Why some verses have questions that negate the question?

Such as, Isaiah 40:28
Do you not know? Have you not heard?

I understand that the use of words has changed through time but, even if I modernized them, it still is confusing.

Don’t you know? Still says, Do not you know?
Haven’t you Heard? Says, Have not you heard?

Anyone else find this odd?

The ONLY assumption I can go with is, these are rhetorical questions..... The asker knows the answer but to the one being asked, the answer is not currently obvious.

It is indeed a rhetorical device. An odd form of question, it warrants a response of either yes or no, but neither provides any clear information. Jesus asks similar questions of the Pharisees, “Have you not read...”. Basically it assumes the negative.

"Why some verses have questions that negate the question?"


Actually, the act of asking a question doesn't negate the question.
The act of asking of a question merely introduces the question.

You can't ask a question without asking a question.

Asking question, rhetorically or otherwise, is a perfectly normal way of engaging a listener in your ideas.
Teachers do this, public speakers do this, and we all do this in normal daily life with our friends.
It's very normal.

In the Bible, God sometimes asks questions.
It's a very normal method, in communication, to get someone to sort of stop, and think, and engage with your ideas.
Questions tend to jolt us a bit; they get our attention.
That's a good thing.

..

If the issue is about framing a question in the negative....
that's a very normal way of framing a question.

It does start with an IMPLICATION that you have NOT done something,
but that's a very normal way to speak.
We all do this all the time.
.

I agree it is a rhetorical 'device'

with a big dollop of incredulity

is it so strange?

sometimes the point of a question isn't to get an answer - sometimes not just to rhetorically bring attention to an obvious answer, too. sometimes the question is very hard, maybe unanswerable, and the point of asking is to make you think, and realize that you don't really know as much as you think you do.

the Bible asks questions like this sometimes - like God asking Adam who told you that you are naked? it is not as if God does not know the answer. He's teaching something by asking this. He's steering Adam to the truth.
or God's answer to Job from the whirlwind - He's not ignorant of the answers to His questions. He's teaching Job, and the evidence Job learned from this is that Job shut his mouth, knowing he had no answer and no further questions!

Sometimes it is to reveal to the listener that they really should already know something.. If you are talking to religious people which Isaiah was they should have been well read in the scriptures and they should have already known.. But some while considering themselves religious would not have known and it would have caused them personal discomfort in realizing that they did not know what they should have.. This would have acted to encourage some to get into the scriptures with more attentiveness / purpose..

On the occsions I have been blessed to go to the Old City of Jerusalem, that is within the walls, it was obvious to me the Temple is where people have always knon it to be. YOu see it is enclosed by the walls with all of the gates cited in the writing ssof the Old and New Testaments. I exited through the Gate called Beautiful, and entered the samemany times. The Jaffa Gate or Yaffa which means beautiful. I saw Herod''s Gate and the DungGate that opnes up to the Valley of Hinnom. The only gate I did not enter is the one through which our Lord is to re-enter the city upon His return for it is sealed until that great and glorious moment..

The place of theskull, Golgotha is just outside the city and it does yet resemble a skull., where our Savior was crucified. The entire area is as described inthe Wor. If we meant the city of Davied as the City of the Beloved (Jesus), then so Jerusalem mya be designated, however the city of David ws where King David first had hsi city of refuge to be safe from Saul...…..It was his capital until he moved the capital to the Jerusalem we know today. It was never the site of the Temple but built where God instructed it to be built , in the City of Yahweh' Peace, Yahurushalaim..Jerusalem.

Well it might be a reference to the fact that the Jewish people had an abundant opportunity of learning and traditions of Jewish faith.