Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.
Give ye ear, and hear my voice - calling attention to the following illustration from husbandry (Psalms 49:1-2). As the farmer does his different kinds of work, each in its right time and due proportion, so God adapts His measures to the varying exigencies of the several cases: now mercy, now judgments; now punishing sooner, now later (an answer to the scoff that His judgments, being put off so long, would never come at all, Isaiah 5:19); His object being not to destroy His people anymore than the farmer's object in threshing is to destroy his crop. This vindicates God's "strange work" (Isaiah 28:21) in punishing His people. Compare the same image, Jeremiah 24:6; This vindicates God's "strange work" (Isaiah 28:21) in punishing His people. Compare the same image, Jeremiah 24:6; Hosea 2:23; Matthew 3:12.