Biblion Bible Commentary
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A Tried Stone, a Sure Foundation
Isaiah 28:14-29
14 Therefore hear Yahweh’s word, you scoffers, that rule this people in Jerusalem: · WEB
Rulers who think they have an arrangement with death are told about a stone, and the chapter ends in a lesson about farming.
Hear Yahweh's word, you scoffers, that rule this people in Jerusalem Isaiah 28:14.
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" Isaiah 28:15.
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.
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 Isaiah 28:16.
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 Isaiah 28:17.
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 Isaiah 28:20.
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.
That he may do his work, his unusual work, and bring to pass his act, his extraordinary act Isaiah 28:21.
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? Isaiah 28:24.
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 Isaiah 28:27.
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 Isaiah 28:29. 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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