23 Give ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. 24 Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow? Is he [all day] opening and breaking the clods of his land? 25 Doth he not, when he hath levelled the face thereof, cast abroad dill, and scatter cummin, and set the wheat in rows, and the barley in an appointed place, and the rye in its border? 26 His God doth instruct him in [his] judgment, he doth teach him. 27 For the dill is not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart-wheel turned about upon the cummin; but dill is beaten out with a staff, and cummin with a rod. 28 Bread [corn] is crushed, because he will not ever be threshing it; and if he drove the wheels of his cart and his horses [over it], he would not crush it. 29 This also cometh forth from Jehovah of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel, great in wisdom.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 28:23-29
Commentary on Isaiah 28:23-29
(Read Isaiah 28:23-29)
The husbandman applies to his calling with pains and prudence, in all the works of it according to their nature. Thus the Lord, who has given men this wisdom, is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in his working. As the occasion requires, he threatens, corrects, spares, shows mercy, or executes vengeance. Afflictions are God's threshing instruments, to loosen us from the world, to part between us and our chaff, and to prepare us for use. God will proportion them to our strength; they shall be no heavier than there is need. When his end is answered, the trials and sufferings of his people shall cease; his wheat shall be gathered into the garner, but the chaff shall be burned with unquenchable fire.