Give ear, and hear my voice! Listen, and hear my speech!
Parallel Translations
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Give ear, and hear my voice! Listen, and hear my speech!
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Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.
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Give ye ear, and hear my voice; attend, and hear my speech.
Cross-references (7)
Passages linked to Isaiah 28:23 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Isaiah 1:2 Hear, heavens, and listen, earth; for Yahweh has spoken: “I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me.
- Jeremiah 22:29 O earth, earth, earth, hear Yahweh’s word!
- Deuteronomy 32:1 Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
- Revelation 2:7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of my God.
- Revelation 2:11 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. He who overcomes won’t be harmed by the second death.
- Revelation 2:14 But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to throw a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.
- Revelation 2:29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 28:23 Give ye ear, and hear my voice;…
Isa 28:23 Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.
Ver. 23. Give ear, and hear my voice; hearken, &c.] Being to assure the faithful of God’s fatherly care of their safety and indemnity amidst all those distractions and disturbances of the times; he calleth for their utmost attention, as knowing how slow of heart and dull of hearing the best are; how backward to believe, {Luk 24:25} and apt to "forget the consolation," παρακλησις. {Heb 12:5} {See Trapp on "Mat 13:3"}
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 Observe what I say, and do you judge if…
Observe what I say, and do you judge if it be not reasonable.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain This parable, which (like many of our Saviour's parables)…
This parable, which (like many of our Saviour's parables) is borrowed from the husbandman's calling, is ushered in with a solemn preface demanding attention, He that has ears to hear, let him hear, hear and understand, Isa 28:23.
I. The parable here is plain enough, that the husbandman applies himself to the business of his calling with a great deal of pains and prudence, secundum artem - according to rule, and, as his judgment directs him, observes a method and order in his work. 1. In his ploughing and sowing: Does the ploughman plough all day to sow? Yes, he does, and he ploughs in hope and sows in hope, Co1 9:10. Does he open and break the clods? Yes, he does, that the land may be fit to receive the seed. And when he has thus made plain the face thereof does he not sow his seed, seed suitable to the soil? For the husbandman knows what grain is fit for clayey ground and what for sandy ground, and, accordingly, he sows each in its place - wheat in the principal place (so the margin reads it), for it is the principal grain, and was a staple commodity of Canaan (Eze 27:17), and barley in the appointed place. The wisdom and goodness of the God of nature are to be observed in this, that, to oblige his creatures with a grateful variety of productions, he has suited to them an agreeable variety of earths. 2. In his threshing, Isa 28:27, Isa 28:28. This also he proportions to the grain that is to be threshed out. The fitches and the cummin, being easily got out of their husk or ear, are only threshed with a staff and a rod; but the bread-corn requires more force, and therefore that must be bruised with a threshing instrument, a sledge shod with iron, that was drawn to and fro over it, to beat out the corn; and yet he will not be ever threshing it, nor any longer than is necessary to loosen the corn from the chaff; he will not break it, or crush it, into the ground with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it to pieces with his horsemen; the grinding of it is reserved for another operation. Observe, by the way, what pains are to be taken, not only for the earning, but for the preparing of our necessary food; and yet, after all, it is meat that perishes. Shall we then grudge to labour much more for the meat which endures to everlasting life? Bread-corn is bruised. Christ was so; it pleased the Lord to bruise him, that he might be the bread of life to us.
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II. The interpretation of the parable is not so plain. Most interpreters make it a further answer to those who set the judgments of God at defiance: "Let them know that as the husbandman will not be always ploughing, but will at length sow his seed, so God will not be always threatening, but will at length execute his threatenings and bring upon sinners the judgments they have deserved; but in wisdom, and in proportion to their strength, not that they may be ruined, but that they may be reformed and brought to repentance by them." But I think we may give this parable a greater latitude in the exposition of it. 1. In general, that God who gives the husbandman this wisdom is, doubtless, himself infinitely wise. It is God that instructs the husbandman to discretion, as his God, Isa 28:26. Husbandmen have need of discretion wherewith to order their affairs, and ought not undertake that business unless they do in some measure understand it; and they should by observation and experience endeavour to improve themselves in the knowledge of it. Since the king himself is served of the field, the advancing of the art of husbandry is a common service to mankind more than the cultivating of most other arts. The skill of the husbandman is from God, as every good and perfect gift is. This takes off somewhat of the weight and terror of the sentence passed on man for sin, that when God, in execution of it, sent man to till the ground, he taught him how to do it most to his advantage, otherwise, in the greatness of his folly, he might have been for ever tilling the sand of the sea, labouring to no purpose. It is he that gives men capacity for this business, an inclination to it, and a delight in it; and if some were not by Providence cut out for it, and mad to rejoice (as Issachar, that tribe of husbandmen) in their tents, notwithstanding the toil and fatigue of this business, we should soon want the supports of life. If some are more discreet and judicious in managing these or any other affairs than others are, God must be acknowledged in it; and to him husbandmen must seek for direction in their business, for they, above other men, have an immediate dependence upon the divine Providence. As to the other instance of the husbandman's conduct in threshing his corn, it is said, This also comes forth from the Lord of hosts, Isa 28:29. Even the plainest dictate of sense and reason must be acknowledged to come forth from the Lord of hosts. And, if it is from him that men do things wisely and discreetly, we must needs acknowledge him to be wise in counsel and excellent in working. God's working is according to his will; he never acts against his own mind, as men often do, and there is a counsel in his whole will: he is therefore excellent in working, because he is wonderful in counsel. 2. God's church is his husbandry, 1 Co. 3. 9 If Christ is the true vine, his Father is the husbandman (Joh 15:1), and he is continually by his word and ordinances cultivating it. Does the ploughman plough all day, and break the clods of his ground, that it may receive the seed, and does not God by his ministers break up the fallow ground? Does not the ploughman, when the ground is fitted for the seed, cast in the seed in its proper soil? He does so, and so the great God sows his word by the hand of his ministers (Mat 13:19), who are to divide the word of truth and give every one his portion. Whatever the soil of the heart is, there is some seed or other in the word proper for it. And, as the word of God, so the rod of God is thus wisely made use of. Afflictions are God's threshing-instruments, designed to loosen us from the world, to separate between us and our chaff, and to prepare us for use. And, as to these, God will make use of them as there is occasion; but he will proportion them to our strength; they shall be no heavier than there is need. If the rod and the staff will answer the end, he will not make use of his cart-wheel and his horsemen. And where these are necessary, as for the bruising of the bread-corn (which will not otherwise be got clean from the straw), yet he will not be ever threshing it, will not always chide, but his anger shall endure but for a moment; nor will he crush under his feet the prisoners of the earth. And herein we must acknowledge him wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow?.... Or,…
Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow?.... Or, "every day"; he ploughs in order to sow; by ploughing he prepares the ground for sowing, that is his end in ploughing; and he may plough a whole day together when he is at it, but he does not plough every day in the year; he has other work to do besides ploughing, as is later mentioned; such as breaking of clods, sowing seed, and threshing the grain after it is ripe, and reaped, and gathered. The prophet signifies that the Lord, like a ploughman, had different sorts of work; he was not always doing one and the same thing; and particularly, that he would not be always admonishing and threatening men, and making preparation for his judgments, but in a little time he would execute them, signified by after metaphors:
doth he open and break the clods of his ground? he does, with a mallet or iron bar, or with the harrow; whereby the ground is made even, and so more fit for sowing. The Targum interprets the whole in a mystical sense, of the instructions of the prophets, thus,
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"at all times the prophets prophesy to teach, if perhaps the ears of sinners may be opened to receive instruction;''
and it may be applied to the work of the Spirit of God upon men's hearts, by the ministry of the word: the heart of man is like the "fallow ground", hard and obdurate, barren and unfruitful; the ministry of the word is the "plough", and ministers are the "ploughmen"; but it is the Spirit of God that makes their ministrations useful, for the conviction of the mind, the pricking of the heart, and breaking it in pieces; see Jer 4:3.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 23. Give ye ear, and hear my voice…
Verse 23. Give ye ear, and hear my voice - "Listen ye, and hear my voice"] The foregoing discourse, consisting of severe reproofs, and threatenings of dreadful judgments impending on the Jews for their vices, and their profane contempt of God's warnings by his messengers, the prophet concludes with an explanation and defence of God's method of dealing with his people in an elegant parable or allegory; in which he employs a variety of images, all taken from the science of agriculture. As the husbandman uses various methods in preparing his land, and adapting it to the several kinds of seeds to be sown, with a due observation of times and seasons; and when he hath gathered in his harvest, employs methods as various in separating the corn from the straw and the chaff by different instruments, according to the nature of the different sorts of grain; so God, with unerring wisdom, and with strict justice, instructs, admonishes, and corrects his people; chastises and punishes them in various ways, as the exigence of the case requires; now more moderately, now more severely; always tempering justice with mercy; in order to reclaim the wicked, to improve the good, and, finally, to separate the one from the other.
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Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Isa 28:23-25. Give ye ear — Observe what I…
Isa 28:23-25. Give ye ear — Observe what I say, and do you judge if it be not reasonable. “We have here the last member of this section, in which this severe judgment of God, denounced in the preceding verses, is defended by a parable taken from agriculture, wherein the prophet represents allegorically the intentions and methods of the divine judgments.” “As the husbandman uses various methods in preparing his land, and adapting it to the several kinds of seed to be sown, with a due observation of times and seasons; and when he hath gathered in his harvest, employs methods as various in separating the corn from the straw and the chaff by different instruments, according to the nature of the different sorts of grain; so God, with unerring wisdom and with strict justice, instructs, admonishes, and corrects his people; chastises and punishes them in various ways, as the exigence of the case requires; now more moderately, now more severely; always tempering judgment with mercy; in order to reclaim the wicked, to improve the good; and finally, to separate the one from the other.” — Bishop Lowth.
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 Give ye ear - In this verse the prophet…
Give ye ear - In this verse the prophet introduces an important and striking illustration drawn from the science of agriculture. It is connected with the preceding part of the chapter, and is designed to show the propriety of what the prophet had said by an appeal to what they all observed in the cultivation of their lands. The previous discourse consists mainly of reproofs and of threatenings of punishment on God’s people for their profane contempt of the messengers of God. He had threatened to destroy their nation, and so remove them for a time to a distant land. This the prophet had himself said Isa 28:21 was his ‘strange work.’ To vindicate this and to show the propriety “of God’s adopting every measure, and of not always pursuing the same course in regard to his people,” he draws an illustration from the farmer. He is not always doing the same thing. He adopts different methods to secure a harvest.
He adapts his plans to the soil and to the kind of grain; avails himself of the best methods of preparing the ground, sowing the seed, collecting the harvest, and of separating the grain from the chaff. He does not always plow; nor always sow; nor always thresh. He does not deal with all kinds of land and grain in the same way. Some land he plows in one mode, and some in another; and in like manner, some grain he threshes in one mode, and some in another - adapting his measures to the nature of the soil, and of the grain. Some grain he beats out with a flail; some he bruises; but yet he will be careful not to break the kernel, or destroy it in threshing it. However severe may appear to be his blows, yet his object is not to crush and destroy it Isa 28:28, but it is to remove it from the chaff, and to save it. In all this he acts the part of wisdom, for God has taught him what to do Isa 28:26, Isa 28:29. So, says the prophet, God will not deal with all of his people in the same manner, nor with them always in the same mode. He will vary his measures as a farmer does. When mild and gentle measures will do, he will adopt them. When severe measures are necessary, he will resort to them. His object is not to destroy his people, anymore than the object of the farmer in threshing is to destroy his grain. The general dedicate the propriety of God’s engaging in what the prophet calls his ‘strange act,’ and ‘strange work,’ in punishing his people. The allegory is one of great beauty, and its pertinency and keeping are maintained throughout; and it furnishes a most important practical lesson in regard to the mode in which God deals with his people.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain 23 Give ye ear, and hear my voice;
THE CHASTISEMENT IN MEASURE
Isa_28:23-29
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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
Isa_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.”
Isa_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 (Isa_28:1-4) without a consolatory conclusion (Isa_28:5-6), so he cannot conclude the word directed against Jerusalem (Isa_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 (Isa_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 (Isa_28:24). No, he casts into the bosom of the earth good seed of various kinds (Isa_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 (Isa_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 (Isa_28:27). Even the corn-fruits that yield bread are not so threshed that the grain is crushed thereby (Isa_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 (Isa_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.
Isa_28:23-25. The summons to pay attention (comp. as to the words 1, 2 and Isa_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 Isa_28:24, i.e., continually, perpetually. The expression is found in Isaiah usually in this signification Isa_51:13; Isa_52:5; Isa_62:6; Isa_65:2; Isa_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 Isa_28:24 (Jer_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. Exo_28:9; Exo_28:36; 1Ki_7:36, et saepe.שִׂדִּדִoccare, to harrow, besides here only Job_39:10; Hos_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 Isa_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. Isa_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.
Isa_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. Pro_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; Amo_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 (Pro_26:14; Eze_41:24). יחבט comp. on Isa_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. Isa_30:23; Isa_36:17; Gen_47:17; Psa_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 Isa_41:15. הָמַם, concitare, to drive, only here in Isaiah. Isa_28:29נג זאת וגו׳ namely, this procedure of the farmer, comp. ver, 26, יוֹרֶנּוּ. That the punishments spoken of Isa_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 Isa_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; Pro_2:7; Mic_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 Isa_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 Isa_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 (Pro_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 (1Ti_3:2-3).” Renner. Can. Apost. Isaiah 53 : “Si clericus in caupona comedens deprehensus fuerit, segregetur, paeterquam si in diversorio publico in via propter necessitatem diverterit.” Song of Solomon 1 : “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. Isa_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. Isa_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; Lam_3:63; Psa_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 (2Pe_3:3)? Cramer.”
4. Isa_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 (2Th_2:10).” Cramer.
5. On Isa_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 (Joh_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 Isa_28:16. “Christ is the head and foundation-stone of the Christian Church, and another foundation cannot be laid (1Co_3:11; Act_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 (Heb_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 Isa_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 Isa_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 Isa_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 Isa_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 (Isa_63:10); it is a work that all the neighbors will stand amazed at. Deu_29:24.” Henry.—D. M.]
11. On Isa_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 Isa_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 (Psa_129:3). The seed is the imperishable word of God (1Pe_1:23). The rain is the Holy Ghost who gives the increase (Isa_44:3; 1Co_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 Isa_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. (Isa_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 Isa_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 Isa_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 Mat_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 Isa_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 (Isa_28:15), b. as to its consequences (Isa_28:17 b–20). 2) The true foundation: a. wherein it consists (Isa_28:16), b. the conditions of its efficacy (giving heed to the word, believing), c. its effects.
4. On Isa_28:16-17. The foundation and corner-stone of the Christian Church: 1) Who He is (Mat_21:42; Act_4:11; Rom_9:33; 1Pe_2:6 sq.). 2) How we partake of His blessing (He who believes flees not). 3) What salvation He brings us (Isa_28:17). Isa_28:16 is often used as a text for discourses at the laying of the foundation-stone of churches.
5. On Isa_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 Isa_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 Isa_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. 1Co_3:9. Paul tells the Corinthians: Ye are God’s γεώργιον, God’s tilled land. Christ has called His Father the γεωργός, the husbandman, Joh_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. Heb_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.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Calling attention to the following illustration from husbandry (Psa…
Calling attention to the following illustration from husbandry (Psa 49:1-2). As the husbandman does his different kinds of work, each in its right time and due proportion, so God adapts His measures to the varying exigencies of the several cases: now mercy, now judgments; now punishing sooner, now later (an answer to the scoff that His judgments, being put off so long, would never come at all, Isa 5:19); His object being not to destroy His people any more than the farmer's object in threshing is to destroy his crop; this vindicates God's "strange work" (Isa 28:21) in punishing His people. Compare the same image, Jer 24:6; Hos 2:23; Mat 3:12.
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 23. Give ye ear… hear my speech — It…
23. Give ye ear… hear my speech — It might seem, and properly, that the prophet’s address has closed, and he enters here on a new view, a relieving side to the woe. He calls attention to a parable taken from the common work of the husbandman, to illustrate that it is not always God’s way merely to punish. He does this only to the wholly incorrigible; these he destroys. Those less so, he corrects simply to benefit.
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 23. The introduction to the parable; cf. ch. Isa_32:9.
23. The introduction to the parable; cf. ch. Isa_32:9.
23–29. A parable derived from husbandry. The motive of its insertion in this place was probably the different treatment meted out to Samaria and to Jerusalem. The precise point of the analogy is somewhat uncertain; but perhaps we may interpret the thought as follows. There are two parts. The first (Isa_28:24-26) appears to justify Jehovah’s procedure by the end He has in view. As the farmer does not go on ploughing for ever out of a mere blind passion for ploughing, but ploughs in order to sow; so Jehovah’s work of judgment is to issue in the preparation of a seed-plot, and in due time ploughing will give place (in the case of Judah) to sowing. The second (Isa_28:27-29) draws the lesson that the operation of threshing varies with the material to be operated on. The delicate fennel, e.g. would be destroyed by the rough implements used on coarser grain; and in Judah there is (what there was not in Samaria) the tender growth of the “holy seed,” the nucleus of the true Israel, for whose sake judgment must be tempered with mercy.
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 (23) Give ye ear . . .—The words remind…
(23) Give ye ear . . .—The words remind us of the style of the “wisdom” books of the Old Testament (Pro_2:1; Pro_4:1; Pro_5:1; Psa_34:11) in which Isaiah had been trained. Isaiah is about to set before those who have ears to hear a parable which he does not interpret, and which will, therefore, task all their energies. The idea that lies at the root of the parable is like that of Mat_16:2-4, that men fail to apply in discerning the signs of the times the wisdom which they practise or recognise in the common phenomena of nature and the tillage of the soil. As that tillage presents widely varied processes, differing with each kind of grain, so the sowing and the threshing of God’s spiritual husbandry presents a like diversity of operations. What that diversity indicates in detail the prophet proceeds to show with what may again be called a Dante-like minuteness.
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. 23-29. A PARABLE TO COMFORT BELIEVERS. Isaiah is…
Vers. 23-29. A PARABLE TO COMFORT BELIEVERS. Isaiah is always careful to intermingle promises with his threats, comfort with his denunciations. Like his great Master, of whom he prophesied, he was fain not to "break the bruised reed" or "quench the smoking flax." When he had searched men"s wounds with the probe, he was careful to pour in oil and wine. So now, having denounced the sinners of Judah through three long paragraphs (vers. 7-22), he has a word of consolation and encouragement for the better disposed, whose hearts he hopes to have touched and stirred by his warning. This consolation he puts in a parabolic form, leaving it to their spiritual insight to discover the meaning.
Give ye ear. (comp. Psa_49:1 Psa_78:1) A preface of this kind, enjoining special attention and thought, was appropriate to occasions when instruction was couched in a parabolic form.
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Vers. 23-29. Proverbial lore.
The ploughman"s activity and the thresher"s are set before the people as a parable of Israel"s tribulations. At least, this is one of the views of the passage.
I THE PURPOSE OF AFFLICTION. It is from God, and the end ever kept in view is the good of the soul and its productiveness. The ploughman does not plough for ploughing"s sake. He opens the soil, turns up the furrows, breaks the clods with the harrow, and all to prepare for the sowing of the seed. And so far the tiller is an image of God and of his operations on the spirit of man. There is seeming severity of method, but ever beneficence in the end. Again, there is variety of method in God"s husbandry of the soul. As the farmer adapts his plans to the soil and to the kind of grain, selects the best modes of preparing the ground, of sowing the grain, of collecting the harvest, of separating the corn from the chaff. "He does not always plough, nor always sow, nor always thresh. He does not deal with all lands and all grains in the same way. Some he threshes in one mode, some in another, but he will be careful not to break the grain or destroy it in threshing it. However severe may appear to be his blows, his object is not to crush and destroy the grain, but to remove it from the chaff and save it. In all this he acts the part of wisdom, for God has taught him what to do. So with God.
II THE WISDOM OF THE DIVINE HUSBANDMAN. The prophet seems struck with the power of the analogy he has drawn; and we notice his large conception of revelation." It is a want of reason, as it seems to us, in what we suffer that gives rise to impatience. To detect wisdom in all we suffer is to know calm and peace in the soul"s depths. Let us learn, then:
1. That there is a reason at the bottom of the mystery of all we suffer, though we may not be able to search it out and make it plain to ourselves. For our own good, or for the good of others in the scheme of providence, we must undergo and endure. Generally, perhaps, we may detect in the nature of the chastisement the nature of the sin.
2. We may expect variety of trial. This means variety of experience, of knowledge. And every such experience, manfully and dutifully outlived, brings fresh access of hope to the soul. "Tribulation" is an expressive word; it is the threshing and sifting process that must ever go on, to fit us for the garner of eternity.
3. It is not the design of God to crush us. He will not always chide, nor always bruise, will remit his strokes when they have had their due effect.
4. In patience, then, let us possess our souls. As the homely proverb says, Patience is a plaster for all sores," and "All things come round to him that waits." We may be here more to be acted upon than to act; to submit to a probation, the fruit and result of which will be brought to light in some future sphere of service. J.
Vers. 23-29. Divine discrimination.
There are two preliminary lessons we may gather from these verses before we pluck the principal one.
I THAT IN THE ACTS AND INDUSTRIES OF MAN WE MAY FIND APT ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE WISDOM OF GOD. "Give ear and hear" (ver. 23). There is something well worth observing in human husbandry; it will teach the student a useful lesson respecting the ways of God. Not only from the lilies of the field and from the birds of the air, but also from the arts and industries of man, come suggestions which will explain Divine providence and give rest to the troubled mind.
II THAT AGRICULTURE AFFORDS ONE PROOF OF THE PRESENCE AND POWER OF A DIVINE INTELLIGENCE. How is it that, while the birds and the beasts continue through all succeeding ages to supply their wants by the same unchanging processes, man is ever moving forward? From hunting to grazing, from grazing to agriculture, he ascends; and in agriculture he shows a discretion and a versatility which are striking to all who have eyes to see and souls to learn. The fact is that man is taught of God. "His God doth instruct him," etc. (ver. 26); it comes from him who is "wonderful in counsel" (ver. 29). The intelligence, the shrewdness, the inventiveness, the patience, the foresight, which are manifested in husbandry, go far to assure us that God is near us, laying his hand upon us, touching the springs of our mind, calling forth from us intellectual and moral faculties which, though immeasurably inferior, are yet akin to his own.
III THAT GOD IS SHOWING A CAREFUL DISCRIMINATION IN THE TREATMENT OF HIS ERRING CHILDREN. This is the lessen of the prophet"s illustration: the husbandman only ploughs till he is ready to sow; he always threshes with the instrument which is suitable, adjusting his means to the character of the corn; he orders everything with careful, discriminating consideration of what is best at the particular time with the particular object. So carefully, so wisely, so tenderly, does God deal with us.
1. He mingles mercies with judgments, light with shade, hope with fear: He does not always chide." He sows as well as ploughs.
2. He places us in spheres that suit us; some in the more prominent, others in the more humble, parts of the field (ver. 25).
3. He applies his chastisement according to our nature and our character (vers. 27, 28): to some to the more hardened and abandoned he administers his severer blows; to others to his people who, though his people, have much yet to learn he sends the milder and gentler measures of rebuke; on them he lays his hand more tenderly.
Learn:
1. That God, in chastisement, is seeking fruit the harvest of love, of trust, of obedience, of service.
2. That if he deals severely with us, it is because severity is needed for the high purpose he has before him.
3. That he will never deal too rigorously with any one of his children. C.
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 The ploughman
Isa_28:23-29
The ploughman
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The parable of the ploughman and the thresher
1.
The general drift of the parable is obvious. The husbandman does not forever vex and wound the tender bosom of the earth with the keen edge of the ploughshare or the sharp teeth of the harrow. He ploughs only that he may sow; he harrows the ground only that he may produce a level and unclodded surface on which to cast his seeds. And when he sows, he gives to every seed its appropriate place and usage. He scatters the dill and strews the cummin broadcast; but the wheat he sets, according to the Oriental fashion, in long rows, and the barley in a place specially marked out for it, so marked as to exclude the borders of the field: and here, along the edges of the field, where it is most likely to be bitten or trampled by passing beasts, he sows the less valuable spelt. And this he does because God has given him discretion. Is God, then, less wise than the husbandman whom He has taught? So, again, when the harvest is gathered in, the wise husbandman still varies and adapts his means to his end. He does not go on threshing forever; his single aim is to separate the chaff from the wheat, to save as much of the grain as he can, and to save it in the best condition he can, that it may be gathered into his garner. And he thus varies his modes of treatment, and adapts them to the several kinds of seeds, because God has given him sagacity and wisdom. Will God, then, who gave the husbandman this sagacity, be less observant of time and measure? Will He crush and waste the precious grain of His threshing floor?
2. Nor is the historical application of the parable difficult to recover. Isaiah had to warn and admonish the chosen nation at a period in which they were utterly corrupt, when the judges took bribes and the priests mocked at the Word of the Lord, and the very prophets saw lying visions, or pretended to see them, and the people had made a covenant with Death and Hades. He had to threaten them with disaster on disaster. So corrupt were they, however, that they made a jest of him for his fidelity to their King and God. In their drunken carousals the priests and prophets mimicked and burlesqued the simplicity and directness of his speech, and turned his warnings into a theme for laughter and derision. But even in this godless and scoffing age there was a remnant faithful among the faithless, who were true to God and to the Word which He sent by the prophet. Were they to be consumed in the fire of the Divine indignation against the popular sins? Or, if they were preserved, were they to stand by and see the elect nation destroyed out of its place? Was there no hope for them? none even for the nation at large! There was hope; and that they might see it and be sustained by it in the cloudy and dark day of judgment, Isaiah discloses to them, in his parable, the secret of the Divine administration, namely, that judgment is mercy, and that it prepares the way for a mercy more open and full than itself. But the prophet has a message to the faithful remnant, as well as to the nation at large. And to them his message is, that even the good grain must be threshed, that even those who are faithful to Jehovah must share in the judgments which are about to fall on the entire nation. They cannot be exempted from the misery of the time; they must suffer, as for their own sins, so also for the sins of their neighbours. But this is their comfort, that the Divine Husbandman measures out His strokes with wisdom and grace. God is but separating that which is good in those whom He loves from that which is evil and imperfect in them; and, even in this process of separation, He will not lay upon them more than they are able to bear.
3. So that, in this parable, the mystery of the Divine providence is laid open, its secret disclosed. All ploughing is for sowing; all threshing is intended for the preservation of the grain. When God chastens us, it is not because He means to destroy us, but because He has set His heart on saving us, because He has appointed us to life and not to death. Nor are the ordinances and chastening of His providence arbitrary and without discrimination. He employs various methods, sends sorrows of all sorts and sizes, that He may adapt Himself to every mans needs, and to all our varieties of place, time, and circumstance. Cure sin and you cure sorrow, say the reason and conscience of the world: and the sorrow comes that the sin may be cured, adds the prophet; the very miseries that spring from evil are intended to eradicate the evil from which they spring. It was in the strength of this sublime conception of the ministry of pain and sorrow that the Hebrew prophets met the terrible miseries they were called to endure and behold. (S. Cox, D. D.)
The spiritual power
A knowledge of agriculture is almost essential to the right appreciation of many portions of the Bible.
I. THE PROCESS OF SOWING IMPLIES A SOIL PREPARED FOR THE SEED. The reception of the Gospel implies preceding thought, reflection, and resolution; which may be beautifully and characteristically expressed by the agricultural term, cultivation.
II. THE PROCESS OF SOWING IMPLIES SEED ADAPTED TO THE SOIL. There is a variety of seed mentioned in the text, and modem as well as ancient agriculture verifies the truth of the prophets description.
1. Let the seed for the mind be marked as with a seal. As the ancients chose the best of their crops for seed, so let the truths selected for the mind be of the highest and holiest description.
2. Let the seed for the mind be varied. The Word of God, independent of other sources, furnishes a great variety of truths to suit the soul in every conceivable state. And the same truth is set forth in many different ways, and couched under many different figures, to fit all descriptions of minds.
III. THE PROCESS OF SOWING IMPLIES A SUITABLE SEASON. Men do not sow at all times. There k a time to sow, and a time to reap. So there is a season for sowing the good seed of the kingdom. Life is that season.
IV. THE SOWING PROCESS IMPLIES SKILL AND FAITH. All are sowers in the moral sense. Some, however, are not skilful sowers; and what an abundance of seed they destroy! They have great privileges, high immunities, transcendently over towering those of their fellow men; and yet it is to be feared they will reap but a poor harvest. But it is delightful to know, that others, with few privileges, and comparatively few opportunities, am sowing in their own minds, and the minds of others, the seeds of truth; and by their skilful sowing will reap a great harvest of future glory. (A. Gray, M. A.)
The discreet ploughman
The drift of these words is to comfort Gods children in afflictions; and, because when one is sorrowful, weak, taken up and over pressed with grief, we are then unfit and incapable of instruction, the anguish of the suffering destroying our attention, He therefore says, doubling it four times, Give ye ear, hear My voice, hearken ye, and hear My voice; wherein He insinuates that the matter He is about to deliver requires attention.
1. The only way to quiet ones heart, and pacify one in all distresses, is to hearken what God says.
(1) Because Gods Word will work faith, which does purify the heart, overcome the world, and quench the fiery darts of Satan.
(2) It will teach a man wisdom, whence and why it comes, and that struggling with God is in vain, and that in so doing we shall have the worse.
(3) It will be a means to work patience in the heart.
(4) It will make us go to God and pray, and prayer will bring comfort and ease to the heart ere long.
2. All Gods children must be ploughed.
3. God will make a sweet and seasonable end of afflicting His children. He doth correct us for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.
4. When the Lord hath made us plain, and hath filled us with hearts to receive good seed, then is the time of rest.
5. When God hath humbled us by His Word, then He will furnish and arm us with His Word, and enable us with strength that way. Many heaths do meet with streams and floods of water, and yet are nothing the better nor more fruitful; but Gods arable, the saints, are ploughed and instructed, as the Psalmist speaks: Blessed is the man whom Thou correctest, and teachest in Thy law, etc. To have the one without the other is nothing, and does no good, but when correction and teaching go together, then one sees all the good of affliction, and why God sent it upon him.
6. Skill in husbandry is the gift of God; wisdom must come from Him.
7. All Gods grain needs threshing and ploughing, and as they need it, so they shall have it.
8. The best grain shall have the sorest trial and hardest pressure. The fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, but are beaten with a staff; neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin, but beaten with a rod; but the wheat must have the wheel go on it. The meaning is an allusion unto that manner of the ancient Jews in treading their wheat, as appears by that precept: Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox or the ass that treadeth down thy corn (Deu_25:4), for then the oxen, drawing a wheel over the wheat, did so bruise it, but not break it.
9. God Almighty knows best, and He appoints what shall be the means, time, and measure of the trials of His children.
10. God, in the chastisements, trials, and afflictions of His elect, hath wonderful wisdom and power beyond our understanding. He knows not only which is the best way to lead us to Heaven, but also He is excellent in working, to bring His counsel to pass. See it in examples. As in Joseph, appointed to be the greatest, save Pharaoh, in all Egypt. So David, after he was anointed king, in a state of honour and all pomp and pleasure, how was he vexed and ploughed with many crosses!
11. Nothing can stay Him from working, to hinder our comfort and deliverance in due time. Why? Because He is the Lord of hosts, and all the creatures must do what He wills. (R. Sibbes, D. D.)
The voice of God in the tillage of the field
The Scriptures are full of the fresh air of the country; it is easy to see that many of the writers of them were country people, or, if not, at least went about the world with their eyes open, and had a keen interest in those matters of the street and the field that make up the life of the people. When Moses described the Land of Promise to the Israelites it was a husbandmans description that he gave of it. It was a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olives and honey. The Psalmists looked out upon the open face of nature, and saw in it a world eloquent of God--the dew and the rain, the valleys and the hills, the lilies and the cedars spake of Him. He made the earth soft with showers, and blessed the springing thereof. One prophet describes the evil case of the people in this way: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. Another calls the same people to repentance: Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap according to mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you The great Lord Himself, standing in the midst of His worlds, bade men consider the lilies of the field, and in His doctrine said, Behold, a sower went forth to sow. And when Isaiah, in the words before us, draws out a detailed account of the operations of husbandry, in order to drive home lessons in Divine things, he was well within a long line of precedents. (E. Medley, B. A.)
Gods processes of moral and spiritual husbandry
I. THERE IS AN ELEMENT OF TIMELINESS IN GODS WORKING. Doth the ploughman plough continually to sow? Doth he continually open and break the clods of his ground? That is, is the man always at one thing, forever engaged in one line of work? Is there not order, is there not succession, are there not appointed seasons? Men do not plough at midsummer, and reap at Christmas. There is a time, a day, an hour, and the careful husbandman, who would make the most of his opportunity, must submit to this element of timeliness. He must have his spells of hard work, and his days of comparative inaction. And herein he is not exceptional, this tidal system holds good in all spheres. Is it not so very evidently in the general life of man! Is there not there a sowing time, a most blessed spring tide; is there not a period of watching and waiting, and anxious carefulness, and then, by and by, the harvest? Ay; and when the spring time is neglected, then by no effort, and by no tears, can the loss be retrieved. It is so in the fife of the spirit. Looking at the facts as we find them, and they are of God, is there not the element of timeliness there? There are tides of the Spirit; seasons when repentance and faith are easy; seasons when Heaven seems very near to this world, and by a step we find ourselves in the presence of Christ. There are days of the Son of Man, the dew sparkles upon the grass, the sun rises without clouds, and sheds a tender light. God and Christ, indeed, are no more real, no more actual than they always are, but they are more real to us. And then all is different, we come into another world. But what are all these facts of life but so many expressions or the higher fact, that there is an element of timeliness in the working of God Himself? The urgent lesson from this fact is this--let us work while we work, let us catch the opportunity on the wing.
II. THERE IS AN ELEMENT OF VARIETY IN GODS WORKING. Through multiplied detail does the prophet enforce this fact. Different sorts of seed are sown in a different fashion. And a like variety obtains when the harvesting comes; one is dealt with after this manner and another after that. And has not the Creator therein given us a visible example of the methods He pursues in that great field wherein He is the husbandman, and we are me husbandry? He has no fear of precedent, He works out His end in every variety of method. The life of Christ, as that stands recorded in the Gospels, supplies the confirming illustration! Run over in your thought His dealings with Nathanael, and Peter, and Thomas, and John. See how He handled Nicodemus and Mary of Bethany. He cast truth into their minds in a different way, and wrought for the spiritual harvest just as variously. From all of which there comes the Divine voice that bids us, above all things, be simple, be natural, not striving after another type and style of experience than that which is our own. If we are true to ourselves and to our God, we shall have our own experience, that which for us is most fitting and the best.
III. GODS WORKING IS A PROCESS. Your parable is full of method, of succession, of processes. And every ploughing time, every sowing, and every reaping, are but visible examples of what happens in the higher field of Gods activity in the spirits of men. Conscience grows, character grows; light comes slowly, there is dawn, twilight, the mellow morning, and the golden day. There is no antagonism between nature and grace, between God speaking in nature and God speaking in the life and death of His Son. (E. Medley, B. A.)
Physical husbandry the effect and emblem of Divine teaching
I. THAT PHYSICAL HUSBANDRY IS THE EFFECT OF DIVINE TEACHING. How did man come to know that by depositing a seed in a soil which had been dressed after a certain fashion, that solitary seed would produce thirty, sixty, or a hundred, fold? We are familiar with the operation now, and the wonderfulness does not strike us; but, antecedently, nothing seems to us more marvellous. Whence, then, came this great agricultural truth? It is not innate, nor of necessary discovery. The text gives the most satisfactory answer: His God doth instruct him. The point suggested: and which we wish to insist upon, is that all true secular ideas, as well as spiritual, are from God. Christians refer true ideas of worship to God, but not true ideas of commerce, agriculture, navigation, medicine, architecture, and the like. In fact, they do not regard God as having much to do with the practical mind of this working world.
1. Our position is suggested by a priori reasoning. One might justly infer that He who gave us an organisation, which so connects us with the material world as to render a certain course of conduct indispensable to our physical well-being, would give us some ideas to guide us in the matter, and the more so when we remember that the welfare of the soul itself greatly depends upon the condition of the body.
2. Our position is sustained by Scripture. There are specific examples in the Bible, of Gods condescending to teach men secular work, such as the building of the ark and the tabernacle, and the passages are numerous which imply that God acts upon the genera mind of mankind.
3. Our position is implied in the doctrine of providence. How does God interpose on behalf of men now? Not miraculously, but by giving us directing ideas. A good man is brought to a painful crisis in his business. He is filled with anxiety. One step will decide his commercial fate. What will help him? A true directing idea would dispel his darkness and clear his path. Or, a government is brought to a solemn crisis in its history. The fate of nations depends upon the next act. How can providence help it at that moment? By suggesting an idea that will reveal the true and safe path.
Ideas are our guides in all the labyrinth walks of life, and all our true ones come from God. This doctrine should lead us--
(1) To recognise God in all the true developments of mind.
(2) To seek His aid in all secular undertakings.
II. THAT PHYSICAL HUSBANDRY IS THE EMBLEM OF DIVINE TEACHING. The prophet here describes the operations of the husbandman in order to illustrate Gods method of training humanity. Two thoughts are here implied--
1. That moral fruitfulness is the great end of Gods dealings with man. What is moral fruitfulness? Right heart qualities (Gal_5:22-23).
2. That to realise this end, God employs a variety of instrumentalities. Does not thin subject impress us with the divinity of life? Man is the organ of Divine thought, and the object of Divine operation. Away with all frivolous ideas of life! Life is solemn and sacred. We are ever in close connection with the Infinite: He besets us behind and before. (Homilist.)
Breaking clods
I. THE VARIOUS WAYS IN WHICH GOD DEALS WITH HIS PEOPLE.
1. He ploughs the ground, i.e., He breaks up the hard, natural heart. For this purpose He employs--
(1) The terrors of the law,
(2) Judgments in providence.
2. The second process is harrowing. Doth He open and break the clods of His ground? When He hath made plain the face thereof, etc. The object is to bring the ploughed ground into such a condition as will best secure me proper reception of the seed. There are many clods in the human heart, too, which need to be broken.
(1) The clod of prejudice.
(2) Of pride.
3. The third process is that or sowing the seed.
4. The threshing. In order that the Christian may become useful as well as fit for Heaven, affliction is necessary.
II. THE SKILL DISPLAYED IN THESE VARIOUS OPERATIONS.
1. The skill is not expressly referred to in connection with the ploughing. But it may nevertheless be seen. Farmers know that there is such a thing as ploughing too deep, and also ploughing too shallow. In the one case the gravel may be reached and turned up to the surface, and so render the seed to be afterwards sown comparatively useless. Or, the too cold soil may be turned up, and thus the seed sown will perish. In the other case, the proper depth of the soil is not reached, and the crop will therefore be but a thin and sickly one. So it is with God in His dealings with His people. Some natures need to be thoroughly aroused, some hearts to be opened up to their very depths, in order that the Word may take root and bring forth fruit. No superficial work will do here And although Gods messengers may and often do err, God Himself never will, for He is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working. Again, other natures need to be dealt with in a different way. They require to be dealt with gently and lovingly, and the wise Husbandman acts accordingly:
2. But the skill of the farmer is referred to in this passage in connection with the sowing of the seed. Different soils require different kinds of seed, if there is to be a good crop. So does God act too. Some souls need doctrine, others history. Some need words of Divine love and pity, others the Divine warnings and threatenings.
3. The skill of the farmer is seen, too, in employing different kinds of threshing instruments for the different kinds of grain. So also does God deal with His people. Some need only a comparatively light affliction, their natures being of such a kind that treatment of a different kind would utterly overwhelm them and drive them to despair. Others need to be put into the furnace seven times heated. And it is to be observed that as the bread corn, or most precious material, gets as it were the roughest treatment, so it is Gods choice ones that are subjected to the greatest trials. (D. Macaulay, M. A.)
Inspiration in common life
Observe--
I. HOW GOD GUIDES THE LOWLIEST OF HIS CHILDREN IN ALL THE AFFAIRS OF THEIR WORLDLY LIFE. Why should we be surprised to read of inspiration in common life!
1. It arises from the fact that we distinguish between intellectual life and vulgar life, and exclude God from the latter. Inspiration is not limited to the world of scholars, scientists, painters, and musicians; God is equally in the so-called vulgar world, giving the lowliest toiler mastery in all that relates to his sphere of life. The vulgar world is vulgar no more. The whole world of human duty is one kingdom, the working out of one Divine purpose.
2. Because of our habit of distinguishing between influential life and insignificant life, and excluding God from the latter. We are not surprised to hear of God inspiring princes; it seems quite in order when God gives to Solomon supernatural enlightenment. But the ploughman seems utterly insignificant, his affairs so few and simple. But is the ploughman so utterly insignificant! The fact is, he is one of the most important characters in the world: if things go wrongly with him, they go wrongly with us all We might do without a king; we could not do without a ploughman.
3. Because of our habit of distinguishing between sacred life and secular life, and excluding God from the latter. We readily think of God inspiring the prophet and the priest. Yet the passage before us makes us feel that the ploughmans realm is not lees spiritual than that of the prophet.
II. HOW GOD GUIDES THE LOWLIEST OF HIS CHILDREN IN ALL THE AFFAIRS OF THEIR INNER LIFE. There is a great spiritual nature in the lowliest of men. We have heard of the epitaph once put over s peasant: Only a clod. I do not know whether that epitaph was written in a pathetic or in a cynical temper, but it was really very full of suggestion. What wonderful things are in a clod! All possibilities of music, colour, light, fragrance, are there, So you think you know what a clod is, do you? archly asks Schopenhauer. Indeed, we do not. It will astonish you on the morning of the resurrection to see what God will bring out of that clod. And God is ever ready to guide and save His lowly children. He makes them to know the deepest truths of revelation and spiritual life (Mat_11:25-26). All through life God continues the same gracious guidance. The Lord preserveth the simple. (W. L.Watkinson.)
Agriculture
Agriculture is the most ancient o fall pursuits, for Adam was a gardener, Cain a farmer, Abel a herdsman, and Cain did not go to live in a city or attempt to build one until after he had committed his great crime. It is not only the most ancient, but also the most necessary, and all other pursuits could be more readily spared than this. The most careless observer who walks through an agricultural show must be forcibly struck with the great importance of agriculture. All kinds of inventions, yea, almost all sciences, are consecrated to this pursuit--the products of the mine, the forest, the quarry, the hammer, forge, saw, and engine have been pressed into its service. How many kinds of toilers and artisans have brought their inventions and labour to make tilling the ground profitable? How many sciences wait reverently upon husbandry? For it geology ransacks the bowels of the earth; chemistry proclaims what nutriment certain plants absorb from soil, and what enrichment certain alkalis will give; botany collects her varied grasses to make possible the permanent pasture, on the principle of the survival of the fittest; astronomy smiles on it, and causes the sun to do morn for its prosperity than any king, however gracious, and the clouds more than any landlord, however beneficent. (F. Standfast.)
The value of agricultural labour
How foolish and sinful it is for those who possess wealth acquired by the toil of others, and who are designated independent, to despise or oppress those on whose humble toil they are indeed most dependent. What would be the value of the broad acres, if left without culture? It is the toil of the peasant which makes them productive, and which wrings from the soil those ample revenues that sustain the proprietor in luxurious ease. Of what benefit would be those pieces of silver, gold, or paper which we call cash, without indefatigable industry producing the necessaries and comfort which money brings? Would shillings and sovereigns satisfy the cravings of hunger! No more than molten gold could assuage thirst. The painter must lay down his brush and palette, the poet his pen, the philosopher suspend his experiments, and the voice of the orator be dumb, the jewelled crown become a worthless bauble, the most stately palace become a region of desolation, but for the labour of the agriculturist and fisherman. (F. Standfast.)
Interdependence of the man of leisure and the son of toil
Labour is the foundation on which the mighty fabric of human society rests, and none but the vain, proud, and foolish will overlook their obligation to the toilers. Acknowledged reciprocity of advantage should bind all classes together in one strong common bond of mutual support; for if the man of leisure is dependent on those sons of toll for the very necessity of existence, it is equally certain that to such the toilers are indebted for the social order which preserves liberty and life, for the books which inspire to intellectual elevation, and for the sciences which indefinitely expand the compass of our being. If the arch be indebted to the foundation stone for its very existence, it could not retain its graceful sweep or strength one moment without its keystone. (F. Standfast.)
Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow?--
The ploughman
I. OUR TEXT MAY BE ANSWERED IN THE AFFIRMATIVE. Yes, the ploughman does plough all day to sow. When it is ploughing time he keeps on at it till his work is ache; if it requires one day, or two days, or twenty days to finish his fields, he continues at his task while the weather permits.
1. So doth God plough the heart of man, and herein is His patience. The team was in the field in the case of some of us very early in the morning, for our first recollections have to do with conscience and the furrows of pain which it made in our youthful mind. It is a dreadful thing to have remained all unbeliever all these years; but yet the grace of God does not stop short at s certain age.
2. The text teaches perseverance on our part. Doth the ploughman plough all day? Yes, he does.
(1) Then if I am seeking Christ, ought I to be discouraged because I do not immediately find Him?
(2) The same is true in seeking the salvation of others. Ploughing is hard work; but as there will be no harvest without it let us put forth all our strength, and never flag till we have performed our Lords will, and by His Holy Spirit wrought conviction in mens souls. Some soils are very stiff, and cling together, and the labour is heart breaking; others are like the unreclaimed waste, full of roots and tangled bramble; they need a steam plough, and we must pray the Lord to make us such, for we cannot leave them untilled, and therefore we must put forth more strength that the labour may be done. I heard some time ago of a minister who called to see a poor man who was dying, but he was not able to gain admittance; he called the next morning, and some idle excuse was made so that he could not see him; he called again the next morning, but he was still refused; he went on till he called twenty times in vain, but on the twenty-first occasion he was permitted to see the sufferer, and by Gods grace he saved a soul from death. Why do you tell your child a thing twenty times? asked someone of a mother. Because, said she, I find nineteen times is not enough. We prize that which costs us labour and service, and we shall set all the higher value upon the saved ones when the Lord grants them to our efforts. It is good for us to learn the value of our sheaves by going forth weeping to the sowing. Start close to the hedge, and go right down to the bottom of the field. Plough as close to the ditch as you can, and leave small headlands. What though there are fallen women, thieves, and drunkards in the slums around, do not neglect any of them; for if you leave a stretch of land to the weeds they will soon spread amongst the wheat. When you have gone right to the end of the field once, what shall you do next? Why, just turn round, and make for the place you started from. And when you have thus been up and down, what next? Why, up and down again. And what next! Why, up and down again. You have visited that district with tracts; do it again, fifty-two times in the year--multiply your furrows. We must learn how to continue in well-doing.
II. THE TEXT MAY BE ANSWERED IN THE NEGATIVE. Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow? No, he does not always plough. After he has ploughed he breaks the clods, sows, reaps, and threshes. In the chapter before us you will see that other works of husbandry are mentioned. The ploughman has many other things to do beside ploughing. There is an advance in what he does.
1. On Gods part, there is an advance in what He does. He will not always make furrows by His chiding. He will come and cast in the precious corn of consolation, and water it with the dews of Heaven, and smile upon it with the sunlight of His grace; and there shall soon be in you, first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear, and in due season you shall joy as with the joy of harvest. But what if the ploughing should never lead to sowing; what if you should be disturbed in conscience, and should go on to resist it all? Then God will make another advance, but it will be to put up the plough, and to command the clouds that they rain no rain upon the land, and then its end is to be burned.
2. This advance is a lesson to us; for we, too, are to go forward. Dont be making furrows all day; get to your sowing. Let the ministers of Christ follow the rule of advance. Let us go from preaching the law to preaching the Gospel. You cannot get a harvest if you are afraid of disturbing the soil, nor can you save souls if you never warn them of hell fire. Still, we must not plough all day. The preaching of the law is only preparatory to the preaching of the Gospel.
3. Another lesson to those of you who are as yet hearers and nothing more. I want you to go from ploughing to something better, namely, from hearing and fearing to believing. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Spiritual husbandry
1. Never was seed or plant better adapted to the soil than the Word of God is adapted to universal man.
2. Since the Bible is adapted to our moral nature, it is ours to adapt our lives to its great teachings. If we find unseemly pride springing up in the soul, let us go and see the terrible effects of self-confidence by the Red Sea, as Pharaoh and his army sink into its depths; or by the plains of Babylon, as Nebuchadnezzar herds among the beasts. Ii you find any vice growing in rank deformity in your soul, go and look at the Deluge or the Dead Sea. If you find self-sufficiency springing up in the heart, and condemn the shortcomings of others, go and listen to the claims of God. How penetrating! far-reaching! and absolute! If everywhere around you, you see tokens and footprints of the king of terrors, in mourning garbs and joyless faces, in darkened earthly prospects, go listen to the promises of immortality, the doctrine of the resurrection. If you mark manifestation? of the being of an awful Deity, go find a near, visible, and all-beneficent Deity whose presence makes the earth itself a heaven; get proofs of His low by its being shed abroad in your own heart. Ii you see around you all nature in bondage, groaning and waiting for its redemption, go see a new heaven and a new earth, in which shall dwell righteousness. (F. Standfast.)
Beneficent ploughing
When the plough of Gods providence first cuts up a mans life, what wonder if the man should exclaim a little, yea, if he should give way to one hours grief, and say he thought he had escaped all that kind of treatment! But the man may come to himself ere eventide and say, Plough on, Lord; I want my life to be ploughed all over that it may be sown all over, and that in every corner there may be golden grain or beautiful flowers: pity me that I exclaimed when I first felt the ploughshare, Thou knowest my frame, Thou rememberest that I am but dust, but now I recollect, I put things together, I see Thy meaning; so drive on, Thou Ploughman of eternity! (J. Parker, D. D.)
The principal wheat
The principal wheat
I. The prophet mentions it as a matter of wisdom on the part of the husbandman that HE KNOWS WHAT IS THE PRINCIPAL THING TO CULTIVATE, and makes it his principal care. Here let us learn a lesson. Do keep things distinct in your minds. Sort things out, and divide and distinguish between the precious and the vile. The farmer, who finds that wheat ought to be his principal crop, makes it so, and lays himself out with that end in view: learn from this to have a main object, and to give your whole mind to it.
1. This farmer was wise, because he counted that to be principal which was the most needful. His family could do without cummin, which was but a flavouring. They certainly must have wheat, for bread is the staff of life. That which is necessary he regarded as the principal thing. Is not this common sense! A creature cannot be satisfied unless he is answering the end for which he is created; and the end of every intelligent creature is, first, to glorify God, and next, to enjoy God. Other things may he desirable, but this thing is needful Other herbs may take their place in due order, but grace is the principal wheat, and we must cultivate it.
2. This farmer was wise, because he made that to be the principal thing which was the most fit to be so. Of course, barley is useful as food, for nations have lived on barley bread, and lived healthily too; and rye has been the nutriment of millions: neither have they starved on oats and other grains. Still, give me a piece of wheaten bread, for it is the best staff for lifes journey. And what is there that is so fit for the heart, the mind, the soul of man, as to know God and His Christ! Other mental foods, such as the fruits of knowledge, and the dainties of science, excellent though they may be--are inferior nutriment and unsuitable to build up the inner manhood.
3. Moreover, this farmer was wise, because he made that the principal thing which was the most profitable. Our grandfathers to rely upon the wheat stack to pay their rent. The figure holds good with regard to spiritual religion. That is the most profitable thing.
II. The husbandman is a lesson to us because HE GIVES THIS PRINCIPAL THING THE PRINCIPAL PLACE. I find that the Hebrew is rendered by some eminent scholars, He puts the wheat into the principal place. That little handful of cummin for the wife to flavour the cakes with he grows in a corner; and the various herbs he places in their proper borders. The barley he sets in its plot, and the rye in its acre; but if there is a good hit of rich soil he appropriates it to the principal wheat. He gives his choicest fields to that which is to be the main means of his living. Hero Is a lesson for you and me. Let us give to true godliness our principal powers and abilities.
1. Let us give to the things of God our best and most intense thought.
2. Be sure, also, to yield to this subject your most earnest love.
3. Towards God and His Christ also turn your most fervent desires.
4. Then, let the Lord have the attentive respect of your life.
5. We should give to this principal wheat our most earnest labours.
6. This should also take possession of us so as to lead to our greatest sacrifices.
III. THE HUSBANDMAN SELECTS THE PRINCIPAL SEED CORN WHEN HE IS SOWING HIS WHEAT. When a farmer is setting aside wheat for sowing, he does not choose the tail corn and the worst of his produce, but if he is a sensible man he likes to sow the best wheat in the world. Let me learn that if I am going to sow to the Lord and to be a Christian, I should sow the best kind of Christianity.
1. I should try to do this by believing the weightiest doctrines. I would believe not this ism, nor that, but the unadulterated truth which Jesus taught; for a holy character will only grow by the Spirit of God out of true doctrine.
2. Next to that, we ought to sow the noblest examples.
3. We should sow the best wheat by seeing that we have the purest spirit.
4. And then, we should endeavour to live in closest communion with God. It should be our desire to rise to the highest form of spiritual life.
IV. THE HUSBANDMAN GROWS THE PRINCIPAL WHEAT WITH THE PRINCIPAL CARE. It is said that the large crops in Palestine in olden time were due to the fact that they planted the wheat. They set it in lines, so that it was not checked or suffocated by its being too thick in one place, neither was there any fear of its being too thin in another. The wheat was planted, and then streams of water were turned by the foot to each particular plant. No wonder, therefore, that the land brought forth abundantly. We should give our principal care to the principal thing. Our godliness should be carried out with discretion and care.
V. Do this, because FROM THIS YOU MAY EXPECT YOUR PRINCIPAL CROP. If religion be the principal thing, you may look to religion for your principal reward. The harvest will come to you in various ways. You will make the greatest success in this life if you wholly live to the glory of God. The Eastern farmers prosperity hinges on his wheat, and yours upon your devotion to God. In the world to come what a crop, what a harvest will come of serving the Lord! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Isa 28:23 - Isa 28:29.
Isaiah
THE HUSBANDMAN AND HIS OPERATIONS
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Isa 28:23 - Isa 28:29.
The prophet has been foretelling a destruction which he calls God’s strange act. The Jews were incredulous, ‘scornful men.’ They did not believe him; and the main reason for their incredulity was that a divine destruction of the nation was so opposite to the divine conservation of it as to amount to an impossibility. God had raised up and watched over the people. He had planted it in the mountain of His inheritance, and now was it going to be thrown down by the same hand which had built it up? Impossible.
The prophet’s answer to that question is this parable of the husbandman, who has to perform a great variety of operations. He ploughs, but that is not all. He lays aside the plough when it has done its work, and takes up the seed-basket, and, in different ways, sows different seeds, scattering some broadcast, and dropping others carefully, grain by grain, into their place-’dibbling’ it in, as we should say. But seedtime too, passes, and then he cuts down what he had so carefully sown, and pulls up what he had so sedulously planted, and, in different ways, breaks and bruises the grain. Is he inconsistent because he ploughs in winter and reaps in harvest? Does his carrying the seed-basket at one time make it impossible that he shall come with flail and threshing-oxen at another? Are not all the various operations co-operant to one end? Does not the end need them all? Is not one purpose going steadily forward through ploughing, sowing, reaping, threshing? Is not that like the work of the great Husbandman, who changes His methods and preserves His plan through them all, who has His ‘time to sow’ and His ‘time to reap,’ and who orders the affairs of men and kingdoms, for the one purpose that He may gather His wheat into His garner, and purge from it its chaff?
This parable sets forth a philosophy of the divine operations very beautiful and true, and none the less impressive for the simple garb in which it is clothed.
I. All things come from one steady, divine purpose.
We may notice in passing how reverentially the prophet believes that agriculture is taught by God. He would have said the same of cotton-spinning or coal-mining. Think how striking a figure that is, of all the world as God’s farm, where He practises His husbandry to grow the crops which He desires.
What a picture the parable gives of sedulous and patient labour for a far-off result!
It insists on the thought of one steady divine purpose ever directing the movements of the divine hand.
That is the negation of the godless theory that the affairs of men are merely the work of men, or are merely the result of impersonal causes. The world is not a jungle where any or every plant springs of itself, but it is cultivated ground which has an Owner who looks after it.
It is the affirmation that God’s action is regulated by a purpose which is intelligent, unchanging, all-embracing to us because revealed.
II. That steady purpose is man’s highest good.
The end of all the farmer’s care is the ripening of the seed. God’s purpose is our moral, intellectual, and spiritual perfecting.
Neither His own ‘glory’ nor man’s ‘happiness,’ which are taken by different schools of thought to be the divine aim in creation and providence, is an object worthy of Him or adequate to explain the facts of every man’s experience, unless both are regarded as needing man’s perfecting, for their attainment. God’s glory is to make men godlike. Man’s happiness cannot be secured without His holiness.
God has larger and nobler designs for us than merely to make us happy.
‘This is the will of God concerning you, even your sanctification.’
Nothing short of that end would be worthy of God, or would explain His methods.
III. That purpose needs great variety of processes.
This is true about nations and about individuals.
Different stages of growth need different treatment.
The parable names three operations:-
Ploughing, which is preparation;
Sowing, or casting in germinating principles;
Threshing, which is effected by tribulation, a word which means driving a ‘tribulum’ or threshing-sedge over ears of grain.
So sorrow is indispensable for our perfecting.
By it earthly affections are winnowed away, and our dependence on God increased. A certain refinement of spirit results, like the pallor on the face of a chronic invalid, which has a delicate beauty unattainted by ruddy health. A capacity for sympathy, too, is often the result of one’s own trials. Rightly borne, they tend to bend or break the will, and they teach how great it is to suffer and be strong.
But sorrow is not enough; joy is indispensable too. The crop is threshed in tribulation, but is grown mostly in sunshine. Calm, uneventful hours, continuous possession of blessings, have a ministry not less than afflictions have. The corn in the furrow, waving in the western wind, and with golden sunlight among its golden stems, is preparing for the loaf no less than when bound in bundles and lying on the threshing-floor, or cut and bruised by sharp teeth of dray or heavy hoofs of oxen, or blows of swinging flails.
So do not suppose that sorrow is the only instrument for perfecting character, and see that you do not miss the sanctifying and ripening effect of your joyous hours.
Again, different types of character require different modes of treatment. In the parable, ‘the fitches’ are sown in one fashion, and ‘the cummin’ in another the ‘wheat’ and ‘barley’ in still another; and similar variety marks the methods of separating the grain from the husk, one kind of crop being threshed another having a wheel turned upon it. Thus each of us gets the kind of joys and pains that will have most effect on us. God knows where is the tenderest spot, and makes no mistakes in His dealing. He sends us ‘afflictions sorted, sorrows of all sizes.’
Let us see that we trust to His loving and wise adaptation of our trials to our temperaments and needs. Let us see that we never let clouds obscure the clearness of our perception, or, failing perception, the serenity of our trust, that all things work together, and all work for our highest good-our being made like our Lord. We should less often complain of the mysteries of Providence if we had learned the meaning of Isaiah’s parable.
IV. All the processes end in garnering the grain.
There is a barn or storehouse for the ripened and threshed crops. The farmer’s toil and careful processes would be absurd and unintelligible if, after them all, the crop, so sedulously ripened and cultivated and cleansed, was left to rot where it fell. And no less certainly does the discipline of this life cry aloud for heaven and a conscious personal future life, if it is not to be all set down as grim irony or utterly absurd. There must be a heaven if we are not to be put to intellectual bewilderment.
What was needed for growth here drops away there, as blossoms fall when their work is done. Sunshine and rain are no more necessary when the fields are cleared and the barn-yard is filled. Much in our nature, in our earthly condition, in God’s varying processes, will drop away. When school-time is done the rod is burned. But nothing will perish that can contribute to our perfecting.
So let us ask Him to purge us with His fan in His hand now, lest we should be found at last fruitless cumberers of the ground or chaff which is rootless, and fit only to be swept out of the threshing-floor.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Chastisement of the Lord of Hosts
The Chastisement of the Lord of Hosts
v. 23. Give ye ear and hear My voice; hearken and hear My speech, close attention being demanded all the more since the illustration which now follows concerning the work of the farmer is not explained any further.
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v. 24. Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? Does he continue the same process in endless repetition? Doth he open and break the clods of his ground? by the process of harrowing. To keep on with the same work all the time would manifestly be absurd.
v. 25. When he hath made plain the face thereof, prepared the top of the ground, so that it is even, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, rather, the black cumin, and scatter the cumin, the ordinary kind, and cast in the principal wheat, planting the best grain in rows, and the appointed barley, in a place by itself, and the rye, or spelt, in their place? apparently along the edge of the field, in order to protect the nobler grains against wild animals and stray cattle.
v. 26. For his God doth instruct him to discretion, to do his work with understanding, and doth teach him. It was God who taught the rules of husbandry to man, Gen 3:23.
v. 27. For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing-instrument, the threshing-sledge, neither is a cart-wheel, the broad wheel of the threshing-wagon, turned about upon the cumin, for either one of these seeds would be crushed by such a process; but the fitches, the black cumin, are beaten out with a staff and the cumin with a rod, the threshing-staff, or flail, being used in their case
v. 28. Bread-corn is bruised, rather, "Is the bread-corn bruised?" Would a farmer be foolish enough to continue the process of threshing until the grain is crushed? The answer implied is, No; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen, as the horses trod out the grain from the husks.
v. 29. This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful In counsel and excellent in working, that is, this parable teaches the wisdom of God in the higher plane, the manner in which He deals with His harvest on earth. The Lord punishes, but only in order to bless; He threshes, but not with crushing blows, not with the purpose of destroying. His object in sending tribulation is to separate the moral chaff from the wheat and to obtain the fullness of the harvest.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
This begins a parable that ends in Isa 28:29. (See: Parables)
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Pay attention and listen to my voice; be attentive and listen to my words
These two phrases mean basically the same thing. The second phrase is used to strengthen the first. (See: Parallelism)
to my voice
Here "voice" represents what Isaiah says. AT: "to what I say" (See: Metonymy)
to my words
"to my message"
Does a farmer who plows all day to sow, only plow the ground? Does he continually break up and harrow the field?
Isaiah uses rhetorical questions to make the people think deeply. AT: "A farmer does not plow the ground over and over and continually work the soil without ever sowing seed." (See: Rhetorical Question)
translationWords
voice
word
plant
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 28:23 Listen to me: The analogy that follows was…
28:23 Listen to me: The analogy that follows was written as a wisdom poem, with Isaiah calling on his audience to pay careful attention and to discern what is right.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.