Did Isaiah speak in tongues in Isaiah 28:10

11 So, the Lord will speak to his people in strange sounds

and foreign languages.+ 12He promised you perfect peace and rest,

but you refused to listen. 13Now his message to you will be senseless sound

after senseless sound.+ (CSB)

What many English translations say is something like "line upon line, precept upon precept" is actually something that scholars think is gibberish or baby talk.
(ṣaw lāṣāw ṣaw lāṣāw qaw lāqāw qaw lāqāw zeʿêr šām zeʿêr šām),

So instead of .....
10“Law after law, law after law, line after line, line after line, a little here, a little there.”A

11For he will speak to this people

with stammering speech

and in a foreign language.a

What if it is saying.....

10 ṣaw lāṣāw ṣaw lāṣāw qaw lāqāw qaw lāqāw zeʿêr šām zeʿêr šām,
11 For he will speak to this people

with stammering speech

and in a foreign language.a

If this is the case, how would this change the minds of those who mock modern tongues and call it baby talk and gibberish and therefore cannot be the real thing? And yet it turns out that this is exactly what the scholars think Isaiah did here.

Many commentators have been puzzled by v. 10 and have wrestled to make sense of the Hebrew. The truth seems to be, as the NIV margin suggests, that it is not meant to make sense. Isaiah’s words have hardly penetrated the alcohol-impregnated atmosphere that surrounds his hearers. What they have picked up are simply stray syllables (ṣaw lāṣāw ṣaw lāṣāw qaw lāqāw qaw lāqāw zeʿêr šām zeʿêr šām), most of them repeated, like the baby talk that delights the child but insults an adult. They mouth this gibberish back at the prophet.

Grogan, Rev. Geoffrey W.. Isaiah (The Expositor's Bible Commentary) (Kindle Locations 7584-7588). Zondervan Academic.

Now I am not saying that Isaiah did speak in tongues here. But whatever is going on here I don't think it has anything to do with how we tell people we are going to study the bible "line upon line, precept upon precept" I don't think this is what Isaiah was trying to communicate.

What if this was a demonstration of speaking in tongues? Is it possible? Dig into this before you dismiss it out of hand. It turns out that the translators have a difficult time determining what these syllables are supposed to mean.

No, modern tongues-speech is not rational language.

See some of the Torah commentaries on this verse to get a better insight.

From one such commentary -

See the first answer and discussion given here:

https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/18649/isaiah-2810-precepts-or-gibberish

Isaiah Chapter 28

Thanks for the link. It is very interesting.

I will be studying this deeper. I just discovered it.

Two things that stand out to me and greatly encourage me.

1) I always felt a check that the way people were teaching "line upon line, precept upon precept" for bible study was not what Isaiah was communicating and that I needed to dig deeper. It encourages me that IF we keep a pure heart, humble and sincere motives to please God and turn from all sin, He will guide us with the Holy Spirit into all truth. IF we respond to the "checks" he gives us when a text is being misapplied, to dig deeper and discover why we feel a "check".

2) This might be a case where the skeptic claiming that speaking in tongues today sounds like gibberish and therefore cannot be a real language is exposed to be a weak argument since the prophesy about it was a demonstration of what was meant to sound like gibberish to them.

Of course I already know that speaking in tongues does not have to be a known language and that happened only once and is not normative. The other times it required a gift of interpretation or no one knew what was said. That is normative.

I speak in tongues and have been for 40 years so I am not interested in arguing about it with people who don't speak in tongues, however, looking at the reasoning that it must be a known language is weakened by this very source prophesy that apparently uses gibberish to talk about it. Can you see my point here? It is probably too deep to ever use in a normal conversation.

Plus the fact that I don't know what I am really seeing here yet. I might be on to something, and I might not.

I read through this and what I got from it is that the history of Rabbinical interpreters has been as usual, inventing their own ideas because they couldn't make sense of the words either. They just did what they had a habit of doing and making up their own interpretations that supported what they were already teaching.

So I think the best interpretation so far is that Isaiah was speaking gibberish as a prophesy of speaking in tongues. This would be a sign to unbelievers in the future. And so it is. Unbelievers reject it as gibberish.

where the gifts only for NT or was it the Holy Spirit meaning its Him.. the gifts come from Him. We move by what we see hear feel not by faith most the time and God is out side of Time. So the sweet holy Spirit was there is here yet out side of time and those gifts were for OT NT. For me speaking in tongues as the word of God says is talking between you and God.. and the gift of other languages.

So I guess he could have or.. does not matter to me in the least. Be nice if we didn't make fun the holy spirit. Anyone can simple say what they believe with out offending others.

Sorry, I have to completely disagree - it's not gibberish so much as just a nonsense sentence. The words, though people don't seem to be able to make sense of them, are Hebrew words; i.e., unlike tongues-speech, they are real rational language. I tend to think it's the Isaiah's imitation of his audience mocking him.

I don't see the rabbinical commentaries as the commentators not making sense of the words. Trying to ascertain what exactly they mean, perhaps, but it is certainly not an allusion to the Pentecostal /Charismatic concept of 'tongues'.

it's quite obvious Verse 11 is foretelling Acts 2.
11 For with stammering lips and with a strange tongue shall it be spoken to this people;

6 but when this sound had come, the multitude came together and were perplexed, because they heard them speaking, each one in his own language.

Except for the others that were mocking them saying they must be drunk because they thought they were speaking gibberish. There were at least some that did not understand, and did not even recognize it as coherent speech in any language thus they concluded drunkenness must be the reason for the sounds they were making.

Isaiah doesn't say all would understand.

ṣaw lāṣāw ṣaw lāṣāw qaw lāqāw qaw lāqāw zeʿêr šām zeʿêr šām

If he was mimicking the sound of the Assyrian language without intending for them to be real words but just sounds, like when one mimics the Chinese language then he is in effect giving an example of gibberish.

It is probably going way too far to suggest that this is an utterance in speaking in tongues.

It is more likely that it is an example of gibberish. What it sounds like to them. Or what they are SAYING it sounds like to them.

But if that is the case it is a prophesy of what the unbeliever will say when they hear the valid gift of speaking in tongues. They say we are babbling, or mad, or speaking gibberish.


As to Acts 2 that was the only time it said that others understood them in their own language. All other cases no one understood. Therefore the other cases are normative. Just like the tongues of fire were once and not normative. Paul did not understand his tongues after 20 years. Paul also said that they needed someone with the HOLY SPIRIT GIFT of interpretation and not simply a translator. Visitors would not think they were mad if they realized they were speaking in French, Spanish, German, etc, but it is because they would think they were babbling and therefore an interpretation would be necessary to explain that it was not actually gibberish they were speaking.

In every way what happens today matches the accounts in the scriptures. I find it interesting that the prophesy might be supporting that people will think we are speaking gibberish. That's ok. Isaiah told us this would happen. I am just wondering for now.

I have to read a lot more about Isaiah 28:10-13 before I will have a real opinion about this.

Well, as a linguist, I have a very different view of modern tongues-speech.

No, this is not at all a reference to tongues-speech. In short, it is a reference specifically to the Assyrian language.
Seeing the Jews will not hear God speaking by his prophets and ministers, in their own language, they will now hear their enemies speaking to them in a strange language. He will teach them in a manner that will be much more humiliating; he would make use of the barbarous language of foreigners to bring them to the true knowledge of God. They are now in a distant land, and there, in hearing a strange speech, in living long among foreigners, they should learn the lesson which they refused to do when addressed by the prophets in their own land.

Hold up! Acts 2 is the clearest example of New Testament speaking in tongues.

The church at Corinth had problems with the gifts and were rebuked by Paul for their disorder and confusion. They aren't the example to repeat but see what isn't right in regards to the sign gifts.

Real languages unknown to the speaker is the clearest example.

I won't keep repeating myself. You can look at what I have posted in this thread. People hearing in their own language only happened once. Same with the tongues of flame. The other cases no one understood.

Paul said only someone with the Holy Spirit gift of interpretation of tongues could give the meaning and not just anyone who could recognize a known language and translate it. It is obvious that the Corinthians were not speaking in known languages that could be translated.

This is not gibberish. It has been translated properly in the KJB. No, Isaiah did not speak in tongues but prophesied about them.

If all we had was Acts 2 it would be one thing. But we are given a richly detailed look at how speaking in tongues with the Holy Spirit Gift of interpretation was being used in the churches to edify.

If it was known tongues it would be fairly easy to identify them and find a bilingual translator. But that is not what Paul tells them. He specifically tells them to haves someone with the Holy Spirit Gift of interpretation give the meaning.

This is what was going on in the Charismatic churches some 20 years after Pentecost and this of course is what is going on today also.

As I understand it the question about what these syllables mean in the original manuscripts has been perplexing scholars long before the KJV scholars were born.

I don't think that Isaiah was speaking in tongues. (but what if he was? Wouldn't that be interesting?) He was probably writing the sounds they made when mimicking foreign Assyrian tongues they did not understand.

I have a friend that is a legit scholar. I am going to ask him about this. I can't believe that it is not discussed more among Pentecostals.
I guess it is just too much of a "unlearnable mystery" in the world of translation and textual criticism to be considered worthy of discussion. They either think it can't be known, or they don't see any value in discussing it.

I think if he was telling them that speaking in tongues would sound like gibberish to them that it is very much a worthy conversation and has prophetic meaning. What if he prophesied the reaction that unbelievers and skeptics would have when they heard people speak in tongues? They will accuse them of speak gibberish and fall backwards and be snared in unbelief never being persuaded by such a miracle and supernatural gifts given to the church. They will just say your crazy. A sign to unbelievers.

When a person is born again the receive a new spirit from God. They begin to speak in new tongues, not meaning they spew gibberish, but, rather, meaning that they speak from a new heart, spirit, and perspective. A person who speaks English for example will continue to speak English but he will tell people about the wonderful things of God in English - whereas he used to speak about wordly things only, leaving God out. This verse you mention seems to be saying that because the people mentioned in the verse reject God's gospel, instead they will be given the world's spirit and language to listen to. Since the unsaved do not have God in their hearts, their language does not make sense, and is just jibberish in that respect.

Paul quoted Isaiah 28:11 as a prophesy about the speaking in tongues that the Corinthians were doing and of course that it would be a sign to the unbeliever in the sense that the unbelievers who encounter this phenomenon and their persistence in unbelief would come back to haunt them in the day of judgment.

As to born again believers speaking differently than they did when they were living in sin, I don't believe has anything to do with speaking in tongues in the context of the Holy Spirit gifts mentioned and explained in 1 Cor 14.

Yes we think differently and talk differently than before we were saved but that is not the Holy Spirit gift of speaking in tongues that is referenced in Isaiah 28 which Paul quoted in reference to the gift that the Corinthians were exercising that required a gift of interpretation to give the meaning.

I would not teach that Speaking in tongues in Acts 2, 8,9,10,11,19 or 1 Cor 12-14 simply means talking about Jesus, and scriptures that one does after they get saved.

If you do that you would lose any credibility of being able to interpret scripture or communicate what the writer meant about other things besides speaking in tongues. If one takes liberties with the meaning of that phrase what else are they changing to fit their own ideas instead of what the author actually meant?