Lord of the Harvest
another essay for a busy week
As we prepare to go backpacking this weekend, I again find myself running quite short on time. I have packing to do, sleep to get, and a lunch to make - I’m so thankful for the opportunity to go on this trip, but it doesn’t leave me much time for writing this week! The time is ripe for another peek into Bible school studies. This time, I’m publishing a short paper from our 1-week class on the image of God as a Farmer throughout Scripture, specifically in the book of Isaiah. I focused on the relationship between farming imagery and judgement. Thanks for reading!
In Scripture, God uses the actions of plowing, threshing, and crushing as images of His judgement on His people and His enemies. Although the two judgements differ, God reaps a harvest of His glory from both. In Isaiah 28:23-29, God foretells the judgement of His people by describing a farmer who plants and harvests a crop. The passage begins with a series of rhetorical questions about plowing and planting practices, then declares that God teaches the farmer, showing Him the right way to farm. It moves on to speaking about the threshing and harvesting of the crops and ends with another assurance that the Lord of all creation teaches His people: “This also comes from the LORD of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.” The farming practices referenced at the beginning and middle of the passage refer to God’s dealings with His people. This passage communicates the Lord’s decree of destruction for Israel’s sin using harvest language. The broader context involves Israel making a covenant with death and making lies their refuge when they already had a covenant with and refuge in God Himself, and receiving judgement from God as a result. God uses the language of harvest to communicate why and how He judges His people.
Exploring the concept of harvest as an image of judgement yields several conclusions about God’s character that help create an accurate picture of God’s judgement. Like a farmer knows the proper way to tend his crops, from plowing to harvest, God in His wisdom knows the proper way to deal with His people in every season. As the farmer knows the time to thresh His crops, God knows the time to bring judgement, but He also knows that like the harvest season, the season of judgement for His people doesn’t last forever. The Lord’s wisdom applies to every part of His dealings with His people. He doesn’t judge them in irrational anger or pour out His wrath forever any more than a farmer harvests out of impatience or continues to beat the grain harvest longer than necessary. God pours out judgement on His people only as much as He needs to to ensure a harvest of His glory from the people he tends like a farmer tends his fields.
Farmers also separate the good harvest from the part of the harvest they can’t use, which they throw away. Like a farmer threshing crops, God separates His people from those that act against Him and seek to harm His chosen ones. In Isaiah 41:15-16, God foretells the judgement of His enemies by using the image of grain harvest. He promises to use His people like a threshing sledge to harvest His enemies: “behold, I make of you a threshing sledge, new, sharp, and having teeth…you shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the tempest shall scatter them.” Unlike His judgement on His people, which is temporary, God’s judgement on His enemies ends in total destruction, similar to the end of the chaff in the harvest. God brings judgement on His enemies, but He doesn’t scatter them because He enjoys seeing them destroyed. Rather, He judges to protect His people, and ultimately, to bring Himself glory: “the tempest shall scatter them. And you shall rejoice in the LORD; in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory.” Like the harvest season, God’s judgement of His people doesn’t last forever, and like the separation of the grain and the chaff, His judgement on His enemies is final and irreversible. Ultimately, both judgements serve the same purpose - to give God a harvest of rejoicing and glory for His wisdom and love for His people.
Rooted in Him,
Kate