Isaiah 28:23-29

THE CHASTISEMENT IN MEASURE

Isaiah 28:23-29

23          Give ye ear, and hear my voice;

Hearken, and hear my speech.

24     Doth the plowman plow all day to sow?

Doth he open and break the clods of his ground?

25     When he hath made plain the face thereof,

Doth he not cast abroad the fitches,And scatter the cummin,And cast in 21 22the principal wheat,

And the appointed barley,And the 23rie in their 24place?

26     25 26For his God doth instruct him to discretion,

And doth teach him.

27     For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument,

Neither is a cartwheel turned about upon the cummin;But the fitches are beaten out with a staff,And the cummin with a rod.

28     27Bread corn is bruised;

Because he will not ever be threshing it,Nor break it with the wheel of his cart,

Nor bruise it with his horsemen.

29     This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts,

Which is wonderful in counsel,

And excellent in 28working.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Isaiah 28:25. נִסְמָו is ἅπ. λεγ. It seems to be part. Niphal which denotes “marked off, designated by סִימָנִים.” This נסמו is to be considered as accus. loci “in the place marked off.”

Isaiah 28:28. אָדוֹשׁ, if there be not a clerical mistake, is to be derived from a form אָרַשׁ, which does not elsewhere occur.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. As the Prophet could not leave the brief word concerning Ephraim (Isaiah 28:1-4) without a consolatory conclusion (Isaiah 28:5-6), so he cannot conclude the word directed against Jerusalem (Isaiah 28:14) without making at the close of its rebukes an announcement of salvation. This he does by employing a parable drawn from agriculture. He does not interpret the parable in clear terms. Therefore, before uttering it, he calls for attentive reflection (Isaiah 28:23). Then he sets forth the parable. It has, we may say, a double point. First, the Prophet makes us observe that the farmer does not always plough, does not always as it were lacerate the ground with sharp coulter or pointed harrow (Isaiah 28:24). No, he casts into the bosom of the earth good seed of various kinds (Isaiah 28:25). Moreover, the fruit produced from the seed, which can be divested of its integuments only by the application of a certain force, is yet not too severely handled by him, nor is equal force applied to all kinds of fruit, but he is careful in his treatment as the nature of things appointed by God teaches him (Isaiah 28:26). For, not a threshing sledge, or threshing roller is applied to the more tender kinds of fruit, as the cummin, but only a staff (Isaiah 28:27). Even the corn-fruits that yield bread are not so threshed that the grain is crushed thereby (Isaiah 28:28). That, too, has been arranged by the Lord, that His wonderful wisdom in counsel, and His great power to help may be known (Isaiah 28:29). The operations of ploughing and threshing, which are necessary for seed time and harvest, should therefore teach Israel in symbol the certainty that the temporal judgments which they must endure are only correctives in the hand of God, from which Israel will come forth as glorious fruit cleansed and purified.

2. Give ye ear——in their place.

Isaiah 28:23-25. The summons to pay attention (comp. as to the words 1, 2 and Isaiah 32:9), is owing to the character of the following speech. As it is an ingenious parable, it is necessary for the hearer to consider it with attention and reflection, that its meaning may be apparent to him. כל היום Isaiah 28:24, i.e., continually, perpetually. The expression is found in Isaiah usually in this signification Isaiah 51:13; Isaiah 52:5; Isaiah 62:6; Isaiah 65:2; Isaiah 65:5. The addition לזרע might appear superfluous. But the Prophet wishes to intimate that the end in view is cultivation of the soil, and not merely clearing away of vegetation for any other purpose, such as for building a house. This expression לזרע conveys a pre-intimation that the Lord’s procedure towards His people is not simply of a destructive character, no mere negation without positively designing their salvation. הכל היום is to be connected also with the second half of Isaiah 28:24 (Jeremiah 49:7). פִתֵּחֵ is only here used of opening, turning over, ploughing the earth. Yet its use to denote engraving in wood or stone is analogous: Comp. Exodus 28:9; Exodus 28:36; 1 Kings 7:36, et saepe.שִׂדִּדִoccare, to harrow, besides here only Job 39:10; Hosea 10:11. The suffix in אדמתו delicately expresses the affection which the farmer cherishes to his own land. Because it is dear to him, he will not wish to injure it. שִׁוָּה occurs in the sense of aequavit, complanavit only here (Piel besides in Isaiah 38:13). The Prophet has evidently before his mind a large farm regularly laid out in various kinds of fruits. קֶצַח [not fitches as in E. V., but] black cummin (nigella arvensis, common black cummin, or more probably nigella damascena, garden black cummin, which grows wild near the Mediterranean) occurs only in this place. כַּמֹּו cummin, common cummin, carum carvi, which belongs to a different order from that of the black cummin (namely to the umbelliferae, while the other belongs to the ranunculaceae), is mentioned in the Old Testament only here. שָׂם is the proper expression for the placing or planting of the wheat, in reference to which Gesenius remarks: “Industrious farmers in the Orient plant as they do garden plants, many kinds of grain which with us are only sown (Niehbuhr’sArabien, p. 157); they thrive when planted much better. (Comp. Plinius,Hist. Nat. 18:21).” שׂוֹרָה, ἄπ. λεγ. is identical with the Talmudic and Arabic שׂוּרָה series, row, order. The planting of wheat spoken of, is done in rows (שׂוֹרָהaccus. loci). כֻּסֶּמָת [rye E. V.], according to an excursus of Consul Wetzstein, in Delitzsch’s Commentary on Isaiah, is a variety of the common vetch (vicia sativa) the Kursenne. According to the passage before us this plant, which is eaten by cattle much less readily than barley, would be planted around the corn fields as a border or enclosure, in order to serve to protect the nobler kinds of grain, as according to Wetzstein,ut supra, the Ricinus is at present employed for this purpose. גְּבוּלָה (Sing. only here, Plur. Isaiah 10:13) confinium, the border, enclosure. The Suffix in גבולתו is to be referred to some such term as a piece of ground (שָׁרֶה) which is not expressed, but is supposed in what has been previously said.

3. For his God——teach him.

Isaiah 28:26-29. [Dr. Naegelsbach renders this verse: “He (the farmer, beats (corrects) it properly, his God so teaches him.” But the E. V. is correct (comp. Proverbs 31:1) D.M.]. The Prophet does not think of the heathen fables of Isis and Osiris, Bacchus and Ceres, etc. In what follows the way and manner in which the farmer takes fruits from their husks is spoken of. And here there is a two-fold procedure, a part of the fruits is not threshed in the oriental manner, by means of a threshing sledge or threshing roller, but is beaten out with a staff. To this class belong black cummin and cummin—חָרוּץ, acutus, (the full designation is מורַג חָרוּץIsa 40:15) is the threshing instrument, which consisted either of planks only, or of planks with rollers among them. Those planks and rollers were fitted with sharp iron or stones, which tore the ears of grain (comp. Herzog, R.-Encycl. iii. p. 504). The word is found besides only Job 41:22; Amos 1:3. [Comp. the Latin tribute, a similar threshing machine, whence tribulation, lit, a subjection to the tribula.—D.M.]. אופן עגלח, wheel of the wagon, denotes the last mentioned sort of threshing instrument; whether its rollers were themselves movable, and therefore at the same time wheels, or were immovable, and were drawn by the wheels. יוסב denotes not the turning round of the wagon, its going in a circle, but the turning of the wheels. For סב is also used of the turning of a door on its hinge (Proverbs 26:14; Ezekiel 41:24). יחבט comp. on Isaiah 27:12. לחם יודק must be taken as a question (Hitzig, Knobel, Delitzsch); Is bread-corn crushed? Answer; No! For not incessantly, i.e., till the grain is completely bruised does he thresh it, or drive the wheels of his wagon, and his horses over it. He does not crush it. The other explanation: it is crushed into bread, (i.e., afterwards in the mill, but not in the threshing), for not incessantly, etc.—is refuted by the necessity of understanding before כִּי לֹא the words indicated as required to complete the sense; while according to our explanation only the simple “no” must be supplied, and it is implied in the question. לֶחֶם is here as σῖτοςbread-corn comp. Isaiah 30:23; Isaiah 36:17; Genesis 47:17; Psalms 104:14. The Prophet distinguishes from the various species of cummin the proper bread-corn, whose grains are harder to separate from the husk. דקק besides in Isaiah only Isaiah 41:15. הָמַם, concitare, to drive, only here in Isaiah. Isaiah 28:29נג זאת וגו׳ namely, this procedure of the farmer, comp. ver, 26, יוֹרֶנּוּ. That the punishments spoken of Isaiah 28:14-22 proceed from Jehovah, needed not to be particularly affirmed. But that this so simple, unpretending, customary procedure of the farmer is a shell wherein a kernel of divine wisdom is concealed, and therefore according to God’s intention a means of teaching men such wisdom—this might well be set forth and emphatically affirmed. הפליא in Isaiah only here and Isaiah 29:14. God manifests wonderfully wise counsel, both in the ordinances of nature, and in His direction of history, for which latter the former work serves as a type full of instruction and comfort. But the aim of this wonderful wisdom is salvation (תושׁיה only here in Isaiah). It seems to me more appropriate to take the word in the meaning “salvation” (Job 6:13; Job 30:22; Proverbs 2:7; Micah 6:9), because the idea of “wisdom” is so nearly related to that of “counsel,” that almost a tautology would arise from the translation wisdom. It is certainly reasonable to expect that the Prophet in a place like the present, in which the whole fulness of his thoughts is compressed. should in significant, closing words combine in two different words two specifically different thoughts.

[But God’s counsel and wisdom, as nearly related ideas, can be very properly extolled together at the close of this chapter. The rendering of the last word תּוּשִׁיָּה by working in the E. V. is warranted neither by the usus loquendi nor by etymology. The Prophet here simply magnifies the Lord’s counsel and wisdom.—D. M.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. On Isaiah 28:1-4. A glorious city on a hill overlooking a broad, fertile plain, when the Lord is not its foundation and crown. What is it else than one of the vanities over which the preacher laments (Sir 2:4 sqq.)? Samaria and Jerusalem, Nineveh and Babylon have fallen. Cannot Paris, and London, and Berlin [and New York] also fall? How vain and transitory is the pomp of men! [All travellers unite in praising the situation of Samaria for its fertility, beauty and strength. But “the crown of pride” has been trodden under foot.—D. M.]

2. On Isaiah 28:7-8. Those words of Solomon are therefore to be remembered: it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink; lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted (Proverbs 31:4-5), Most of all is drunkenness unseemly in preachers and teachers. Scripture enjoins that they should be sober and not given to wine (1 Timothy 3:2-3).” Renner. Can. Apost. Isaiah 53:0 : “Si clericus in caupona comedens deprehensus fuerit, segregetur, paeterquam si in diversorio publico in via propter necessitatem diverterit.” Song of Song of Solomon 1:0 : “Episcopus aut presbyter aut diaconus aleae et ebrietati deserviens aut desinat, aut condemnetur.” [What! a priest, a prophet, a minister, and yet drunk! Tell it not in Gath. Such a scandal are they to their coat. Isaiah 28:8. All tables are full of vomit, etc. “See what an odious thing the sin of drunkenness is—what an affront it is to human society; it is rude and ill-mannered enough to sicken the beholders.”—Henry.—D. M.] In accordance with the rabbinical usage, which not seldom puts מָקוֹם by a metonymy for God, the expression here employed, בלי מקם is translated in Pirke Aboth iii. Isaiah 3 : “without God.” [The passage of the Mishna referred to runs thus: Rabbi Simeon says, Three who have eaten at one table, and have not spoken at it words of the law, are as if they ate of sacrifices to the dead; for it is said, for all their tables tire full of vomit and filth, without מָקוֹם,” i.e., place, God the place of all things, or who contains all things. Of course this is only an ingenious diversion of the language of Isaiah from its real meaning.—D. M.]

3.Isaiah 28:9; Isaiah 28:9 sqq. “This is the language of scorners and the ungodly, who have always mocked and railed at God’s word and its ministers. Job, Jeremiah and David must be their song and mocking-stock (Job 30:9; Lamentations 3:63; Psalms 69:13). If such dear men of God could not render all the people more pious, what will happen in our age in which there will be no lack of mockers (2 Peter 3:3)? Cramer.”

4.Isaiah 28:13. “The severe and yet well-deserved punishment for contempt of the word of God is that they who are guilty of it fall, and not only fall, but also are broken, and not only are broken, but also are snared and taken. For when they have not the love of the truth, God sends them strong delusions that they should believe a lie, that they all might be condemned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness (2 Thessalonians 2:10).” Cramer.

5. On Isaiah 28:15. This is the direct reverse of trust in God. The people of whom the Prophet here speaks believe themselves secure from death and hell because they had made a friendly alliance with them. And the sign of this covenant is their setting their hope on lies and hypocrisy. For the devil is the father of lies (John 8:44). He who is in league with him must lie, and learns to lie to the highest perfection. But the fools who have built their hope on this master— and their mastery in lying—must at last, as their righteous punishment, see that they are themselves deceived. For the devil urges a man into the swamp of wickedness, and when he sticks so deep in it that he cannot get out, then he leaves the deluded being in the lurch, and appears as an accuser against him. Hence he is called not only tempter (πειράζων), but also accuser (διάβολος, κατήγωρ, Revelation 7-10).

6. On Isaiah 28:16. “Christ is the head and foundation-stone of the Christian Church, and another foundation cannot be laid (1 Corinthians 3:11; Acts 4:11). There is, moreover, no other means of laying hold of Christ than faith, whose effect and property it is to be confident of what we hope for, and not to doubt of what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1).” Cramer. [The image of faith here given is that of a stone resting on a foundation by which it is supported and sustained. When we are told that “he that believeth shall not make haste or flee,” we are taught the confidence, composure and peace which trust in the Lord Jesus Christ imparts.—D. M.]

7. On Isaiah 28:17 sqq. “He who relies on his own wisdom, strength, riches, or righteousness, on the help of man, on the intercession of the saints, on letters of indulgence and such like, he makes to himself a false refuge, and cannot endure, but builds his house on a quicksand.” Cramer. [“They that make any thing their hiding-place but Christ, the waters shall overflow it, as every shelter but the ark was overtopped and overthrown by the waters of the deluge.” Henry.—D. M.]

8. On Isaiah 28:19. “People who are not tried are inexperienced, and have a merely speculative religion, which is of no advantage to them. “Meditatio, oratio, tentatio faciunt Theologum.” Luther. “As long as all is well with us, and we have the enjoyment of life, there is too much noise around us, and we cannot hear the voice of God. Every affliction is a wilderness, in which a man is in solitude and stillness, so that he understands better the word of God. Every tribulation is a power of the soul. In the noisy day we have hearkened so much to the voices of men. In the wilderness there is quiet, and when human voices are silent, the voice of God begins to sneak.” Tholuck.

9. On Isaiah 28:20. “Vexatio seu crux perinde est atque brevis lectus, in quo contrahendum est corpus, nisi algere velimus. Hoc est: Solus verbi auditus retinendus ac sequendus est. Tribulatio autem continet nos ceu in brevi lecto, nec sinit nos evagrari in nostra studia.” Luther.

10. On Isaiah 28:21. [“This will be His strange work, His strange act, His foreign deed; it is work that He is backward to; He rather delights in showing mercy, and does not afflict willingly; it is work that He is not used to; as to His own people, He protects and favors them; it is a strange work indeed if He turn to be their enemy and fight against them (Isaiah 63:10); it is a work that all the neighbors will stand amazed at. Deuteronomy 29:24.” Henry.—D. M.]

11. On Isaiah 28:22. “Nolite evangelium et verbum habere pro fabula, alioquin fiet, ut magis constringamini et implicemini efficacioribus erroribus ut fiatis improbi ad omne bonum opus.” Luther.

12. On Isaiah 28:23 sqq. “God Himself is the husbandman. The field is the Church on earth. Before it can bring forth fruit, it must be ploughed and prepared. The plough is the cross of trial, when the ploughers make their furrows long upon our backs (Psalms 129:3). The seed is the imperishable word of God (1 Peter 1:23). The rain is the Holy Ghost who gives the increase (Isaiah 44:3; 1 Corinthians 3:6). Further, when the fruit is gathered in, if men will bake bread out of it, it must be threshed. This is done not for its destruction, but with such moderation as the nature of the grain can bear. The practical application is that we learn to yield ourselves to such husbandry of God, and bear with patience what God does to us. For He knows according to His supreme wisdom to order every thing, that we may be His grain, and good, pure bread upon His table of shew-bread.” Cramer.

13. [“We see (1) The reason of afflictions. It is for the same reason which induces the farmer to employ various methods on his farm. (2) We are not to expect the same unvarying course in God’s dealings with us. (3) We are not to expect always the same kind of afflictions. We may lay it down as a general rule that the divine judgments are usually in the line of our offences; and by the nature of the judgment we may usually ascertain the nature of the sin. (4) God will not crush or destroy His people. The farmer does not crush or destroy his grain. (5) We should therefore bear afflictions and chastisements with patience. God is good and wise.” Barnes.—D. M.]

14. On Isaiah 28:26. [Where men do not cultivate the corn-plants, wheat, rye, barley, etc., the cerealia, as they are called, they are in the condition of savages. Savages live on what comes to hand without patient culture. Man could never have learned the cultivation of the corn-plants without being taught by God. The cerealia do not grow as other annuals, spontaneously or by the dispersion and germination of their seed. If left to themselves, they quickly become extinct. They do not grow wild in any part of the world. Their seed must be sown by man in ground carefully prepared to receive it. But while human culture is necessary for the growth and propagation of corn-plants, man is naturally ignorant of their use and value. It would never have occurred to man to prepare the soil for wheat-seed at a particular time of the year, and to wait many months for the grain that would ripen in the ear; and then to grind the hard seeds, and to mix them with water, and to bake this paste is what man, left to himself, would never have thought of. The fact that we have corn-plants alive on the earth at this day demonstrates that they must have been called into existence when man was on the earth to cultivate them, and that man must have been taught by a Higher Power to do so, and to use them for his support. It is then a matter that can be established by the clearest and most convincing evidence, that God, as the Prophet here tells us, instructed the plowman to plow, to open and break the clods of the ground, and to cast in the wheat and barley. (Isaiah 28:24-25) These may appear to us now simple operations. But they must have been at first taught to man by God in order that wheat and barley, and the other cereals, which He had made for the use of man, might be preserved on the earth. Beside the natural powers furnished us by God, to whom we owe the capacity of knowledge and the lessons given by Providence in external nature, God still teaches the husbandman through that primeval revelation of the art of agriculture made to man when He put him into the garden to dress it and to keep it—D. M.]

HOMILETICAL HINTS

1. On Isaiah 28:1-6. “In the light of this word of God let the glorious acts of God (the fall of Paris, etc.) be to us a mighty proclamation: 1) of God’s judgment, 2) of God’s grace.” Frommel, Zeitpredigten, Heidelberg, 1873.

2. On Isaiah 28:11-12. An earnest warning voice to our people. It bids us consider 1) What the Lord has hitherto in kindness offered to us (How rest may be had is preached to us Matthew 11:28 sq.); 2) How we have received what has been offered to us (We will not have such preaching); 3) What the Lord for our punishment will hereafter offer to us (He will speak with mocking lips and with another tongue unto this people).

3. On Isaiah 28:14-20. Text for a political sermon such as might be delivered before a Christian court, or before an assembly of those who have influence on the direction of public affairs. God’s word to those who direct the affairs of the State: 1) The false foundation: a. as to its nature (Isaiah 28:15), b. as to its consequences (Isaiah 28:17-20Isaiah 28:17-20Isaiah 28:17-20). 2) The true foundation: a. wherein it consists (Isaiah 28:16), b. the conditions of its efficacy (giving heed to the word, believing), c. its effects.

4. On Isaiah 28:16-17. The foundation and corner-stone of the Christian Church: 1) Who He is (Matthew 21:42; Acts 4:11; Romans 9:33; 1 Peter 2:6 sq.). 2) How we partake of His blessing (He who believes flees not). 3) What salvation He brings us (Isaiah 28:17). Isaiah 28:16 is often used as a text for discourses at the laying of the foundation-stone of churches.

5. On Isaiah 28:19. Affliction teaches us to give heed to the word. Affliction is the best instructress of the foolish heart of man; for it teaches us to know: 1) the vanity of earthly things, 2) the power to comfort and to save which lies solely in the benefits offered to us in the word of God.

6. On Isaiah 28:22. Warning to scoffers. God will accomplish in the whole world the triumph of His cause. Woe then to the scoffers. Their bands will only become the harder. They hurt themselves by their scoffing.

7. On Isaiah 28:23 sqq. Consolatory discourse. God does not always chastise. Chastisement is with Him only a means to an end, as with the husbandman ploughing and threshing. When the chastisement has reached its aim, it ceases. Let us therefore give heed unto the word, and the trial will not be continued.

8. [The Church is God’s tilled land. 1 Corinthians 3:9. Paul tells the Corinthians: Ye are God’s γεώργιον, God’s tilled land. Christ has called His Father the γεωργός, the husbandman, John 15:1. God does not leave us without culture. He treats us as the farmer does his field. He gives us, too, what corresponds to the rain and sunshine, in the influences of His Spirit. He employs means for making us fruitful. Comp. Hebrews 6:7-8 as to the doom of those who fail to bring forth fruit—set forth by a metaphor taken from agriculture.—D. M.]

Footnotes:

[21]Or, the wheat in the principal place, and barley in the appointed place.

[22]Wheat in rows and barley in the appointed place.

[23]Or, spelt.

[24]Heb. border.

[25]Or, and he bindeth it in such sort as his God doth teach him.

[26]and he beats it properly; his God teaches him this.

[27]Is bread com crushed?

[28]helping.