Line upon Line — The Woes of Isaiah 28–33
Drunken priests mocked Isaiah’s teaching as baby talk. The Lord kept their words and made them the way He teaches.
Six Times Hoy
How do you find your way through six chapters? Listen for one word. “Woe” is Hebrew hoy, the mourner’s cry, and it opens six oracles in a row. G. Vincent Medina calls this “the widely recognized structuring function of the six hôy-oracles” (Medina, 2009).
1 (28:1) Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim
2 (29:1) Woe to Ariel, the city where David dwelt
3 (29:15) Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD
4 (30:1) Woe to the rebellious children… that take counsel, but not of me
5 (31:1) Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses
6 (33:1) Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled
Five fall on God’s own people; the sixth on the spoiler.
Isaiah has done this before; chapter 5 has six woes too (Isaiah 5). Woes two and three are chapter 29, the sealed book, with their own page (Isaiah 29). Medina argues the whole section centres on chapter 30 and its words “in returning and rest you will be saved,” so hold on to that verse as we go.
Tsav Latsav, Qav Laqav
The first woe finds the leaders drunk: “the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink… they err in vision” (Isaiah 28:7). And what do they say about Isaiah? “Whom shall he teach knowledge? … them that are weaned from the milk” (28:9). Does he think we are infants?
Isaiah 28:10 — the Hebrew sound
tsav latsav, tsav latsav — precept upon precept, precept upon precept;
qav laqav, qav laqav — line upon line, line upon line;
ze’er sham, ze’er sham — here a little, and there a little.
Monosyllables, doubled and doubled again. A nursery chant, and that is the insult.
The Cambridge Bible hears it this way: “The topers proceed to mock, in stammering drunken tones, the excited utterance and the wearisome iterations of the prophet’s teaching” (Bible Hub). Some read verses 9–10 as Isaiah’s own words. The chapter leans to the mockers: “be ye not mockers” (28:22).
Either way, watch what the Lord does. He had offered rest, “yet they would not hear” (28:12). So He hands their chant back: “But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept… here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken” (28:13).
Why teach that way to people who hated it? Because they had refused plain words so long that the simple teaching became a thing to trip over. Jacob saw the same law at work among the Jews: they “despised the words of plainness,” so God took His plainness away, “because they desired it… that they may stumble” (Jacob 4:14).
A Taunt That Became a Doctrine
Most members have never noticed that the phrase we use for the gentle way God teaches us first appears in scripture as a drunkard’s sneer. And the Lord did not drop it; He took the mockery and made it His method, and He has kept it in every dispensation since.
“I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; … for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.”
Nephi wrote it against those who say, “We have received the word of God, and we need no more” (28:29). That is Isaiah 28 again, for Jerusalem’s scoffers did not want to be taught like children, and ours do not want to be taught any more at all. The Lord kept the phrase: “he will give unto the faithful line upon line, precept upon precept” (D&C 98:12), and Joseph Smith used the whole chant for the angels who restored their keys (D&C 128:21).
So Joseph Smith did not know everything from the beginning, and the Saints who first heard of baptism for the dead went down to the river to do it. Is that evidence against revelation? No. It is how the Lord said revelation would come — to the DEGREE that we accept it. After the 1978 priesthood revelation, Elder Bruce R. McConkie told Church educators, “We get our truth and our light line upon line and precept upon precept” (All Are Alike unto God).
Should we be surprised when the Lord gives more? It isn’t odd. It’s NORMAL. It only ever troubled the ones who had decided they had enough.
A Covenant with Death and a Tried Stone
The rulers had a plan: “We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement… for we have made lies our refuge” (Isaiah 28:15). The Lord’s answer is not a better treaty. It is a stone.
“Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.”
Then the builder’s tools: “Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet” (28:17). The word for that line is qav — the word the drunkards chanted. They sang qav laqav to mock the prophet; God lays His qav against their wall, the hail sweeps away “the refuge of lies,” and the covenant with death “shall be disannulled” (28:17–18).
Who is the stone? Peter applies the verse to Christ, “a chief corner stone, elect, precious” (1 Peter 2:6). Helaman calls it “the rock of our Redeemer,” “a sure foundation,” where even “all his hail” has no power (Helaman 5:12). Isaiah’s hail sweeps away the refuge of lies. It cannot move the rock, and the man who stands on it does not need to run.
The Ploughman’s God
Chapter 28 ends with a farmer, and most readers skip him, but he matters. He puts each seed “in their place,” for “his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.” Then the harvest: “the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it” (Isaiah 28:24–28). Small seed gets a stick. Grain gets the wheel. No grain is threshed forever, because the farmer wants bread, not dust.
Why is he here, right after the judgment? Because God had just called that judgment “his strange work” (28:21). The Lord who taught the farmer knows what each of His people can bear, and He stops when the purpose is served. Some of us get the rod. Nobody gets the wheel forever.
See Not, Say the Rebels
“Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me… That walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth” (Isaiah 30:1–2). And what do they say to the men God sent? “See not… speak unto us smooth things… Get you out of the way” (30:10–11). They did not want to be rid of prophets so much as to have prophets who agreed with them.
Then comes the offer Medina puts at the centre: “In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not” (30:15). “Ye would not” is the same Hebrew verb as “they would not hear” in 28:12. Two offers of rest and two refusals, and still the Lord answers, “therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you” (30:18). They would not wait for God. God waits for them.
Isaiah 30 — the words come back
“say to the seers, See not” (30:10)
“thine eyes shall see thy teachers” (30:20)
“Get you out of the way” (30:11)
“This is the way, walk ye in it” (30:21)
“in quietness… and ye would not” (30:15)
“the effect of righteousness quietness” (32:17)
Our arrangement, from the repeated words; the Hebrew repeats them too (ra’ah, derek, hashqet). What the rebels refused, the Lord promises back. Nothing they threw away is lost for good.
Horses, Birds, and the Devouring Fire
“Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses” (Isaiah 31:1–5). But “their horses flesh, and not spirit.” Then: “As birds flying, so will the LORD of hosts defend Jerusalem… and passing over he will preserve it.” That is pasoach, the verb of the first Passover (Exodus 12:13). Judah ran to Egypt for protection, and the Lord reminds them He once protected them IN Egypt.
Chapter 32 gives the answer. “Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness… And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest” (Isaiah 32:1–2). The “hiding place” the waters overflowed in 28:17 and the “covert” here are the same Hebrew word, seter. One shelter was made of lies. The other is a Man. And the last woe, “Woe to thee that spoilest” (33:1), falls on the spoiler, most likely Assyria — the one woe not aimed at Israel is the one that sets her free.
Then Isaiah asks the question every temple asks: “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly… He shall dwell on high” (Isaiah 33:14–16). The Psalms ask it the same way — “who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly” (Psalm 15:1–2; compare Psalm 24:3–4). Joseph Smith taught, as the seminary manual notes, that “dwell with everlasting burnings” refers to the environment in which God lives (Lesson 123). The fire is not a punishment. It is His home.
Zion becomes “a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed” (33:20). And the woes end on a creed: “For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us” (33:22). Judah trusted Pharaoh and a covenant with death. Isaiah ends by naming the only King who saves.
Key References — Isaiah 28–33
- 2 Nephi 28:27–30 — “We have enough.”
- Jacob 4:14–17 — Plainness refused, and the only sure foundation.
A Word Behind Thee
“And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers: And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.”
The bread of adversity stays in this promise; what changes is the teaching, because the teachers are no longer hidden in a corner and the word comes to each one who walks. And where is the voice? Behind you. You hear it walking, when you start to turn. The Holy Ghost “will show unto you all things what ye should do” (2 Nephi 32:5).
That is how line upon line comes to one person. A word, then a step, then another word. The drunkards thought it was beneath them. It is how God walks with His children, and it speaks the one word the rebels wanted silenced: way. Hear it, and walk.
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