Isaiah 28:26

28:23-29 The husbandman applies to his calling with pains and prudence, in all the works of it according to their nature. Thus the Lord, who has given men this wisdom, is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in his working. As the occasion requires, he threatens, corrects, spares, shows mercy, or executes vengeance. Afflictions are God's threshing instruments, to loosen us from the world, to part between us and our chaff, and to prepare us for use. God will proportion them to our strength; they shall be no heavier than there is need. When his end is answered, the trials and sufferings of his people shall cease; his wheat shall be gathered into the garner, but the chaff shall be burned with unquenchable fire.

For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. God gives the husbandman instruction and discretion how to sow his seed, at what time, and in a proper place; for this refers to what goes before; though some think a new act is here intended, namely, threshing or beating out of corn, rendering the words, "and he" (the husbandman) "beateth it out, according to the discretion", or "judgment, his God teaches him" (h); which is expressed in general terms here, and is next particularly insisted on in the following verses Isaiah 28:27 . (h) "Excutit illud ad eam rationem, quam Deus, ipsius docet eum", Piscator, Gataker; "vel colligat", &c. Junius & Tremellius.

Isaiah 28:26 . For his God doth instruct him — The art of husbandry is so necessary for the support of human life, that all men have ascribed its original to God as the inventor and ordainer of it. The Most High hath ordained husbandry, saith the son of Sirach, Sir 7:15 . In like manner, Virgil, Georg., lib. 1. line 121: “ — — — — — — — — — Pater ipse colendi Haud facilem esse viam voluit, primusq; per artem Movit agros — — .” “Himself invented first the shining share, And whetted human industry by care; Himself did handicrafts and arts ordain; Nor suffer’d sloth to rust his active reign.” By other heathen, the invention of agriculture is ascribed to the goddess Ceres.

The sense of the words thus rendered is this, All this he performeth by that discretion which God hath put into him; and therefore be assured that God will order all his affairs with judgment, and will in due season execute the punishments which now he threatens, and will perfect his own works. But the words by some are rendered otherwise. And he beateth it out (as this word may be rendered, 1 Kings 12:11 Proverbs 19:18 29:17 ) in such sort as his God doth teach him ; in a discreet manner, which being generally mentioned here, is particularly described in the following verse.

26 . All this is done in obedience to an inherited, almost instinctive, wisdom, which rests ultimately on Divine inspiration. See Isaiah 28:29 ; and Sir 7:15 (“husbandry which the Most High hath ordained”). Verg. Georg. I. 147. to discretion ] to right , i.e. “right, or orderly, method.” The word is that usually rendered “judgment,” used here in a non-ethical application.

(26) For his God doth instruct him to discretion . . . —Better, as in the margin, with a slight variation, He treateth each as is fitting, his God instructing him. The prophet looks on the skill of the tiller of the soil, which seemed the outcome of a long experience, as nothing less than a gift of God. The legends of the Gentiles embraced that thought in the myths of Osiris and Oannes, of Dionysius and Triptolemos; Isaiah states the fact without the mythos.

For his God doth instruct him ... - Margin, 'He bindeth it in such sort as his God doth teach him.' The more correct idea is conveyed in the text. The word יסרו yiserô, properly means, he instructs, admonishes, or teaches him. The idea that skill in agriculture is communicated by God is not one that is discordant to reason, or to the general teachings of the Bible. Thus the achitectural and mechanical skill of Bezaleel and Aholiab, by which they were enabled to make the tabernacle, is said expressly to have been imparted to them by God Exodus 31:2-6 . Thus also Noah was taught how to build the ark Genesis 6:14-16 . We are not, indeed, to suppose that the farmer is inspired; or that God communicates to him by special revelation where, and when, and how he shall sow his grain, but the sense is, that God is the author of all his skill. He has endowed him with understanding, and taught him by his providence. It is by the study of what God teaches in the seasons, in the soil, in the results of experience and observation, that he has this art. He teaches him also by the example, the counsel, and even by the failures of others; and all the knowledge of agriculture that he has is to be traced up to God.

The address of the prophet is here apparently closed. But an essential ingredient is still wanting to the second half, to make it correspond to the first. There is still wanting the fringe of promise coinciding with Isaiah 28:5 , Isaiah 28:6 . The prophet has not only to alarm the scoffers, that if possible he may pluck some of them out of the fire through fear ( Judges 5:23 ); he has also to comfort believers, who yield themselves as disciples to him and to the word of God ( Isaiah 8:16 ). He does this here in a very peculiar manner. He has several times assumed the tone of the mashal, more especially in chapter 26; but here the consolation is dressed up in a longer parabolical address, which sets forth in figures drawn from husbandry the disciplinary and saving wisdom of God. Isaiah here proves himself a master of the mashal. In the usual tone of a mashal song, he first of all claims the attention of his audience as a teacher of wisdom. V. 23 "Lend me your ear, and hear my voice; attend, and hear my address!" Attention is all the more needful, that the prophet leaves his hearers to interpret and apply the parable themselves. The work of a husbandman is very manifold, as he tills, sows, and plants his field. Vv. 24-26 "Does the ploughman plough continually to sow? to furrow and to harrow his land?

Is it not so: when he levels the surface thereof, he scatters black poppy seed, and strews cummin, and puts in wheat in rows, and barley in the appointed piece, and spelt on its border? And He has instructed him how to act rightly: his God teaches it him." The ploughing (chârash) which opens the soil, i.e., turns it up in furrows, and the harrowing (siddēd) which breaks the clods, take place to prepare for the sowing, and therefore not interminably, but only so long as it necessary to prepare the soil to receive the seed. When the seed-furrows have been drawn in the levelled surface of the ground (shivvâh), then the sowing and planting begin; and this also takes place in various ways, according to the different kinds of fruit. Qetsach is the black poppy (nigella sativa, Arab. habbe soda, so called from its black seeds), belonging to the ranunculaceae. Kammōn was the cummin (cuminum cyminum) with larger aromatic seeds, Ar. kammūn, neither of them our common carraway (Kmmel, carum). The wheat he sows carefully in rows (sōrâh, ordo; ad ordinem, as it is translated by Jerome), i.e., he does not scatter it about carelessly, like the other two, but lays the grains carefully in the furrows, because otherwise when they sprang up they would get massed together, and choke one another.