The Farmer's Varied Work Displays Wise Proportion

The farmer does not plow every day, and he matches seed to soil

Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? 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? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.

Plowing has a stop. Different seeds get different placement. Discretion is taught by God. The analogy explains purposeful, varied action after the strange work of judgment. It is not a secret code, not a rigid formula, and not a guarantee of outcomes.

Threshing is fitted to the grain so the dill is not crushed like wheat

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. 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. This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.

A staff for one crop, a rod for another, a heavier bruise for bread grain, and an end to threshing so the kernel is not destroyed. Proportion is the wisdom. The parable must not be turned into a technique that promises harvest, or into a cipher for decoding enemies.