The Parable of the Farmer and His Field (Isaiah 28:23-29)

Parables did not begin with Jesus. Long before the Lord told stories about sowers, nets, and vineyards, the prophets used everyday scenes to bring God’s wisdom close to the heart. Isaiah’s brief but striking picture of a farmer at work invites weary people to trust the Lord’s measured ways in hard times. The prophet calls for attention, not to entertain, but to settle anxious souls: “Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say” (Isaiah 28:23). The image that follows shows how God plows, plants, and threshes with purpose, never wasting pain and never confusing severity with cruelty, because His plan is wonderful and His wisdom is magnificent (Isaiah 28:26; Isaiah 28:29).

The setting is Judah at the edge of judgment. Political schemes, religious pretense, and moral compromise had hollowed out the nation’s strength, and Assyria stood like a storm on the horizon (Isaiah 28:1–3; Isaiah 7:17). Into this fear Isaiah speaks a farmer’s calm. Seasons have order. Fields are worked with skill. Different crops are handled with different tools. The farmer knows what he is doing, and Isaiah says that kind of skill comes from the Lord of hosts. If that is true on the land, it is truer in the lives of God’s people, because “righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne” and His steadfast love never fails (Psalm 89:14; Psalm 136:1).

Words: 2772 / Time to read: 15 minutes

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Historical and Cultural Background

Isaiah preached to people who lived close to the soil. Plowing was the first act of hope after the early rains softened the ground, and stopping at the right time mattered as much as starting; no farmer cuts the earth without end, because seed must be sown and harvest planned (Deuteronomy 11:14; Isaiah 28:24). Sowing required judgment. Tiny, aromatic seeds like caraway and cumin were scattered with care, while wheat, barley, and spelt were placed more deliberately according to the farmer’s experience of the land’s contours and strengths (Isaiah 28:25). Threshing came with equal skill. A heavy sledge or cart-wheel would crush grain heads from stalks, but a gentler rod or stick released delicate seeds without ruining them (Isaiah 28:27). Isaiah’s hearers knew this craft by sight and by sore muscles. It was the rhythm of life under God’s sun.

This agricultural wisdom tied directly to covenant life. The land itself was God’s gift, and its yield rose or fell with the people’s trust and obedience (Leviticus 26:3–4; Deuteronomy 28:1–12). Droughts, pests, and invading armies had spiritual meanings, calling Israel back to the Lord who alone sends rain in season and guards the borders of His people (Amos 4:7–8; Psalm 121:1–8). Isaiah’s generation had tried to buy safety with treaties and to cover guilt with ritual, yet the Lord offered a better way: return, rest, quiet trust, and uprightness that fits His holy name (Isaiah 30:15; Isaiah 1:16–17). The farmer metaphor embeds that call in muscle memory. Just as fields respond to wise care over time, so hearts and nations respond when God breaks up hard ground and sows what is right.

Ancient threshing floors also carried symbolic weight. They were places of separation and revelation, where grain was distinguished from chaff and where God sometimes unveiled His purposes. David met mercy on a threshing floor and purchased it at the Lord’s command, and that place became the site of the temple where sacrifices would speak peace to troubled consciences (2 Samuel 24:18–25; 2 Chronicles 3:1). Ruth found redemption in a threshing scene where kindness and covenant love turned a widow’s bitterness into joy (Ruth 3:6–13; Ruth 4:13–17). Isaiah’s parable leans on that shared sense: pressure can be purifying when the Lord’s hand is in it, and what He separates, He does for life.

Biblical Narrative

The parable unfolds as a sequence of questions that teach by common sense. “Does the plowman keep plowing to sow? Does he keep on breaking up and harrowing his soil?” The obvious answer is no; plowing ends when the ground is ready, because the goal is seed and fruit, not endless cutting (Isaiah 28:24). This is a gentle rebuke to Judah’s fears. Chastening is not a tunnel without an exit. The Lord disciplines for a season to prepare hearts for His word, much as He promised to plant His people again after tearing down what pride had built (Jeremiah 1:10; Hosea 10:12). Even when judgment loomed, God’s aim was not destruction but harvest in due time (Isaiah 27:6; Hebrews 12:11).

Isaiah then pictures sowing with variety and care. “When he has leveled the surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cumin? Does he not plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot, and spelt in its field?” The farmer knows his field. He assigns each seed a fitting place, and his choices are not random but learned and wise (Isaiah 28:25). The prophet draws a line from field to throne: “His God instructs him and teaches him the right way,” which means that ordinary skill reflects heavenly wisdom borrowed from the Lord (Isaiah 28:26). If that is true of a farm, it is truer of a kingdom. God’s dealings with Judah were not guesswork. He knew what measure of pressure would break the clods of self-reliance and where to sow promises that would take root in a humbled people (Isaiah 57:15; Psalm 51:17).

The third movement shows threshing with restraint. “Caraway is not threshed with a sledge, nor is the wheel of a cart rolled over cumin; caraway is beaten out with a rod, and cumin with a stick.” Stronger force belongs to sturdier grain; delicate spice would be crushed by the same weight (Isaiah 28:27). The farmer also knows when to stop: “Grain must be ground to make bread; so one does not go on threshing it forever” (Isaiah 28:28). God’s people needed that assurance. Assyria’s march and the coming sieges felt endless, but the Lord sets boundaries for every rod and halts the wheel when its work is complete (Isaiah 10:5–7; Isaiah 10:24–27). Behind each measured stroke stands the Lord who keeps covenant love even as He purifies a wayward nation (Exodus 34:6–7; Lamentations 3:31–33).

The parable ends with a doxology that anchors everything in God’s character: “All this also comes from the Lord Almighty, whose plan is wonderful, whose wisdom is magnificent” (Isaiah 28:29). This is not stoic acceptance of fate; it is worship in the face of wise providence. Isaiah leads Judah to trade panic for trust, because the Lord who teaches farmers to farm knows how to lead His people through discipline into renewal, and He does so with compassion that fits His name (Psalm 103:13–14; Isaiah 40:11).

Theological Significance

Isaiah’s field becomes a classroom for the ways of God. First, the parable guards us from despair by tying discipline to purpose. God’s plowing opens the soil of the heart so that His word can take root and bear fruit, just as He promised to give His people a heart of flesh in place of stone when He gathers them again by grace (Ezekiel 36:26–28; Jeremiah 31:31–34). He wields the rod to correct, not to crush, and He stops when the work is done, because He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone (Lamentations 3:31–33; Psalm 119:67). In this, the parable harmonizes with the wisdom of Hebrews: “God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in His holiness… later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:10–11).

Second, the parable helps us read history with hope. From a dispensational vantage that honors the distinct paths of Israel and the Church under one Lord, Isaiah’s image shows that God has handled His people with variety across the ages while keeping one redemptive purpose. He promised blessing to Abraham’s seed, gave the Law at Sinai, warned and wooed through prophets, and even in exile preserved a remnant, the faithful few God preserves, so that His promises would not fail (Genesis 12:2–3; Exodus 19:5–6; 2 Kings 19:30–31). In the future, Scripture speaks of the Tribulation, a future worldwide distress before Christ’s reign, during which God will press Israel toward repentance and faith, bringing the nation to look upon the One they have pierced and to be cleansed and restored (Jeremiah 30:7; Zechariah 12:10; Zechariah 13:1). That severe season is not pointless pressure; it is measured threshing that ends in the joy of the kingdom the prophets foresaw, when nations stream to Zion and the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord (Isaiah 2:2–4; Isaiah 11:9).

Third, the parable honors the Church’s present calling without erasing Israel’s future. Believers now are “God’s field” and “God’s building,” and the apostolic foundation calls us to build with care on Christ, the only sure base (1 Corinthians 3:9–11; Ephesians 2:19–22). The Spirit sows the word, prunes the branches, and brings fruit in season, and the Father’s wise hand never confuses pruning with punishment when He trains His children for greater fruitfulness (John 15:1–5; Galatians 5:22–23). We rejoice that “all Israel will be saved” in God’s time and mercy even as we labor now among the nations, harvesting gladly where the gospel is received (Romans 11:25–29; Matthew 28:18–20). Isaiah’s farmer keeps those lines clear: one field today, another tomorrow, but one Lord who knows what to sow and when, and who never forgets a promise He has made.

Finally, the parable points to Christ, in whom justice and mercy meet. He is the sower who scatters the word and the Lord of the harvest who sends laborers into His fields (Matthew 13:3; Matthew 9:37–38). He is also the grain that fell into the ground and died to bring forth much fruit, so that many sons and daughters would live through His death and resurrection (John 12:24; 1 Peter 1:3). At the cross, God dealt with sin fully and opened a new and living way into His presence, turning judgment into salvation for all who believe (Isaiah 53:5–6; Hebrews 10:19–22). When Isaiah says the farmer’s wisdom comes from the Lord, he lifts our eyes to the One who is Himself wisdom from God, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Spiritual Lessons and Application

A first lesson is to trust the Lord’s timing in seasons that feel like plowing. Hard soil is not hopeless soil when God holds the plow. When He exposes buried stones or turns up stubborn roots, He is preparing the heart to receive His word with depth so that trials do not scorch faith and worries do not choke it (Hosea 10:12–13; Matthew 13:20–22). David learned to say, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word,” and many saints echo the same confession when God’s cutting work produces a tender conscience and a steady obedience (Psalm 119:67; Psalm 119:71). In such times we cling to promises that He will not despise a broken and contrite heart and that He gives grace to the humble (Psalm 51:17; James 4:6).

A second lesson is to read God’s variety in our lives as wisdom, not randomness. The farmer does not treat cumin like wheat, and the Lord does not treat every believer in precisely the same way. He provides temptations’ escape for one, endurance for another, correction for a third, and surprising deliverance for a fourth, always faithful and never beyond what His child can bear with His help (1 Corinthians 10:13; 2 Corinthians 12:9–10). He assigns work that fits gifts and seasons, and He knows how to restore souls who feel bruised reeds or smoldering wicks, strengthening what remains until it shines again (Psalm 23:3; Isaiah 42:3). We therefore resist envy and embrace our appointed plot, trusting that the Master’s hand knows this soil and this seed best.

A third lesson is to let the Lord set the measure of pressure. Threshing is real, but it is not forever. God places limits on every trial and promises His presence within it, and He pledges to use even what others mean for evil to serve our good and His saving purposes (Isaiah 28:28; Isaiah 43:2; Genesis 50:20). When Paul cataloged hardships, he did not deny their weight; he called them light and momentary only when compared with the eternal weight of glory God is preparing for us, and he fixed his gaze on the unseen to endure the seen (2 Corinthians 4:17–18). In that spirit we pray for deliverance, ask for wisdom, and keep doing good, confident that we will reap a harvest if we do not give up (James 1:5; Galatians 6:9).

A fourth lesson is to labor with hope for Israel’s future while serving faithfully in the Church today. The farmer plans ahead. Isaiah himself looked past Assyria and Babylon to a day when Jacob would take root and Israel would bud and blossom and fill the world with fruit, and that vision still stands (Isaiah 27:6). We therefore guard against two errors: pride that imagines the Church has replaced Israel, and indifference that forgets the Church’s present mission to all nations (Romans 11:18–20; Acts 1:8). The same Scriptures that promise Israel’s restoration command us to make disciples now, teaching everything Christ has commanded and baptizing those who believe (Matthew 28:19–20; Romans 15:8–12). Hope for tomorrow fuels faithfulness today.

A final lesson is to watch for Christ’s gentle hand in the middle of discipline. He is the good shepherd who makes us lie down in green pastures and who also leads us through the darkest valley without abandoning us, and His rod and staff, though different tools, both comfort His own (Psalm 23:1–4). He is the vine in whom we must remain to bear any fruit at all, and His Father prunes fruitful branches so that they will be more fruitful still (John 15:2–5). When our hearts are tempted to read God’s care as harshness, Isaiah’s farmer invites us to slow down, breathe deeply, and remember that all wise farming and all wise fathering flow from the Lord whose compassion never fails and whose mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22–23; Luke 11:13).

Conclusion

Isaiah’s parable of the farmer and his field gathers fieldcraft into faith. Plowing has an end, sowing has a logic, and threshing has a limit, and the Lord stands behind every stage with steadfast love and perfect wisdom (Isaiah 28:24–28; Psalm 136:1). Judah needed that assurance when armies marched and hearts trembled, and we need it when our own plans splinter and we cannot see the path ahead. The prophet’s closing line is our anchor: all this comes from the Lord of hosts, whose plan is wonderful and whose wisdom is magnificent, which means our hope rests not in our read of the season but in His care over the whole field (Isaiah 28:29).

For Israel, this means that God’s strange work of discipline will give way to the bright day of restoration, because His gifts and calling are irrevocable and He keeps every promise He has made (Isaiah 10:24–27; Romans 11:28–29). For the Church, it means that the Father’s training aims at holiness and peace, and the Son’s cross guarantees that no pressure we face can separate us from His love (Hebrews 12:10–11; Romans 8:38–39). For every believer, it means that under the Master’s hand even the furrows of sorrow can become rows for joy, and the tears we sow today will be answered with songs of harvest in the Lord’s good time (Psalm 126:5–6). Trust Him. His wisdom is not guesswork, and His mercy is never late.

“All this also comes from the LORD Almighty, whose plan is wonderful, whose wisdom is magnificent.” (Isaiah 28:29)

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Want to Go Deeper?

This post draws from my book, The Parables of Jesus: Covert Communication from the King (Grace and Knowledge Series, Book 7), where I explore both Old and New Testament parables in their dispensational and prophetic context.

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