Isaiah 21:10

O my threshing, and the corn of my floor,.... Which may be understood either of the Babylonians, now threshed or punished by the Lord, and whom he had made use of as instruments for the punishment of

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. My threshing - i:e., my people (the Jews), trodden down by Babylon.

Threshing is here put for the corn threshed, as it is explained in the following words; the act being frequently put for the object, as captivity for the captives, fear for the thing feared, &c., as hath been noted before. And the corn threshed is here metaphorically put for people sorely afflicted and punished, which is oft expressed by threshing, as 41:15 , &c. This is spoken either, 1. Of the Jews, to whom he now turneth his speech, whom God did grievously thresh and afflict by the Babylonians, and whom he here comforts with these tidings, as if he had said, Though thou wilt be threshed first, yet Babylon shall be threshed last, and most dreadfully, and their threshing shall be thy deliverance. This interpretation is thought necessary, because of the latter clause of the verse, wherewith this is to be joined. Or, 2. Of Babylon. O my threshing; or, thou art my threshing, whom I have undertaken to thresh and punish. And so this is fitly mentioned here, to assure them that this prophecy of Babylon’ s fall must necessarily be accomplished, because the Almighty was engaged in the work. And this interpretation seems not to be inconsistent with the rest of the verse, as we shall see. The corn of my floor; the corn which I will cause to be threshed upon the floor, Heb. the son of my floor. For the title of son is oft given to lifeless things, as arrows are called the sons of the bow, or of the quiver, 41:28, &c. That which I have heard of the Lord of hosts have I declared; what I have foretold is not my own invention, but the word of God, and therefore shall infallibly come to pass. Unto you; either, 1. Unto you my people, or hearers; for all the prophecies, even concerning other nations, were published to them, and for their use and comfort: or, 2. Unto (or concerning, as this Hebrew particle is sometimes used, as the learned know) you Babylonians, to whom this was in some sort declared, because it was published amongst the Jews, and by their means might easily come to the knowledge of other people, and consequently of the Babylonians. Nor is it unusual for the prophets, in their prophecies delivered to God’ s people concerning Babylon, by an apostrophe to turn their speech to the Babylonians themselves; of which we have instances, ,31 51:13,14,25,26.

Isaiah 21:10 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.Ver. 10. O my threshing, and the corn of my floor.] That is, O my church and people, whom by so many tribulations I have hitherto been threshing, that I might sunder thee from the chaff, and make thee the "corn of the floor," or, as the Hebrew here hath it, "my son of the floor," and may lay thee up as pure grain in my garner. See Isaiah 28:27. That which I have heard from the Lord of hosts,] viz., That you, my poor countrymen, shall be threshed for a while, and winnowed by Babylon. See Isaiah 25:10; Isaiah 41:15 Jeremiah 51:33 Micah 4:13. Ut cum triturando e gluma, et follibus suis utriculisque, triticum educitur, and that you shall at length be delivered from this grievous affliction; all this you may write upon as certain and infallible. I have herein told you not the dreams of mine own heart, but the very undoubted words of God himself. Non ut perdam, sed ut probem et purgem. Frumentum Dei sum, &c. - Ignat.

(10) O my threshing, and the corn of my floor.—Literally, and child of my threshing-floor. . . The words are abrupt, and we have to read the thoughts that lie below them. The “child of the threshing-floor “is none other than Israel, thought of as the corn which is under God’s chastisements, Assyrian and Chaldæan invasions, Babylonian exile, and the like, severing the wheat from the chaff (Micah 4:12-13; Jeremiah 51:33; Matthew 3:3). The prophet looks on those chastisements with yearning pity, but he cannot “go beyond the word of the Lord” (Numbers 24:13), and this is all that he has to tell his people. The oppressor shall in the end be overthrown, but that which lies between the present and that far-off future is, as yet, concealed from him.

Verse 10. O my threshing] "O thou, the object upon which I shall exercise the severity of my discipline; that shalt lie under my afflicting hand, like corn spread upon the floor to be threshed out and winnowed, to separate the chaff from the wheat!" The image of threshing is frequently used by the Hebrew poets, with great elegance and force, to express the punishment of the wicked and the trial of the good, or the utter dispersion and destruction of God's enemies. Of the different ways of threshing in use among the Hebrews, and the manner of performing them, see the note on Isaiah 28:27. Our translators have taken the liberty of using the word threshing in a passive sense, to express the object or matter that is threshed; in which I have followed them, not being able to express it more properly, without departing too much from the form and letter of the original. "Son of my floor," Heb. It is an idiom of the Hebrew language to call the effect, the object, the adjunct, any thing that belongs in almost any way to another, the son of it. "O my threshing." The prophet abruptly breaks off the speech of God; and instead of continuing it in the form in which he had begun, and in the person of God, "This I declare unto you by my prophet," he changes the form of address, and adds, in his own person, "This I declare unto you from God."

10. The application to Israel, addressed as my threshing (i.e. threshed one) and my child of the threshing-floor—forcible figurative epithets of Israel as a nation crushed and down-trodden by the brutal tyranny of Babylon (cf. ch. Isaiah 41:15; Micah 4:12 f.; Jeremiah 51:33, &c.).

O my threshing - The words ‘to thresh,’ ‘to tread down,’ etc., are often used in the Scriptures to denote punishments inflicted on the enemies of God.

10. My threshing — My crushingly oppressed ones; a sympathetic utterance from the prophet for his chastised brethren. Now appears the bearing this prophecy has on the Lord’s people.