What Does Isaiah 28:25 Mean in the King James?
When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place?
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The farmer does not treat the field as one undifferentiated surface: the Hebrew word translated “place” carries the sense of a boundary.
THE MEANING
The field of your life is not ordered by treating every seed alike. The surface is leveled, then each kind is set within its own place and boundary, where it can take root and grow. Difference belongs to the order of the field.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that order means sameness: the field becomes orderly as different seeds receive different places.
THE ROOT
גְּבוּלָתוֹ
gebulato
GROWS FROM
גבל
g-b-l
To border, bound, or set a limit; here, a boundary or allotted extent.
The verse ends by placing the spelt at its boundary; the word translated “place” carries the more specific sense of a border or territory. The farmer’s work is therefore not indiscriminate scattering: different grains occupy defined parts of one prepared field.
ALSO GROWS
gevul: Boundary, border, territory.
גְּבוּל
This noun makes the verse’s final placement precise: the grain is associated with a defined extent.
higbil: To set bounds or mark a limit.
הִגְבִּיל
The same root describes setting limits, showing how the field’s order includes distinct boundaries.
יִשְׁוֶה
yishveh
GROWS FROM
שוה
sh-w-h
To be even or equal; in this form, to level or make even.
“made plain” in this verse is yishveh. Before the different grains are placed, the surface is made even. Leveling and distinction belong together here: the common ground is prepared, then each seed receives its own place.
ALSO GROWS
shaveh: Equal, equivalent, or even.
שָׁוֶה
Its sense of evenness illuminates the level surface prepared before the crops are distributed.
hishvah: Made equal, leveled, or compared.
הִשְׁוָה
This related form carries the root’s sense of bringing things to an even measure.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom prepares the ground, then gives each kind of seed a place suited to its nature.
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth;But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.THE THREAD
This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.The next verse names the farmer’s careful method as counsel that comes from the LORD. The different placements in this verse reveal wisdom working through both preparation and distinction.
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