But he will speak to this nation with stammering lips and in another language,
Parallel Translations
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But he will speak to this nation with stammering lips and in another language,
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For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
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For with stammering lips and with a strange tongue shall it be spoken to this people;
Cross-references (4)
Passages linked to Isaiah 28:11 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Corinthians 14:21 In the law it is written, “By men of strange languages and by the lips of strangers I will speak to this people. They won’t even hear me that way, says the Lord.”
- Deuteronomy 28:49 Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies: a nation whose language you will not understand,
- Jeremiah 5:15 Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far away, house of Israel,” says Yahweh. “It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you don’t know and don’t understand what they say.
- Isaiah 33:19 You will no longer see the fierce people, a people of a deep speech that you can’t comprehend, with a strange language that you can’t understand.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (15 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Let one teach what he can, yet they shall…
Let one teach what he can, yet they shall no more understand him, than if he spake in a strange language.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 28:11 For with stammering lips and another tongue…
Isa 28:11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
Ver. 11. For with stammering lips, &c.] With a lisping lip. Heb., With scoffs of lip, or with language of mocks. Surely God scorneth the scorners, {Pro 3:34} for he loveth to retaliate, and proportion choice to choice, {Isa 66:3-4} device to device, {Mic 2:1; Mic 2:3} frowardness to frowardness, {Psa 18:26} scoffing to scoffing. {Pro 1:25-26}
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And with another tongue.] Lingua exotica, such as they shall be no whit the better for. See 1Co 14:21. We read of John Elmar, Bishop of London in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, that on a time when he saw his audience grow dull in their attention to his sermon, he presently read unto them many verses of the Hebrew text, whereat they all started, admiring what use he meant to make thereof; then showed he them their folly, that whereas they neglected English, whereby they might be edified, they listened to Hebrew, whereof they understood not a word; and how justly God might bring in Popery again, - with Latin service, blind obedience, and dumb offices, - for their contempt of the gospel.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain For; or, therefore, as this particle is oft used.…
For; or, therefore, as this particle is oft used. For this seems to be the punishment of their dulness.
With stammering lips; either,
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1. In way of condescension, as mothers and nurses teach children, lisping and stammering with them. Or,
2. In way of judgment; which suits best with the next clause.
And another tongue; by people of a strange language, whom he shall bring among them, and into whose power he shall deliver them; which is a great aggravation of their misery: see Deu 28:49; Jer 5:15; Eze 3:5.
Will he speak to this people: seeing they will not hear him speaking by his prophets and ministers, in their own language, they shall hear their enemies speaking to them in a strange and rough language.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain To whom he said,.... Either the Lord himself, or…
To whom he said,.... Either the Lord himself, or the prophet Isaiah; or rather the Lord by him, and other prophets; so the Targum,
"to whom the prophets said;''
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that is, the true prophets of the Lord said to the people, or to the priests and other prophets; or Christ and his apostles, as follows:
This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest: and this is the refreshing: that is, by teaching the word of God, the true knowledge of him, and the sound doctrines of the Gospel, and the duties of religion; this would be the best way of casing and refreshing the minds and consciences of the people, burdened with a sense of sin, or distressed and disconsolate through afflictions and calamities upon them, and be the most effectual method of continuing them in ease and peace in their own land, and of preserving them from captivity, and other judgments threatened with; see Mat 11:28,
yet they would not hear; having no regard to the Lord and his prophets; nor any compassion to their countrymen, afflicted and distressed in mind or body; nor to the doctrine of Christ and his apostles.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Another tongue - By people of a strange language,…
Another tongue - By people of a strange language, whom he shall bring among them, seeing they will not hear him speaking, by his prophets, in their own language.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Isa 28:11-12. For — Or, rather, therefore, as the…
Isa 28:11-12. For — Or, rather, therefore, as the particle כיis often used. For the prophet here evidently intends to express the punishment of their dulness. With stammering lips, and another tongue — By people of a strange language, whom he will bring among them, and into whose power he will deliver them; will he speak to this people — Seeing they will not hear him speaking by his prophets and ministers, in their own language, they shall hear their enemies speaking to them in a strange language. It was a great aggravation of the misery of the Jews, during their captivity, that they did not understand the language of the Chaldeans, whose captives they were. To whom he said — To which people, the Lord, by his ministers, said, This — This doctrine, or the word of the Lord, as it follows, Isa 28:13; is the rest — The only way, in the observance of which you will find rest. Wherewith, &c. — The word wherewith is supplied by our translators, there being nothing for it in the Hebrew, which is, cause ye the weary to rest — Namely, your weary minds and weary country. As if he had said, As rest is offered you by the prophets in God’s name, do you embrace it; which is to be done by hearkening to God’s word. So shall this people, which hath been so often, and so long, wearied and harassed by great and manifold calamities, find rest and peace. Yet they would not hear — They were wilfully ignorant, and obstinately refused the very means of instruction.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain For - This verse is to be understood as…
For - This verse is to be understood as a response to what the complaining and dissatisfied people had said, as expressed in the previous verse. God says that he will teach them, but it should be by another tongue - a foreign language in a distant land. Since they refused to hearken to the messages which he sent to them, and which they regarded as adapted only to children, he would teach them in a manner that should be “much more” humiliating; he would make use of the barbarous language of foreigners to bring them to the true knowledge of God.
With stammering lips - The word which is used here is derived from a verb (לעג lâ‛âg), which means to speak unintelligibly: especially to speak in a foreign language, or to stammer; and then to mock, deride, laugh at, scorn (compare Isa 33:19; Pro 1:26; Pro 17:5; Psa 2:4; Psa 59:9; Job 22:19). Here it means in a foreign or barbarous tongue; and the sense is, that the lessons which God wished to teach would be conveyed to them through the language of foreigners - the Chaldeans. They should be removed to a distant land, and there, in hearing a strange speech, in living long among foreigners, they should learn the lesson which they refused to do when addressed by the prophets in their own land.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain For--rather, "Truly." This is Isaiah's reply to the scoffers:…
For--rather, "Truly." This is Isaiah's reply to the scoffers: Your drunken questions shall be answered by the severe lessons from God conveyed through the Assyrians and Babylonians; the dialect of these, though Semitic, like the Hebrew, was so far different as to sound to the Jews like the speech of stammerers (compare Isa 33:19; Isa 36:11). To them who will not understand God will speak still more unintelligibly.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 11, 12. For — One explanation of this is,…
11, 12. For — One explanation of this is, that the wicked prophets were about to continue, and got as far as “for,” when Isaiah snatched the word from them and proceeded thence himself: “Yes, for,” etc. Another translation is, “Yea, or truly,” the prophet’s own commencing words.
Stammering lips — “Yes, with a stammering tongue,” that is, with another dialect, “will God speak to this people.” That dialect shall be the semi-Semitic patois of the fierce people beyond the Euphrates. It is said that the Assyrian Semitic was to Jewish ears much the same as the provincial lower Saxon (Platt-Deutsch) is to the pure high German language — said patois being mixed perhaps with Iranian, possibly with Tartar elements. See 2Ki_18:26-28; Isa_36:11. It is proper to suppose, from the exigences of the text, that exile to Assyria is here threatened in consequence of such scoffing, which was alarmingly becoming the rule, not the exception, in the conduct of the Jews.
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To whom — The scoffing Jews. God had repeatedly said, This is the rest, namely, trusting in Jehovah of Hosts, and not in Syrian (chap. 7) nor in Egyptian (chapter 37) alliances.
Yet they would not hear — God’s fruitless patience and teachings will not always be continued.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 11. Isaiah parries the gibe with a terrible threat.…
11. Isaiah parries the gibe with a terrible threat. Jehovah is about to employ a more uncouth language, to which their mocking description will fully apply, viz., the harsh barbarous accents of the Assyrian invaders.
stammering lips] either “stammerings of lip” or “stammerers of lip” (cf. the Greek use of βάρβαρος). Comp. 1Co_14:21.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (11) With stammering lips and another tongue . .…
(11) With stammering lips and another tongue . . .—The “stammering lips” are those of the Assyrian conquerors, whose speech would seem to the men of Judah as a barbarous patois. They, with their short sharp commands, would be the next utterers of Jehovah’s will to the people who would not listen to the prophet’s teaching. The description of the “stammering tongue” re-appears in Isa_33:19. (Comp. Deu_28:49.) In 1Co_14:21, the words are applied to the gift of “tongues,” which, in its ecstatic utterances, was unintelligible to those who heard it, and was therefore, as the speech of the barbarian conquerors was in Isaiah’s thoughts, the antithesis of true prophetic teaching.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 11-13. JUDAH"S PUNISHMENT. God will retort on the…
Vers. 11-13. JUDAH"S PUNISHMENT. God will retort on the Jews their scorn of his prophet, and, as they will not be taught by his utterances, which they find to be childish and unrefined, will teach them by utterances still more unrefined those of the Assyrians, which will be quite as monotonous and quite as full of minutiae as Isaiah"s.
With stammering lips and with another tongue. The Assyrian language, though a Semitic idiom nearly allied to Hebrew, was sufficiently different to sound in the ears of a Jew like his own tongue mispronounced and barbarized.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain With stammering lips
Isa_28:11
With stammering lips
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Assyrian speech
By men of strange lips Jehovah will speak Assyrian to them; and with a more frightful iteration than the prophet used. (A. B.Davidson, LL. D.)
A great moral principle
We gather from Isaiah that God speaks twice to men, first in words and then by deeds, but both times very simply and plainly. (G. A. Smith, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 with mocking lips and a foreign tongue he will…
with mocking lips and a foreign tongue he will speak to this people
Here "lips" and "tongue" represent the foreigners who speak a different language than the Israelites do. It is implied that this refers to the Assyrian army that will attack Israel. AT: "Yahweh will speak to this people through enemy soldiers who will speak a foreign language" (See: Synecdoche and Active or Passive)
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mocking lips
"stammering lips"
This is the rest
The abstract noun "rest" can be stated as an adjective. AT: "This is the resting place" (See: Abstract Nouns)
give rest to him who is weary
The abstract noun "rest" can be stated as a verb. AT: "let whoever is tired come and rest" (See: Abstract Nouns)
this is the refreshing
The abstract noun "refreshing" can be stated as a verb. AT: "this is the place where you can be refreshed" (See: Abstract Nouns)
translationWords
mock
alien
tongue
people group
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 28:11 God will have to speak through circumstances such…
28:11 God will have to speak through circumstances such as hardship, exile, and death in order to get through to his hardened people. • a strange language: In the New Testament, Paul applied this text to the spiritual gift of tongues as a sign of judgment to unbelievers (see 1 Cor 14:21-22).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.