Qātsîr comes from the verb qātsār (H7114), 'to cut, reap, harvest.' The word covers both the act of harvesting and the harvested crop itself. In an agrarian society, harvest was the pivotal moment of the year — a time of joy, abundance, and communal celebration (hence the Feast of Harvest/Weeks). Israel's three pilgrimage festivals were all tied to agricultural harvests: Passover/Unleavened Bread (barley harvest), Shavuot (wheat harvest), and Sukkot (final harvest). The term appears 49 times in the Hebrew Bible.
Harvest in the Hebrew Bible carries deep theological weight. It is both a sign of God's blessing (Leviticus 26:5) and a powerful metaphor for divine judgment — God 'harvesting' nations in wrath (Isaiah 17:5; Jeremiah 51:33; Hosea 6:11). Joel's vision of the nations gathering in the Valley of Jehoshaphat includes the cry: 'Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe' (Joel 3:13). Jesus uses harvest imagery extensively: the fields are 'white for harvest' (John 4:35), the kingdom of heaven is like a harvest separating wheat from tares (Matthew 13:39), and at the end of the age the 'great harvest' of souls occurs (Revelation 14:15). The metaphor frames the entire sweep of redemptive history.