to broaden out the ear (with the hand) · verb, hiphil imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
hear
וְשִׁמְע֖וּve.shim.'U
H8085
to hear intelligently (often with implication of attent… · conjunction + verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
voice
קוֹלִ֑יko.Li
H6963
a voice or sound · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
hearken
הַקְשִׁ֥יבוּhak.Shi.vu
H7181
to prick up the ears · verb, hiphil imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
hear
וְשִׁמְע֖וּve.shim.'U
H8085
to hear intelligently (often with implication of attent… · conjunction + verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
speech
אִמְרָתִֽי'im.ra.Ti
H565
something said · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 1:2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against m…
Jeremiah 22:29 O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD.
Deuteronomy 32:1 Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
Revelation 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, wh…
Revelation 2:11 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.
Revelation 2:14 But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblo…
Revelation 2:29 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 28:23–end
This parable, which (like many of our Saviour's parables) is borrowed from the husbandman's calling, is ushered in with a solemn preface demanding attention, He that has ears to hear, let him hear, hear and understand, Isa 28:23.
I. The parable here is plain enough, that the husbandman applies himself to the business of his calling with a great deal of pains and prudence, secundum artem - according to rule, and, as his judgment directs him, observes a method and order in his work. 1. In his ploughing and sowing: Does the ploughman plough all day to sow? Yes, he does, and he ploughs in hope and sows in hope, Co1 9:10. Does he open and break the clods? Yes, he does, that the land may be fit to…
Calling attention to the following illustration from husbandry (Psa 49:1-2). As the husbandman does his different kinds of work, each in its right time and due proportion, so God adapts His measures to the varying exigencies of the several cases: now mercy, now judgments; now punishing sooner, now later (an answer to the scoff that His judgments, being put off so long, would never come at all, Isa 5:19); His object being not to destroy His people any more than the farmer's object in threshing is to destroy his crop; this vindicates God's "strange work" (Isa 28:21) in punishing His people. Compare the same image, Jer 24:6; Hos 2:23; Mat 3:12.
John Gill on Isaiah 28:23
Give ye ear, and hear my voice,.... So said the prophet, as the Targum introduces the words; and because what he was about to say was of importance, and delivered in a parabolical manner, and required attention, he makes use of a variety of words to the same purpose, to engage their attention:
hearken, and hear my speech; now about to be made; listen to it, and get the understanding of it.
John Calvin on Isaiah 28:23
Give ear and hear my voice. Isaiah makes use of a preface, as if he were about to speak of something important and very weighty; for we are not wont to demand attention from our hearers, unless when we are about to say what is very important. And yet he seems here to speak of common and ordinary subjects, as for example, about agriculture, sowing, thrashing, and such like operations. But the Prophet intended to direct the minds of his hearers to higher matters; for when he discourses about the judgments of God, and shews with what wisdom God governs the world, though wicked men think that everything moves by chance and at random, he intended to lay down and explain a difficult subject, in a…
The Church Fathers
(Vers. 23 seqq.) Pay attention and listen to my voice: listen and hear my speech. Does the plowman plow all day to sow, break up the soil, and harrow it? When he has leveled its surface, does he not sow dill, scatter cumin, plant wheat in rows, barley, millet, and rye in their proper place? For his God instructs him and teaches him the right way. For dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over cumin; but dill is beaten out with a stick and cumin with a rod, and the wheat for bread is crushed. But he will not crush him forever, nor will the wheel of his cart bruise him, nor will he grind him with his hoofs. This also comes forth from the LORD of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working. Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear my words. Does the plowman keep plowing all day to sow? Does he keep turning the soil and breaking the clods? When he has leveled its surface, does he not sow the black cumin and scatter the cumin seed? He plants wheat in rows, barley in its designated place, and spelt along its borders, for he instructs him with judgment, and teaches him knowledge. For it is not when gith is cleansed by hardness, nor when the wheel of a cart goes over the cumin; but the gith is shaken off, and the cumin is eaten with bread. For I will not be angry with you forever, nor will the voice of my bitterness trample you, and these wonders have come from the Lord. Come, consult, exalt empty consolation. Now he even speaks to the same ones to whom he said before: Hear the word of God, you scoffers, who rule over my people who are in Jerusalem: and he commands them to hear his voice, and to carefully attend to his discourse. He says, 'Does the farmer always plow so that he may scatter the seed? Will he not first break up the soil and turn over the furrows with a plow, and break up the clods with a rake and a hoe, so that when he has leveled the surface of the earth and softened the previously hard fields, then he may spread spelt or cumin and sow wheat, barley, millet, and spelt in his fields, according to the variation of the soil and the seasons; for not all things are sown at the same time.' Some understand by farre what the Greeks call ζέαν. And God, by His natural judgment, teaches the farmer, that is, the sower, and instructs him to know what cultivation he should apply to each seed. Finally,…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Parables · Of the husbandman — Of the husbandman
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The address of the prophet is here apparently closed. But an essential ingredient is still wanting to the second half, to make it correspond to the first. There is still wanting the fringe of promise coinciding with Isa 28:5, Isa 28:6. The prophet has not only to alarm the scoffers, that if possible he may pluck some of them out of the fire through fear (Jdg 5:23); he has also to comfort believers, who yield themselves as disciples to him and to the word of God (Isa 8:16). He does this here in a very peculiar manner. He has several times assumed the tone of the mashal, more especially in chapter 26; but here the consolation is dressed up in a longer parabolical address, which sets forth in f…
Listen to me: The analogy that follows was written as a wisdom poem, with Isaiah calling on his audience to pay careful attention and to discern what is right.
Rashi on Isaiah 28:22
And now, do not scorn saying, “We have made a treaty with death.”
your pains (מוֹסְרֵיכֶם) your pains.
