Israel’s Clear Warning (Part 3)

Pastor Bill Farrow

Isaiah 28:26-27

²⁶For He instructs him in right judgment, His God teaches him.  ²⁷For the black cummin is not threshed with a threshing sledge, Nor is a cartwheel rolled over the cummin; But the black cummin is beaten out with a stick, And the cummin with a rod.  

Isaiah 28:26

For He instructs him in right judgment, His God teaches him - The word instructs 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 architectural 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 (Exo. 31:2-6). Thus also Noah was taught how to build the ark (Gen. 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.

Isaiah 28:27

In his threshing, v. 27, 28. This also he proportions to the grain that is to be threshed out. The fitches and the cummin, being easily got out of their husk or ear, are only threshed with a staff and a rod; but the bread-corn requires more force, and therefore that must be bruised with a threshing instrument, a sledge shod with iron, that was drawn to and fro over it, to beat out the corn; and yet he will not be ever threshing it, nor any longer than is necessary to loosen the corn from the chaff; he will not break it, or crush it, into the ground with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it to pieces with his horsemen; the grinding of it is reserved for another operation. Observe, by the way, what pains are to be taken, not only for the earning, but for the preparing of our necessary food; and yet, after all, it is meat that perishes. Shall we then grudge to labour much more for the meat which endures to everlasting life? Bread-corn is bruised. Christ was so; it pleased the Lord to bruise him, that he might be the bread of life to us.

For the black cummin is not threshed with a threshing sledge - The word used here for threshing denotes properly that which is pointed or sharp, and is used in Isa. 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 Sam. 24:22; 1 Chr. 21:23). In the passage before us, several methods of threshing are mentioned as adapted to different kinds of grain, all of which are common in the East.

Those which are mentioned under the name of the ‘threshing instrument,’ and ‘a cart wheel,’ refer to instruments which are still in use in the East. They use oxen, as the ancients did, to beat out their grain, by trampling on the sheaves, and dragging after them a clumsy machine.  This machine is not a stone cylinder; nor a plank with sharp stones, as in Syria; but a sort of sledge consisting of three rollers, fitted with irons, which turn upon axles. A farmer chooses out a level spot in his fields, and has his grain carried thither in sheaves, upon donkeys or dromedaries. Two oxen are then yoked in a sledge; a driver then gets upon it, and drives them backward and forward upon the sheaves; and fresh oxen succeed in the yoke from time to time. By this operation the chaff is very much cut down; it is then winnowed, and the grain thus separated.  This machine is called Nauridj. It has three rollers which turn on three axles; and each of them is furnished with some irons which are round and flat. Two oxen were made to draw over the grain again and again the sledge above mentioned, and this was done with the greatest convenience to the driver; for he was seated in a chair fixed on a sledge.

Nor is a cartwheel rolled over the cummin - This instrument of threshing was consisting of a cart or wagon fitted with wheels adapted to crush or thresh the grain. This was used by the Carthagenians who came from the vicinity of Canaan. It appears to have been made with serrated wheels, perhaps almost in the form of circular saws, by which the straw was cut fine at the same time that the grain was separated from the chaff.

But the black cummin is beaten out with a stick, and the cumin with a rod - With a stick, or flail. That is, vegetables in general, beans, pease, dill, cummin, etc., are easily beaten out with a stick or flail. This mode of threshing is common everywhere. It was also practiced, as with us, in regard to barley and other grain, where there was a small quantity, or where there was need of special haste (see Ruth 2:17; Judg. 6:11).