“Line upon line, precept upon precept”
For they hear: 'Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line; a little here, a little there.' (Isaiah 28:10 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A tidy slogan for careful, step-by-step Bible study.
The cultural key
This line is often quoted approvingly as a method, learning 'precept upon precept, line upon line,' bit by bit. In context it is an insult thrown at Isaiah. The drunken priests and prophets (28:7-8) sneer that he treats them like toddlers 'just weaned from milk' (28:9), and then comes the taunt: in Hebrew a jingle of curt, repetitive syllables (tsav latsav tsav latsav, qav laqav qav laqav, ze'er sham ze'er sham), mimicking his preaching as tedious, nursery-level nonsense, 'blah blah, blah blah.' The sting is that God turns their mockery back on them: since they will not hear plain words, His word will come to them as exactly that, unintelligible, and 'with foreign tongues' (28:11), until they 'stumble backward and be injured, ensnared, and captured' (28:13). So the famous phrase is not a study plan but scoffing that becomes judgment. Paul draws on the 'foreign tongues' of the next verse in 1 Corinthians 14:21.
Recovered meaning
'Line upon line, precept upon precept' is not a study method but mocking baby-talk: drunken scoffers imitating Isaiah's preaching as monotonous nonsense. God turns their gibberish into judgment, letting His word become unintelligible to them.