A bad vineyard
5
📚Now I will sing to my loved one a song of my beloved
concerning his vineyard.
My loved one has a vineyard
in a very fruitful hill;
5:1 The prophet speaks of God and His people Israel. “Sing” here means merely to utter in poetic form. The “fruitful hill” is the land of Israel.⚜
2 📚And he dug it up,
and cleared away its stones,
and planted it with
the choicest vine,
and built a tower in
the middle of it,
and also made a winepress in it.
Then he looked for it
to produce grapes,
and it produced wild grapes.
3 📚“And now, O inhabitants of
Jerusalem,
and men of Judah,
please judge between me
and my vineyard.
4 📚What more could have been done
to my vineyard that
I have not done in it?
Why then, when I looked for it
to produce grapes,
did it produce wild grapes?
5:2-4 God did all He could possibly do to make the vineyard good, fruitful, and safe. But all He got for His work was bad fruit. In v 3 God Himself begins to speak through Isaiah. Why was it that only bad fruit was produced from such careful effort? Was it the fault of the owner of the vineyard, or the fault of the people who were the vineyard? The answer is so obvious that God calls upon the people of the vineyard themselves to give the answer.⚜
5 📚Come now,
I will tell you what I am going
to do to my vineyard.
I will take away its hedge,
and it will be devoured.
And I will break down its wall,
and it will be trampled down.
6 📚And I will make it a desolation.
It will not be pruned, or dug,
but briars and thorns will come up.
I will also command the clouds to rain no rain on it”.
5:1-6 Here is a parable regarding the nation of Israel as a whole and the tribe of Judah in particular. Those who thought of themselves as God’s people are called a vineyard. Compare Ps 80:8-19; Isa 3:14; 27:2; Jer 2:21; 12:10; Ezek 17:6-8; 19:10-14; Hos 10:1; 14:7; Micah 7:1; Matt 20:1-16; 21:33-44; John 15:1-5.⚜
5:5-6 God does not say He will simply depart and abandon His vineyard. He says He will work actively for its destruction. This is because the vineyard is a nation which deserved punishment and which needed drastic correction. God used invading armies to accomplish His purposes.⚜
7 📚For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah are his pleasant plant.
And he looked for justice,
but saw oppression;
for righteousness,
5:7 The prophet put the matter beyond doubt by explaining the parable. From here to v 25 he points out what is meant by the bad fruit of verses 2 and 4. The good fruit for which God looked is stated in two words in v 7 – justice and righteousness. The bad fruits were many. This verse gives two – murder and unjust oppression of the people that made them cry out in pain.⚜
but heard a cry of distress.
Woe! Woe! Woe!
8 📚Woe to those who add
house to house,
who join field to field,
until there is no space left,
so that they may live alone
in the midst of the land!
9 📚In my ears the LORD of hosts said:
“Certainly many great and beautiful
houses will be desolate,
without inhabitant.
10 📚Yes, ten acres 📖 of vineyard will yield
only one bath 📖,
and a homer 📖 of seed will yield
only an ephah 📖”.
5:8-10 The sin here is greed for property. A common and very foolish sin which God hates and forbids (Ex 20:17; Luke 12:15; 1 Tim 6:6-10. For an illustration of greed that was terribly punished see 1 Kings 21:1-19). God punished these greedy people by making their fields unfruitful and by carrying them off from their fine houses.⚜
11 📚Woe to those who rise up
early in the morning,
that they may go after
strong drink,
and who continue until night,
till wine inflames them!
12 📚And the harp, and the lyre,
the tambourine, and flute,
and wine, are in their feasts.
But they do not regard the work
of the LORD,
nor consider the work of his hands.
13 📚Therefore my people go
into captivity,
because they have
no knowledge,
and their honourable men are
famished,
and their masses are dried up
from thirst.
14 📚Therefore hell 📖 has enlarged itself,
and opened its mouth without limit;
and their glory, and their masses,
and their pomp, and he who rejoices,
will descend into it.
15 📚And the common man will be
brought down,
and the mighty man will be abased,
and the eyes of the arrogant will be
brought low.
5:15 See Isa 2:11-18. Again God reveals His hatred of man’s arrogance.⚜
16 📚But the LORD of hosts will be
exalted in judgment,
and the holy God will be
hallowed in righteousness.
5:16 Observe that God is glorified in His just punishment of sinners and in the display of His righteousness which results in their destruction.⚜
17 📚Then the lambs will graze
as in their pasture,
and strangers will eat
in the waste places of the rich.
5:11-17 The sin here is drunkenness and revelry. Those engaging in it did not “consider the work of his hands” (v 12). They thought only of their own pleasures and lusts. The punishment would be exile to a foreign land where, instead of enjoying wine and rich foods, they would die of hunger and thirst (vs 13,14). Observe in this chapter how fitting each punishment is to the crime.⚜
5:17 This speaks of desolation and enemy occupation of land.⚜
18 📚Woe to those who drag
wickedness along with cords
of falsehood,
and sin as if with a cart rope.
5:18 So much of man’s sin has to do with deceit – deceiving others, and often themselves, and trying to deceive God as well. The mention of cords and ropes suggests labor. These people worked hard at their sins.⚜
19 📚They say, “Let him hurry,
and hasten his work,
so that we can see it;
and let the plan of the Holy One
of Israel draw near and come,
so that we can know it”.
5:19 These sinners spoke these words in sarcasm. As so many others they did not believe God’s threatened judgments would come on them.⚜
20 📚Woe to those who call
evil good, and good evil;
who put darkness for light,
and light for darkness;
who put bitter for sweet,
and sweet for bitter.
5:20 This shows the depths of their depravity. By sin and hardness of heart they had lost the desire, and perhaps even the ability, to distinguish between right and wrong. Compare Rom 1:21; Eph 4:18-19; Heb 5:14.⚜
21 📚Woe to those who are wise
in their own eyes,
and prudent in their own sight.
5:21 Prov 3:7; Isa 47:10; 1 Cor 1:18-21; 3:18-20. To be wise in one’s own eyes is to cut oneself off from God’s wisdom and to commit the sin of arrogance.⚜
22 📚Woe to those who are heroes
in drinking wine and champions
in mixing strong drink;
23 📚Who declare the wicked
innocent for a bribe,
and take away the justice
of the righteous from him,
5:8-23 He pronounces a number of “woes” on the people for their sins (v 8,11,18,20,21,22). These “woes” mean God is denouncing them and will punish them.⚜
5:18-23 Here is a list of sins with threatened “woes”. The punishment for all of these sins is described in vs 24-30.⚜
5:22-23 In verses 11,12, the prophet denounces this sin in general. Here he denounces it in the judges and leaders. In Hebrew these two verses are clearly linked. The judges were “heroes”, that is, very capable people, at drinking. But they were corrupt in administration and incapable of just verdicts. On bribery see Ex 23:8; 1 Sam 8:3; Ps 26:10; Prov 15:27; 17:23; Amos 5:12.⚜
24 📚Therefore as the fire
devours the stubble,
and the flame consumes
the chaff,
so their root will
become rotten,
and their blossom will
go up like dust;
because they have cast away
the law of the LORD of hosts,
and despised the word of
the Holy One of Israel.
25 📚Therefore the anger of
the LORD burns against
his people,
and he has stretched out his hand
against them and struck them;
and the hills trembled,
and their corpses were
torn in the middle of the streets.
For all this his anger is not
turned away,
but his hand is
stretched out still 📖.
5:24-25 None of the classes of sinners described in the preceding verses will escape God’s punishment. Observe that the root cause of their evil behavior was the rejection of God’s Word as a ruling power in their lives.⚜
26 📚And he will lift up a banner
to the nations from afar,
and will whistle to them from
the end of the earth; and,
look, they come speedily, swiftly!
27 📚None of them will be weary
or stumble. No one will slumber
or sleep;
nor will the belt around their
waist be loosened,
nor the strap of their
sandals be broken.
28 📚Their arrows are sharp,
and all their bows are bent.
Their horses’ hooves will seem like flint,
and their wheels like a whirlwind.
29 📚Their roaring will be
like a lion.
They will roar like young lions.
Yes, they will roar,
and take hold of the prey,
and will carry it away safely,
and no one will rescue it.
30 📚And in that day they will roar
against them like the roaring
of the sea.
And if one looks
toward the land,
darkness and sorrow
appear,
and the light is darkened
by its clouds.
5:26-30 These verses speak of invasions by foreign armies. God calls them to come against His own people for their chastisement. In 722 and 701 B.C. Assyria invaded Israel and Judah. Beginning in 605 B.C. Babylon invaded Judah more than once. See 2 Kings 17:1-20; 2 Kings 24:1-20; Jeremiah chapter 52.⚜