Members of the lower classes who made their living by cultivating the land. Usually the basic unit of production and consumption was the family, but local and imperial authorities supported themselves heavily by taxing the peasants.

(PEA·sants). People who cultivate land in rural areas for their basic subsistence and pay tribute to elite groups. Peasant and peasantry are not adequate descriptors for agricultural workers in Levantine culture during the biblical period.

farmers who lack control over the means of their production--the land, the other resources, and the capital they need to grow their crops, and the labor they contribute to the process.