How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

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Intertextuality Pair

Isaiah 28:13 → Isaiah 28:10

Quotation

Later text

Isaiah 28:13BSB

Then the word of the LORD to them will become: "Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line; a little here, a little there," so that they will go stumbling backward and will be injured, ensnared, and captured.

Earlier text

Isaiah 28:10BSB

For they hear: "Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line; a little here, a little there."

Significance

Isaiah 28:13 deliberately repeats the exact mocking formula from 28:10 — "Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line; a little here, a little there" (צַו לָצָו צַו לָצָו קַו לָקָו קַו לָקָו, tsav latsav tsav latsav qav laqav qav laqav). In v. 10, the drunkards of Ephraim ridicule Isaiah's prophetic instruction as childish babbling. In v. 13, God turns their mockery into judgment: the same stuttering sounds become the incomprehensible speech of foreign invaders (the Assyrians), so that they stumble backward and are "ensnared and captured." The identical words function first as contemptuous parody, then as prophetic sentence — their own derision becomes the form of their punishment.

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Direct Quotation
Connection Method(s): Contrast — the identical formula with inverted function: the scoffers' parody of Isaiah's preaching ("Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line; a little here, a little there," v. 10) is repeated verbatim by the LORD in v. 13 as the sentence itself — the babble they mocked becomes the unintelligible speech of foreign invaders by which they are "ensnared, and captured" — their own derision turned into the very form of their judgment.