This agricultural term appears in Isaiah 19:7, describing judgment on Egypt: 'the sown land of the Nile will become dry and blow away.' The Nile's annual flooding made Egyptian agriculture incredibly productive, with seedlands along the river yielding abundant crops. For these fields to dry up and scatter like dust represented catastrophic reversal—Egypt's agricultural foundation destroyed. The term emphasizes cultivated land specifically, the result of human labor and Nile fertility working together. Their destruction meant famine and economic collapse.