Isaiah 5:1-30
1 Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:
2 And he fenceda it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.
3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.
4 What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?
5 And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:
6 And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.
8 Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!
9 In mine ears said the LORD of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.
10 Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.
11 Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflameb them!
12 And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the LORD, neither consider the operation of his hands.
13 Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honourablec men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.
14 Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.
15 And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled:
16 But the LORD of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and Godd that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness.
17 Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat.
18 Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:
19 That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!
20 Woe unto them that calle evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
23 Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!
24 Therefore as the firef devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as 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 is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torng in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
26 And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly:
27 None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken:
28 Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent, their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind:
29 Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it.
30 And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow,h and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.
Isaiah 5:1. My well-beloved; the Messiah, who certainly was Lord of the Vineyard, and the men of Judah were his pleasant plants. Psalms 80:14; Ezekiel 17:6; Hosea 10:1; Matthew 20:1. They were a people whom he cultivated, and with whom he delighted as a garden. To understand this vineyard of a fruitful horn is diverting enough; for a horn, like a mountain, is elevated. So Dr. Lowth, for two pages; and so Erasmus makes us merry in his battle of grammarians.
Isaiah 5:2. The choicest vine; literally, the vine of Sorek, a valley not far distant from Eshcol, from which the spies brought the large clusters and branches of the vine. A wine-press. Mystically understood of the atoning altar, as the pleasant hill and the tower are understood of the temple.
Isaiah 5:10. A homer shall yield an ephah; just one tenth of what was sown.
Isaiah 5:11. Strong drink. The LXX, σικερα, wine made from the nuts of the date, or palmtree. See Exodus 15:27. We have this passage more at large in Amos 6:3. Dr. Lowth here quotes Pliny, who says that strong drink means palm wine.
Isaiah 5:14. Hell opened her mouth, as a wide cavern. See on Psalms 9:17; Psalms 16:10.
Isaiah 5:18. That draw sin as with a cart rope. This simile is so unnatural that we suspect a mistake. The LXX, “a long rope.” This idea indicates a long continuance in wine, and long continuance in vice, which bears away and overpowers the whole force of public morals. Others say, the punishment of sin as a load on their conscience.
Isaiah 5:25. Their carcases torn in the streets, with dogs, it might seem: but the LXX more naturally say, as dung in the streets. This was fulfilled when the Chaldeans filled the streets with the slain. Ezekiel 11:6.
Isaiah 5:26. He will lift up an ensign to the nations from far; as is repeated, chap. 10:5. Ho to the Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, the staff of my indignation, &c.
REFLECTIONS.
From this elegiac song of the vineyard, which our Saviour seemed to utter over Jerusalem, we learn that God took great delight in Israel. The temple was his palace, the people were his family, and the whole land his favourite garden. He fenced it round with a wall; yea, his cloud which awed the Egyptians, was a wall of fire which no invader could pass, unless he first gave him a commission to punish apostasy. The heavenly owner digged out the stones, removed both the Canaanites and their idols, and planted it with a choice vine. His church, his statutes and ordinances, were in the midst of them. Moses, Joshua, Caleb, Samuel, and others were flourishing branches of this church. His winepress or sacred altar was in the midst of it, and thence flowed all the reviving ministry of the holy prophets.
We have the disappointment of the divine expectation, if we may speak after the manner of men. When God looked for rich clusters, he found nothing but wild, bad, or putrid grapes, such as resembled Jeremiah's naughty figs: Isaiah 24:2. Instead of love, there were bitterness and wrath; instead of piety, there was a contempt of his easy yoke; instead of holiness, sin of every kind abounded in the land.
As Nathan made David the judge in the case of the ewe lamb, so the Lord now makes the men of Judah judges in the case of his vineyard. How terrible then is the state of apostate and wicked men, when their own conscience shall be the first to give sentence against them. How silent, how speechless will they be at the bar of God.
This silence of the wicked farther appears from the grand question, What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done? Could purer statutes, could better prophets, and a happier diversity of mercies and judgments have been extended towards it? The Lord might have put the same question, before the Romans finally destroyed Jerusalem. God may put the same question to every sinner; and perhaps the day is not distant when God shall put the same question to Britain. And alas, if he take away our hedge, being revolted at our bitter fruits of sin; where will the despisers of his gospel find a refuge!
Isaiah improves the vision by calling every class of sinners to repentance. The covetous who live to augment estates, the drunkards who waste their substance, and the circles of pleasure who draw iniquity with long ropes of vanity and lies. He pressed repentance the more, for he saw hell enlarging her jaws to swallow the wicked; and he beheld the Lord beckoning to nations from afar, to come and avenge his quarrel with the sword.