Harvesting (Isa 28:7-28:29)

“Dill herbs are not threshed

With a threshing sledge.

Nor is a cart wheel rolled over carrot seeds.

But the dill herbs are beaten out with a stick.

The carrot seeds are beaten with a rod.

Grain is crushed for bread.

But one does not thresh it forever.

One drives the cart wheel with horses over it.

But he does not pulverize it.

This also comes from Yahweh of hosts.

He is wonderful in counsel.

He is excellent in wisdom.”

Each crop has a different form of harvesting. The dill herbs and carrot seeds are too fragile to be smashed with a threshing sledge hammer. You do not roll the cart wheels over the herbs and seeds like you do to the wheat and the barley. You beat the herbs and seeds with a stick or a rod that is gentler than the wheel cart. However, the threshing of the wheat and barley requires a heavy horse drawn cart wheel in order to provide grain for bread. However, you do not want to pulverize these grains into nothing. How do these farmers know how to do this? Why, the Lord of hosts, Yahweh has told them how to do it. Yahweh is wonderful in his counsel and excellent in his wisdom, as in the later wisdom tradition.

The famers plant the crops (Isa 28:24-28:26)

“Do those who plow for sowing plow continually?

Do they continually open their ground?

Do they continually harrow their ground?

When they have leveled its surface,

Do they not scatter dill herbs?

Do they not sow carrot seeds?

Do they not plant wheat in rows?

Do they not plant barley in its proper place?

Do they not plant spelt hardy wheat as the border?

They are well instructed.

Their God teaches them.”

Here is a story or parable about farmers asked in a series of questions. First, they had to plow the ground before the planting of seeds. They had to open and turn the land over by harrowing it. Then they leveled it out. After this, they were able to scatter some dill herbs and sow some carrot seeds. Then they properly put the wheat and barley in rows with hardy inferior spelt wheat as the border to their farms. How did they know how to do this? Well, God has instructed them on how to do this.