Isaiah 28:27

For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. THE FITCHES ARE NOT THRESHED ... - the farmer uses the same discretion in threshing. The dill ("fitches" ) and cummin, leguminous and tender grains, are beaten out, not as wheat, etc., with the heavy corn-drag ("threshing instrument"), but with "a staff." Heavy instruments would crush and injure the seed. CART WHEEL - two iron wheels armed with iron teeth like a saw, joined together by a wooden axle. The 'grain-drag' was made of three or four wooden cylinders armed with iron teeth or flint stones fixed underneath, and joined like a sledge. Both instruments cut the straw for fodder as well as separated the corn. STAFF - used also where they had but a small quantity of corn: the flail ...

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....

Verse Isaiah 28:27-23. Four methods of threshing are here mentioned, by different instruments; the _flail_, the _drag_, the _wain_, and the _treading of the cattle_. The _staff_ or _flail_ was used for the _infirmiora semina_, says Jerome, the grain that was too _tender_ to be treated in the other methods. The _drag_ consisted of a sort of strong planks, made rough at the bottom, with hard stones or iron; it was drawn by horses or oxen over the corn sheaves spread on the floor, the driver sitting upon it. Kempfer has given a print representing the manner of using this instrument, _Amaen. Exot_. p. 682, fig. 3. The _wain_ was much like the former; but had _wheels_ with _iron teeth_, or _edges_ like a _saw_: Ferrata carpenta rotis per medium in serrarum modum se volventibus. Hieron. in loc. From this it would seem that...

FOR THE FITCHES ARE NOT THRESHED WITH A THRESHING INSTRUMENT - The word used here (חרוּץ _chârûts_) denotes properly that which is pointed or sharp, and is joined with מורג _môrag_ in Isaiah 41:15 - meaning there the threshing dray or sledge; a plank with iron or sharp stones that was drawn by oxen over the grain (compare 2 Samuel 24:22; 1 Chronicles 21:23). In the passage before us, several methods of threshing are mentioned as adapted to different kinds of grain, all of which are at the present time common in the East. Those which are mentioned under the name of the ‘threshing instrument,’ and ‘a cart whee

SECTION VII. RENEWED DENUNCIATIONS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH (CH. 28-31.) EXPOSITION ISAIAH 28:1 A WARNING TO SAMARIA. The prophet has now east his eagle glance over the whole world and over all time. He has denounced woe upon all the principal nations of the earth (Isaiah 13-23.), glanced at the destruction of the world itself (Isaiah 24:17), and sung songs over the establishment of Christ's kingdom, and the ingathering of the nations into it (Isaiah 25-27.). In the present chapter he returns to the condition of things in his own time and among his own people. Afte

FOR THE FITCHES ARE NOT THRESHED WITH A THRESHING INSTRUMENT,.... A wooden sledge, dray, or cart, drawn on wheels; the bottom of which was stuck with iron teeth, and the top filled with stones, to press it down with the weight thereof, and was drawn by horses, or oxen, to and fro, over the sheaves of corn, laid in proper order, whereby the grain was separated from the husk: 1 Corinthians 9:9 but fitches, the grain of them being more easily separated, such an instrument was not used in threshing them: NEITHER IS A CART WHEEL TURNED ABOUT UPON THE CUMMIN; the cart wheel of the above instrument was not turned upon the cummin, that being also more easily threshed, or beaten out, and therefore another method was used with these, as follows: BUT THE FITCHES ARE BEATEN OUT WITH A STAFF, AND THE CUMMIN WITH A ROD: in like manner as corn is with us thre

3. THE SIX WOES OF THE PROPHET, JUDGMENT RUINS AND RESTORATION GLORIES TO COME (28-35) CHAPTER 28 The First Woe and the Message of Assurance 1. _Ephraim addressed (Isaiah 28:1)_ 2. _Jerusalem equally corrupt and guilty (Isaiah 28:7)_ 3. _The prophet mocked (Isaiah 28:9) The prophet's answer (Isaiah 28:11)_ 4. _Their covenant with death (Isaiah 28:14)_ 5. _The message of assurance (Isaiah 28:16)_ 6. How Jehovah judges

THE HUSBANDMAN ADAPTS HIS METHODS TO THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF EACH CASE. This parable may perhaps not have been spoken to the same audience as Isaiah 28:7, but there is no valid reason for denying it to Isaiah. When the ploughman has finished, does he begin to plough over again? Of course not. He does not go on ploughing indefinitely; he levels the surface of the ground, and then sows, putting each kind of seed in the soil adapted for it. For so God has taught him. In threshing, he uses the measures suited to each particular kind of grain. The tenderer seeds are beaten with a rod, for they would be crushed or spoiled by large or sharp implements. Bread corn is not crushed; it is threshed, it is true, with a cart wheel, but, once it has been threshed, the husbandman does not keep on driving the cart over it. Such wisdom is inspired by Yahweh, and thus, the prophet suggests, Yahweh will deal w...

THRESHING INSTRUMENT. Only here, and Isaiah 41:15....

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 (Isaiah 28:24) 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 (Isaiah 28:27) 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 im