(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 Chaldaean 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, and the corn of my floor. These are the words of the prophet to Israel. Her chastisements have long been "threshing" Israel, separating the grain from the chaff, and will do so still more as time goes on. The prophet's message is for the comfort of those who shall have gone through the process and become the true "children of the threshing-floor" - pure wheat, fit to be gathered into the garner of God (Matthew 3:12).
21:1-10 Babylon was a flat country, abundantly watered. The destruction of Babylon, so often prophesied of by Isaiah, was typical of the destruction of the great foe of the New Testament church, foretold in the Revelation. To the poor oppressed captives it would be welcome news; to the proud oppressors it would be grievous. Let this check vain mirth and sensual pleasures, that we know not in what heaviness the mirth may end. Here is the alarm given to Babylon, when forced by Cyrus. An ass and a camel seem to be the symbols of the Medes and Persians. Babylon's idols shall be so far from protecting her, that they shall be broken down. True believers are the corn of God's floor; hypocrites are but as chaff and straw, with which the wheat is now mixed, but from which it shall be separated. The corn of God's floor must expect to be threshed by afflictions and persecutions. God's Israel of old was afflicted. Even then God owns it is his still. In all events concerning the church, past, present, and to come, we must look to God, who has power to do any thing for his church, and grace to do every thing that is for her good.
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 others; or rather of the people of the Jews, whom the prophet calls "his", as being his countrymen, to whom he was affected, and with whom he sympathized; and besides, he speaks in the name of the Lord; or it is the Lord that speaks by him, calling the church of the Jews his floor, and the people his corn, which were dear and valuable to him, as choice grain, wheat, and other things; and therefore, though he threshed or afflicted them, it was for their good, to purge and cleanse them, and separate the chaff from them; and indeed it was on their account, and for their good, that all this was to be done to Babylon, before predicted; where they were, as corn under the threshing instrument, greatly oppressed and afflicted, but now should be delivered; for the confirmation of which it is added:
that which I have heard of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you; the preceding prophecy was not a dream of his, but a vision from the Lord of hosts; it was not devised by him, but told him by the Lord, and that for the good and comfort of the people of Israel, whose covenant God he was; and the prophet acted a faithful part, in delivering it just as he received it, which might be depended on.
that which I have heard of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you; the preceding prophecy was not a dream of his, but a vision from the Lord of hosts; it was not devised by him, but told him by the Lord, and that for the good and comfort of the people of Israel, whose covenant God he was; and the prophet acted a faithful part, in delivering it just as he received it, which might be depended on.