Isaiah 28:23
in Isaiah 28Listen and hear my voice. Pay attention and hear what I say.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.
KJV
Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.
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This verse in Isaiah 28
Commentary
9 notes on this verseA commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
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);
This site's exposition
Listen and hear my voice
on Isaiah 28:23-26
The chapter turns from woe to parable with a call, "Listen and hear my voice". The plowman does not plow forever, for "When he has leveled its surface" he sows "caraway" and "cumin". Verse 26 credits his skill to God: "For his God instructs and teaches him properly".
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
(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.
The Medieval Church1 voice
650. Give ear. Here he sets out consolation. And first, he arouses their attention: hear: hear, O you heavens, the things I speak (Deut 32:1).
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
And when he has thus made plain the face thereof does he not sow his seed, seed suitable to the soil? For the husbandman knows what grain is fit for clayey ground and what for sandy ground, and, accordingly, he sows each in its place-- wheat in the principal place (so the margin reads it), for it is the principal grain, and was a staple commodity of Canaan ( Ezek. xxvii.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens
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.
8 For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean. The prophet warns the kingdom of the ten tribes of the judgments that were coming upon them for their sins, which were soon after executed by the king of Assyria, who laid their country waste, and carried the people into captivity.
2 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
Give ye ear, and hear my voice “Listen ye, and hear my voice” - The foregoing discourse, consisting of severe reproofs, and threatenings of dreadful judgments impending on the Jews for their vices, and their profane contempt of God’s warnings by his messengers, the prophet concludes with an explanation and defense of God’s method of dealing with his people in an elegant parable or allegory; in which he employs a variety of images, all taken from the science of agriculture. As the husbandman uses various methods in preparing his land, and adapting it to the several kinds of seeds to be sown, with a due observation of times and seasons; and when he hath gathered in his harvest, employs methods as various in separating the corn from the straw and the chaff by different instruments, according to the nature of the different sorts of grain; so God, with unerring wisdom, and with strict justice, instructs, admonishes, and corrects his people; chastises and punishes them in various ways, as the exigence of the case requires; now more moderately, now more severely; always tempering justice with mercy; in order to reclaim the wicked, to improve the good, and, finally, to separate the one from the other.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
Give ye ear - In this verse the prophet introduces an important and striking illustration drawn from the science of agriculture. It is connected with the preceding part of the chapter, and is designed to show the propriety of what the prophet had said by an appeal to what they all observed in the cultivation of their lands. The previous discourse consists mainly of reproofs and of threatenings of punishment on God’s people for their profane contempt of the messengers of God. He had threatened to destroy their nation, and so remove them for a time to a distant land.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| הַאֲזִ֥ינוּ | haazinu | give ear | H238 → | 41 times |
| וְשִׁמְע֖וּ | veshimu | and hear | H8085 → | 1159 times |
| קוֹלִ֑י | koli | voice my | H6963 → | 506 times |
| הַקְשִׁ֥יבוּ | hakshivu | pay attention | H7181 → | 46 times |
| וְשִׁמְע֖וּ | veshimu | and hear | H8085 → | 1159 times |
| אִמְרָתִֽי׃ | ʾimrati | utterance my | H565 → | 37 times |
הַאֲזִ֥ינוּgive ear
haazinuH238 →41 times
וְשִׁמְע֖וּand hear
veshimuH8085 →1159 times
קוֹלִ֑יvoice my
koliH6963 →506 times
הַקְשִׁ֥יבוּpay attention
hakshivuH7181 →46 times
וְשִׁמְע֖וּand hear
veshimuH8085 →1159 times
אִמְרָתִֽי׃utterance my
ʾimratiH565 →37 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Jeremiah 22:29O land, land, land, hear the word of the LORD!
it leads to
- Deuteronomy 32:1
Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Micah 1:2
Hear, O peoples, all of you; listen, O earth, and everyone in it! May the Lord GOD bear witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple.
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Deuteronomy 32:1
Through
Deuteronomy 32:1Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
it leads to
- Deuteronomy 4:26
I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live long upon it,…
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Deuteronomy 4:26
Through
Revelation 2:29He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
it leads to
- Revelation 2:7
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will grant the right to eat from the tree of life in the…
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Revelation 2:7
Through
Revelation 2:11He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who overcomes will not be harmed by the second death.
it leads to
- Revelation 20:6
Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with Him…
- Revelation 21:8
But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This…
- Revelation 20:14
Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire.
- Revelation 20:6
Through
Isaiah 1:2Listen, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the LORD has spoken: “I have raised children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me.
it leads to
- Psalms 50:4
He summons the heavens above, and the earth, that He may judge His people:
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Psalms 50:4
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Isaiah
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah; John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Isaiah.