on God's law and is like a tree planted by water; the wicked are not so, but are like chaff. Every life is sorting itself into one category or the other. The sorting becomes visible at the winnowing; the wind of judgment carries the chaff away and leaves only what was grain. Cultivate wheat. Produce substance. Do not be the light husk the wind carries off.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
H4671 — mots. G892 — achyron.
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H4671 — mots (מוֹץ) — chaff.
G892 — achyron (ἄχυρον) — chaff, straw.
Usage
"The wicked are like chaff. Light, flammable, blown away. The wind comes; only grain remains."
"The winnowing fork is already in His hand. The sort is coming; be wheat."