23 Give ear and hear my voice,
Listen and hear my words.
24 Does the [y]farmer plow [z]continually to plant seed?
Does he continually [aa]turn and harrow the ground?
25 Does he not level its surface
And sow dill and scatter cummin
And [ab]plant wheat in rows,
Barley in its place and rye within its [ac]area?
26 For his God instructs and teaches him properly.
27 For dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge,
Nor is the cartwheel [ad]driven over cummin;
But dill is beaten out with a rod, and cummin with a club.
28 Grain for bread is crushed,
Indeed, he does not continue to thresh it forever.
Because the wheel of his cart and his horses eventually [ae]damage it,
He does not thresh it longer.
29 This also comes from the Lord of hosts,
Who has made His counsel wonderful and His wisdom great.
On the surface, one might almost think God was giving the Israelites some good farming advice. But one look at the context, and that doesn’t fit very well. Rather, we see God the father using farming analogies long before Jesus came to earth and did the same (see Matthew 13). Indeed, it should come as no surprise, since Jesus told His followers, “I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.”
Jesus even told His followers a very similar message to this one, though he was a bit more direct (John 16:32-33). In this case, the threshing, the rod, and the club represent God’s discipline, as most of the Israelites had wandered far from God’s commands. Yet even here, God makes it clear that not everyone is the same, and so He doesn’t use the same methods with all of them.
Previously, God promised a remnant would be left in the land, but certainly life wouldn’t be easy for them either. Families would be separated, foreigners would settle some of the land, and wild animals would be more prevalent. In the same way, Jesus promised us we’d have trouble, not just when we do stupid things, or disobey God’s commands, but even when we were trying to do what is right.
Yet God uses it all to shape and mold us, to reap a harvest in our lives. And as Isaiah wrote, “This also comes from the Lord of hosts, Who has made His counsel wonderful and His wisdom great.” I mean, if you want to wallow in foolishness, no one can stop you. But that isn’t what God wants for any of us, so He applies whatever tools are necessary in our lives, to make us into who we were created to be.
It isn’t a fun process at times, but the results will be more than worth the journey. In fact, it is more about the journey than the destination anyway, as we grow to know God better, listen to His voice, and let His heart fill our own with love, grace, compassion, and His fruit (Galatians 5:22-23). “Give ear and hear His voice, listen and hear His words.”