Bible Strands
Isaiah 28:9
Whom is He trying to teach? To whom is He explaining His message? To infants just weaned from milk? To babies removed from the breast?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God speaks through Isaiah to the drunken, proud leaders of Judah, immediately after describing their tables covered with vomit (v. 8) and just before the repeated, simplified instructions of v. 10. The rhetorical questions expose their refusal to receive what is plainly given.
The words — דֵעָה (de'ah, "intellectual capacity" or "knowledge") and שְמוּעָה (shemu'ah, "the message" or "what is heard") form the verse's parallel pair: God is not merely imparting facts but making a received message understood.
The thread — The same hardening recurs in Jeremiah 6:10, where "their ears are closed, so they cannot hear," and in John 12:38, where "who has believed our message?" echoes shemu'ah as the thing refused.
Why it lands — The verse removes the excuse of complexity: if instruction is repeated, simplified, and still not received, the fault lies with the hearer, not the speaker. It asks the reader to examine whether they are treating God's plain words as beneath them.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
Cross-references
- Psalms 131:2 Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.
- Jeremiah 6:10 To whom can I give this warning? Who will listen to me? Look, their ears are closed, so they cannot hear. See, the word of the LORD has become offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it.
- John 12:38 This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet: “Lord, who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
- Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus declared, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.
- Matthew 21:15 But the chief priests and scribes were indignant when they saw the wonders He performed and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”
- Isaiah 53:1 Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
- Isaiah 54:13 Then all your sons will be taught by the LORD, and great will be their prosperity.
- Jeremiah 5:31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority. My people love it so, but what will you do in the end?
- John 3:19 And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil.
- 1 Peter 2:2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,