A Tried Stone, a Sure Foundation
14 Therefore hear Yahweh’s word, you scoffers, that rule this people in Jerusalem: 15 “Because you have said, ‘We have made a covenant with death, and we are in agreement with Sheol. When the overflowing scourge passes through, it won’t come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and we have hidden ourselves under falsehood.’” 16 Therefore the Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation. He who believes shall not act hastily. 17 I will make justice the measuring line, and righteousness the plumb line. The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters will overflow the hiding place. 18 Your covenant with death shall be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol shall not stand. When the overflowing scourge passes through, then you will be trampled down by it. 19 As often as it passes through, it will seize you; for morning by morning it will pass through, by day and by night; and it will be nothing but terror to understand the message.” 20 For the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the blanket is too narrow to wrap oneself in. 21 For Yahweh will rise up as on Mount Perazim. He will be angry as in the valley of Gibeon; that he may do his work, his unusual work, and bring to pass his act, his extraordinary act. 22 Now therefore don’t be scoffers, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, on the whole earth. 23 Give ear, and hear my voice! Listen, and hear my speech! 24 Does he who plows to sow plow continually? Does he keep turning the soil and breaking the clods? 25 When he has leveled its surface, doesn’t he plant the dill, and scatter the cumin seed, and put in the wheat in rows, the barley in the appointed place, and the spelt in its place? 26 For his God instructs him in right judgment and teaches him. 27 For the dill isn’t threshed with a sharp instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned over the cumin; but the dill is beaten out with a stick, and the cumin with a rod. 28 Bread flour must be ground; so he will not always be threshing it. Although he drives the wheel of his threshing cart over it, his horses don’t grind it. 29 This also comes out from Yahweh of Armies, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom.
Rulers who think they have an arrangement with death are told about a stone, and the chapter ends in a lesson about farming.
Therefore hear Yahweh’s word, you scoffers, that rule this people in Jerusalem:
“Because you have said, ‘We have made a covenant with death, and we are in agreement with Sheol. When the overflowing scourge passes through, it won’t come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and we have hidden ourselves under falsehood.’”
The quoted boast of the government, and the last clause is the extraordinary part. They admit the arrangement is a lie and describe it as shelter anyway. What is being described is a policy — probably the Egyptian alliance — that its own architects knew would not hold, adopted because it postponed the question.
Therefore the Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone of a sure foundation. He who believes shall not act hastily.
Against the refuge of lies, a stone. It is tried — tested under load before being trusted — and the cornerstone is the block every other measurement in a building is taken from.
Peter and Paul both quote the verse of Christ 1 Peter 2:6 Romans 9:33, and the last clause is the one that matters practically: a man standing on this does not have to hurry. Panic is the characteristic sin of the rulers in this chapter, and the antidote offered is a foundation rather than a strategy.
I will make justice the measuring line, and righteousness the plumb line. The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters will overflow the hiding place.
The building tools are moral qualities, and both are instruments for detecting what is out of true. The hail then sweeps away the refuge of lies, which is what happens to a shelter that was never built square.
For the bed is too short to stretch out on, and the blanket is too narrow to wrap oneself in.
The most domestic image in the chapter and the most recognizable. Every arrangement they have made is slightly too small for the situation, and there is no position in which the night is comfortable.
For Yahweh will rise up as on Mount Perazim. He will be angry as in the valley of Gibeon; that he may do his work, his unusual work, and bring to pass his act, his extraordinary act.
Judgment is twice called strange and foreign to him — not what he is characteristically about, which is the same claim the twenty-seventh chapter made in saying wrath is not in me Isaiah 27:4.
Does he who plows to sow plow continually? Does he keep turning the soil and breaking the clods?
The chapter ends with a parable about farming, and it answers the whole book's difficulty. No farmer plows forever; plowing is a phase, and it is for the sake of sowing.
For the dill isn’t threshed with a sharp instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned over the cumin; but the dill is beaten out with a stick, and the cumin with a rod.
And the threshing is matched to the crop. Delicate seed is tapped out with a stick; grain takes the sledge; and nothing is threshed indefinitely, so he will not always be threshing it Isaiah 28:28.
This also comes out from Yahweh of Armies, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom.
The farmer's judgment about how hard to hit which seed is credited to God — and by that route, so is his own.
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