Isaiah 28

Wesley’s heading for these verses is God’s providence, its work and seasons towards the church, under the figure of a husbandman. Give ear is spoken after the scoffers’ decree (v. 22); the parable is not a riddle for later empires but a call to Judah’s generation that would not hear rest (v. 12). Attention is still required.

The voice is Isaiah’s, and the speech is plow and thresh in their own land. Grace that still speaks after the covenant with death is a sincere hearing; they may yet cease from the mock.

Calvin: Isaiah makes use of a preface, as if he were about to speak of something important and very weighty; we are not wont to demand attention unless we are about to say what is very important. And yet he seems to speak of common agriculture—sowing, thrashing, and such like. The Prophet intended to direct minds to higher matters: the judgments of God, and with what wisdom God governs the world, though wicked men think everything moves by chance.

Men are dull in not understanding works so manifest, yet rash to censure what is hidden. The church hears a preface to Judah.”

Wesley: the plowman doth not spend all his time in plowing the ground; but he has several times for several works. And so God has his times and seasons for several works, and his providence is various at several times, and towards several people. Therefore those scoffing Israelites were guilty of great folly, in flattering themselves because of God’s long patience towards them; for God will certainly take a time to thresh, and break them with his judgments, as at present he plowed and harrowed them, and so prepared them for it by his threatenings. Open—understand, all day. Break—which they used to do with a kind of harrow.

Patience is genuine, and so is the coming thresh. They chose to read delay as safety (vv. 14–15). The ground being opened is Judah’s ground in that century. The church is to refuse both despair and the habit of renaming this plow every generation.

Calvin: God does not always display his hand, or constantly punish the wickedness of men; he often appears as if he did not see it, and delays the punishment of it for a time. The Lord’s forbearance is abused by wicked men. Do you not know that God has his seasons, and that he knows what he ought to do at the proper time? If ploughmen do not every day cleave the earth or break the clods, this is not want of skill; their skill requires them to desist.

What would they gain by continually turning the soil but to weary themselves and prevent fruit? The delay over Jerusalem’s scoffers is the Lord’s season, not chance.

Wesley: made plain—by breaking the clods. The wheat—the best which he chuses for seed. Barley—that proportion of barley which he appointed. Place—Hebrew, in his border; each seed in a several place. Dill, cumin, wheat, barley, and emmer are not one heap; the farmer measures.

Different seeds, different places—Judah’s field after the clods are broken. The verse stays with eighth-century husbandry under the Lord who still teaches (v. 26).

Calvin: the sower will not put into the earth as much as he can, nor throw it in at random, but will measure the ground. He will not mix various seeds, but allot one part of the field for wheat, another for vetches, and another for cummin—in measure. All kinds of grain are not treated the same.

God does not thresh cumin as wheat, nor treat Jerusalem’s scoffers as if no measure were appointed. The church reads a sower’s care in Isaiah’s hearing, not a later code for “dill.”

Wesley’s heading: the husbandman’s skill is the figure of God’s work and seasons toward the church. His God instructs him in right judgment and teaches him. The farmer’s rightness is received, not invented—Judah’s generation is being told that the God who teaches the plowman is the God who has times to plow and to thresh.

For today: instruction is sincere. The Lord who offered rest (v. 12) and laid the tried stone in Zion (v. 16) teaches the sower. They may yet be taught. It is eighth-century Judah under a God who still instructs.

Calvin: from whom did the husbandman learn these things but from God? If they are so well educated in the smallest matters, does he not know how to apply a fixed measure and equity to his works—when he ought to cut down the people, to harrow them, to thrash, what strokes and chastisements to inflict? Not only agriculture but all the arts that contribute to the advantage of mankind are the gifts of God. Men have no right to arrogate to themselves the praise of invention.

The farmer’s wisdom should restrain our presumption. If a man ignorant of agriculture laughs at furrows as sport, he is rash; how shall the Lord deal with us if we dare to find fault with his works which we do not understand? The church fears that wisdom in Judah’s field.

Wesley: a threshing instrument—made like a sledge shod with iron, drawn by men or beasts over the sheaves of corn, to bruise them and tear the grain out of them. A wheel—a lower wheel than a cart wheel, of the same form, upon which possibly the threshing instrument was drawn. Dill is beaten with a stick, cumin with a rod: the tool fits the seed.

The scoffers who wanted one overwhelming refuge (v. 15) are told God does not roll the cart over cumin. Measure is mercy before it is mockery. The verse stays with Judah’s threshing-floor in that century.

Calvin: all kinds of grain are not thrashed in the same manner. Wheat is thrashed with the wheel of a cart or wagon, vetches with a staff, and cummin with a thicker rod. He speaks according to the custom of the country.

The Lord knows what strokes suit each. Jerusalem’s dill is not crushed as bread-corn. The church hears fitted judgment in Isaiah’s land, not a puzzle for later carts.

Wesley: bruised—with a threshing instrument. Break it—understand, forever. Horses—another way of threshing out the corn, by driving horses or other cattle over the sheaves to tread it. Bread grain is threshed, but not without end; the farmer means flour, not powder. Combined with v. 24, the patience they flattered will still give way to a thresh of the scoffers in their own days.

The farmer threshes grain to make bread, not to destroy it. In the same way God’s discipline of Judah has a purpose and a limit—though the leaders refused the cornerstone offered in v. 16.

Calvin: the husbandman is not constantly or incessantly employed in thrashing, but exercises moderation, that he may not bruise the grain. The Lord regulates his thrashing so that he does not crush or bruise his people. The wicked are indeed reduced by him to nothing and destroyed; but he chastises his own people, in order that, having been subdued and cleansed, they may be gathered into the barn.

Delightful consolation sits beside the stroke. The church in Judah is not the scoffers’ shelter; it is what the floor is for. Christ remains the tried stone of the chapter; this verse does.

Wesley: this also—this part of the husbandman’s discretion. These words contain the application of the similitude. The husbandman manages his affairs with common discretion; but God governs the world, and his church, with wonderful wisdom: he is great and marvelous, both in the contrivance of things, and in the execution of them. The Lord of hosts is the same who laid the tried stone in Zion (v. 16); the parable ends in that counsel.

They may still hear. The verse is eighth-century praise of the God who plows and threshes in measure.

Calvin: this passage is explained by some as if the Prophet had said that the science of agriculture proceeded from the Lord; but I consider it the application of what goes before. Having pointed out the wisdom of God even in the smallest matters, he bids us raise our eyes to higher subjects, that we may learn to behold with greater reverence his wonderful and hidden judgments. Agriculture and the arts are gifts (v. 26); verse 29 lifts the eyes.

The church hears the Lord of hosts whose counsel is wonderful while Jerusalem’s scoffers still ran to lies. Calvin and Wesley agree here that the stone of v. 16 is Christ; this farmer’s close does.