Isaiah 28:23

"Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. Doth he that ploweth to sow plow continually? doth he continually open and harrow his ground? When he hath leveled the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and put in the wheat in rows, and the barley in the appointed place, and the spelt in the border thereof?. For his God doth instruct him aright, and doth teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a sharp threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread grain is ground; for he will not be always threshing it; for though the wheel of his cart and his horses scatter it, he doth not grind it. This also cometh forth from Jehovah of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom."

This is a beautiful little parable drawn from the agricultural industry, the point being that such things as plowing and threshing have their specific purposes; therefore God's punishments of people, whether his own, or his enemies is purposeful, always looking forward to the projected results.

Fitches were a common herb, cultivated as a forage plant, or `black cummin,' whose aromatic seeds were a favorite condiment of the Greeks and Romans."[17] "Spelt was what we would call rye, or an inferior kind of wheat."[18] Even the farmer who belonged to a class of people probably despised by the drunken leaders of the people, knew that all of God's law must be respected and obeyed if one is to reap a harvest from the earth; yet those foolish leaders fancied that they could wantonly forsake all honor and morality, live in shame and debauchery, and that somehow, in spite of all that, God would enable them to go on unhindered in their licentious ways. What a terrible awakening awaited them!