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[joyful1]

Hi everyone!
I'm looking to hear from anyone that has read the following passage of scripture and felt compelled to further investigate the meaning of "barley."
Thanks for any and all replies-- I have other notes, but will get to them in my next post....I'm trying to keep things shorter for easier reads. Just one thing to start with...the wheat is called "principal" here, but the barley is called "appointed"? I've noticed that barley harvest is before the wheat harvest?
Joyce

Isaiah 28:22-29
22 Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth.
23 Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.
24 Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground?
25 When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place?     26For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.  
27 For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.
28 Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.
29 This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.

[hillsbororiver]

Yep!

Barley flour is what makes the (unleavened) bread used for Passover, wheat is the (leavened) bread used for Pentecost.

Barley has no gluten so even if yeast were added to the flour it would have no effect on it. Some interesting parallels could certainly be brought out from this I am sure.

Peace,

Joe

[Beloved]

Wow God uses three commands in this verse in Isaiah , Listen Hhear and Pay attention.   Hope he has got your attention .....he sure has mine

(Isa 28:23)  Give ear, and hear my voice, Attend, and hear my saying:


Here God tells that the Farmer does not plow because he like working with the dirt...no it is all about the fruit/yield

He plows so he can plant , so then later he can reap. The whole point of it all is to provide... bread...to get that you need refinement

the farmer knows how far to beat the coriander and fennel, and how to bruise the grains like barley and wheat to yield the most starch.  God's chastening in the short run is painful but in the end it is all beneficial

In agriculture, the Flax and Barley come first, at Passover  (Flax provides the priestly garnents, barley bread is not levened and used at passover. .. Wheat comes later and then the grapes at tabernancles. 

Barley is unleavend and it is 5 barley loaves that will be broken, and feed the multitude.

The wheat will be then be harvested and burnt with fire at Pentecost...they too will feed the world...

The world will be havested in the grape presses....all will be harvested each in their own order.

Look a these great verses in Isaiah and just above this one


(Isa 28:9)  By whom doth He teach knowledge? And by whom doth He cause to understand the report? The weaned from milk, the removed from breasts,

(Isa 28:10)  For rule is on rule, rule on rule, line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there,

(Isa 28:12)  Unto whom He hath said, `This is the rest, give ye rest to the weary, And this--the refreshing:' And they have not been willing to hear,

(Isa 28:13)  And to whom a word of Jehovah hath been, Rule on rule, rule on rule, line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there, So that they go and have stumbled backward, And been broken, and snared, and captured.

Lots of great spiritual symbolism in these grains throughout the Bible especially if you look at what is happening during these different harvests.

Beloved

[Beloved]

I forgot to adress the question

I think the world will be clueless about Barley being 'appointed',

Wheat is planted in rows and hearty things like Rye served as borders to protect the gentler crops, Spices like corieander and fennel are scattered not planted in rows.

Barley is one of the oldest and now the lowliest food source. God fixed the Passover at the time of its harvest.  Passover started the clandar of God and he is using this fruit as symbolic of the firstfruits, after the sacrifice of His Lamb.

beloved

[joyful1]

Hi again, everyone!  
Thanks for your input! I am looking at barley in 2 ways:
1-- as you noted, beloved, as food. In farming, barley is apparently grown mainly as a feed for animals (*feed my sheep?) As good shepherds, if indeed we are called to shepherd, we must be willing to feed the sheep and in fact, give our lives for the sheep, just as Jesus did?

2--and secondly as a type of the "elect" which is harvested first-- look at this verse from Judges:

Judges 7:13
Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. "I had a dream," he was saying. "A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed."

God had just finished cutting Gideon's army from 32,000 down to 2,000 and again down to 300 men--selected on account of the way they lapped water--I am thinking that this was because they were in a "state of readiness" watching while kneeling and bringing the water up to their mouths-- (*those verses are a little confusing, so I may have read that wrong--perhaps someone else can clarify) but the point is that the dream of the barley bread was a quick prophecy of what was about to happen to the Midianites. Gideon's army would quickly swoop in, carrying an "empty clay jar/pitcher" with a "lighted torch" in it in one hand, and a "trumpet" in the other-- Gideon tells his crew to "follow his example and do what he does" (*like Paul saying; "immitate me")-- they come into the camp, the trumpets are blown (at the exact same time, as one?) and at the same time the jars are smashed, (*flooding the camp with light) and the men shout; "a sword for the LORD and for Gideon!" Where were their swords? Both hands were occupied! Yet the whole act was called "a sword!"

I am wondering, if "that sword", which was represented in the man's dream as a giant round loaf of BARLEY BREAD coming into the camp, could be a type of "the elect" being revealed to the enemies of God's "called" people?

God had promised Gideon that he would use the small group which He CHOSE to SAVE the entire army of 32,000 men...the victory was won by the 300 on behalf of the entire camp.

7 And the LORD said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand: and let all the other people go every man unto his place.

They seem to be bringing in light (*the lighted torches in each man's jar) which could represent (*light/understanding/truth?) hidden in the clay jars, until the appointed time for them to be "revealed?" The 300 were not "revealed" to the camp of the Midianites UNTIL the VESSELS were smashed and the trumpets blown.

2 Corinthians 4:7
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

Could the smashing of the "clay vessels"  be the "change" that comes at the sound of "the last trump?"

1 Corinthians 15:52
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
comments? sorry for the length...I TRIED to keep it short! honest!
Joyce

[Vangie]

Wow Joyce, Joe and Beloved--thanks for the wonderful symbolic studies.  Joyce, that wasn't long at all-very, very interesting thread here.  Please keep going with this one.  It's amazing to see these OT types unfold; I totally get what you are explaining--thank you...I'm a sponge soaking all this in, and I'm sure there are lots of others here like me, starting to grasp these wonderful analogies and truths being brought to light.

Love in Christ,
Vangie

[EKnight]

Wow, I am totally blinded here.  I don't get any of this.

Eileen

[joyful1]

Hi Vangie-- thanks for the encouragement...just so that we are on the same page though...I'm not trying to teach anything here, I'm not even sure if what I am "seeing" is completely in sinc with the rest of scripture--that's why I'm asking if anyone else can help me out with this...it just started making a picture for me of the elect and I wondered if anyone else has been looking at it from the same angle?

Hi Eileen!
Just like the elect, Gideon's army was:
-- few
-- chosen by God
-- used to save the rest of the camp

Gideon's army was represented in a dream as a loaf of barley bread. My question to you and everyone else is: can the barley bread be symbolic of God's elect? Hope this helps?
Joyce

[joyful1]

Hi guys! Hoping that you will correct me if I start to wander off course here....what do you see in this?

Firstfruits marks the beginning of the cereal grain harvests in Israel. Of the crops sown in winter, barley is the first grain to ripen. For the Feast of Firstfruits, a sheaf  (a bundle of stalks tied together) of barley is harvested and brought to the Temple as a thanksgiving offering to the Lord. It represents the entire barley harvest and serves as a pledge that the rest of the harvest will be brought in.

Christ was crucified on Passover 14th day of Nisan;
He was in the tomb on Unleavened Bread 15th day of Nisan
He was resurrected on Firstfruits the 16th day of Nisan...

So Christ is easily identified as the firstfruits

I Cor. 15:20-22
But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man [Adam], the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man [Jesus]. For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

Can the barley flour, ground from the firstfruits (Barley) symbolize the elect?
In the firstfruits ritual, after the wave sheaf of barley (Christ) is presented, the barley is MILLED INTO FLOUR which is offered the very next DAY mixed with a small amount of olive oil. In other words:

Can the elect be identified with the barley harvest, the firstfruits WITH Christ?

Gal 2:20
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
 
Also note: barley flour can also be made into bread. But it will be unleavened bread, because barley bread resists leavening! Apparently, you have to MIX barley flour with WHEAT flour to obtain a decent loaf of bread. The wheat can then be leavened easily with yeast and produce the nicely puffed up product we all enjoy so much. Pure barley bread is tough, hard, flat, unleavened, but resists spoilage and can be sold in the open markets for a longer period of time, placed in the backpack of the marching soldier, etc.
Joyce