מלכים ב, פרק כ״ה, פסוק י״ב

When the elite classes were exiled to Babylon, the military commander deliberately left behind only the simplest and poorest people in the land of Israel. Their primary purpose was to maintain the agricultural foundation of the country [ביאור שטיינזלץ, אברבנאל]. The labor assigned to those who remained was divided into two main categories: tending to the vineyards and working the open fields.

The exact nature of the field work is understood in a few ways. One approach connects this labor to digging into the earth, whether creating agricultural pits [מצודת ציון] or hollowing out spaces in the ground for vats [רש״י]. Another perspective suggests these laborers were specifically tasked with treading grapes and directing the flowing wine into the vats [מצודת ציון].

Beyond standard farm work, an ancient tradition offers a very different picture, framing this labor as a luxury industry. According to this view, those left behind were actually skilled artisans who extracted rare and precious raw materials. The vineyard workers were gatherers of the highly valuable balsam plant in the region between Ein Gedi and Ramatha. Meanwhile, the field workers were hunters of the snails used to produce rare blue dye, operating along the Mediterranean coast from the Ladder of Tyre down to Haifa [רד״ק, אברבנאל].