What Does Isaiah 21:10 Mean?
O my threshed one, and grain of my threshing floor. What I have heard from the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
O my threshing, and the corn of my floor: that which I have heard of the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you.THE KEY
The people are named both as “my threshing” and as grain on the floor, so the verse speaks to them from inside the pressure working them.
THE MEANING
You are met with an image of grain under real pressure, being worked on the threshing floor. The speaker says the word heard from the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, is declared directly to you. The verse holds the force of the image and the directness of that address together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Pressure does not mean the message has gone silent or that you are unaddressed: the word is heard and declared to you.
THE ROOT
מְדֻשָּׁתִי
medushati
GROWS FROM
דוש
To tread out grain; to thresh.
“threshed one” in this verse is medushati. The possessive makes it “my threshing,” and the verse immediately names grain on the floor: the people are spoken of from within a forceful process. The Hebrew root brings the action of threshing close to the image, keeping its pressure tangible.
ALSO GROWS
dush: To thresh or tread out grain.
דּוּשׁ
This is the verb at the heart of the verse’s image: grain is worked by force on the floor.
yedushennu: He will thresh it.
יְדוּשֶׁנּוּ
Isaiah 28:28 uses this form of the same root, making the threshing a concrete action that can be named and examined.
שָׁמַעְתִּי
shamati
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear or listen; in context, to receive what is heard.
“heard” in this verse is shamati. The verse moves from hearing the word to declaring it to the people on the threshing floor. A related Hebrew word for a report, shemuʿah, connects hearing with the message that is passed on.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear or listen.
שְׁמַע
The familiar imperative shows the root’s direct sense of hearing.
shemuʿah: A report or tidings.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch makes the link between what is heard and a report that can be spoken clear.
THE PATTERN
Scripture’s grain-floor images portray pressure as a real force that separates grain from what cannot remain with it.
Bread grain is crushed, because he will not always be threshing it; nor does he break it with the wheel of his cart, nor crush it with his riders.For look, I command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations, as is shaken in a sieve, and not one pebble shall fall to the earth.Whose winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean his threshing floor, and gather the wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn up with fire that cannot be put out.THE THREAD
Bread grain is crushed, because he will not always be threshing it; nor does he break it with the wheel of his cart, nor crush it with his riders.The word for threshing here and the verb in Isaiah 28:28 share the Hebrew root דוש (dush), “to thresh.” That verse gives the same forceful image its full action, including its bruising, and makes the process itself visible.
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