Isaiah 5:1-7 - God's Unyielding Vineyard

1 Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2 He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? 5 And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. 6 I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; 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 are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!

Target Date: Sunday, 12 November 2023

Word Study/ Translation Notes:

1 - My Beloved - יָדִיד Yadid – this is an accurate translation, but the discussion is over who is speaking and, thus, the identity of the “Beloved”.

Most commentators consider verse 1 to be a homiletic statement by Isaiah personally, making the identity of “Beloved” to be the LORD Himself.

This, in my opinion, would be the preferred interpretation using the historical-grammatical method IF the identity of the Beloved is required to be definite and scalar.

This does, however, have the uncomfortable result of having Isaiah referring to God in such a familiar and intimate term. It would not be improper per se, but it would be unique in Isaiah (and possibly across all the prophets).

Matthew Henry offers a different interpretation: that God, as the true singer of the song, is addressing Jesus Christ, the Beloved Son.

God the Father dictates it to the honour of Christ his well beloved Son, whom he has constituted Lord of the vineyard.

The change of the subjective voice in verse 3 from “My Beloved” to “Me” could support this interpretation, as it would maintain the same speaker POV consistent through verse 6. This would be contra the people who identify separation of scenes from the vineyard to a courtroom, to God’s throne of judgment in the passage.

A third possibility, touched on by a few commentators but not stated explicitly by any I saw, is that the song begins as a typical ”love song” in the vein of Song of Songs. Thus, the beginning of the song (verse 1) would be largely pro-forma to set up the transformation of this “love song” into the song of God’s judgment.

This would make the “Beloved” to be the LORD again, but the declaration in the poetic formula avoids the intimacy of the title by creating a poetic distance.

The historical-grammatical method would, I think, have no issue with this interpretation as well.

The presence of yeḏîḏ and dôḏ, both meaning beloved, as well as the use of vineyard, which has sexual overtones in Canticles as well as in extrabiblical sources, has led some to conjecture that this was actually a love song from the grape harvest, sung either by the lover or the lover’s friend. This has been put forth as a solution to the supposedly over-familiar beloved in Isaiah’s reference to God.

2 – wild grapes - בְּאֻשִׁים beushim – stink-grapes.

The word translated bad fruit (be’ušı̂m), only found here and in verse 4, is related to √bā’aš (‘to stink’) and means literally ‘stink-fruit’. Delitzsch notes that the difference between a wild and a domestic vine is only in the matter of care.

6 – waste - בָּתָה bathah – wasteland, devastation

7 – pleasant - שַׁעֲשֻׁעִים shaashuim – delight, particularly intense delight.

Delight (ša‘ăšû‘îm): only here in Isaiah, an intensive formation, ‘his intense pleasure’

7 – Word-play: He looked for judgment. He begins without a metaphor to relate how wickedly the Jews had degenerated, among whom equity and justice was despised, and every kind of injustice and violence abounded. The words contain an elegant play of language, (paronomasia,) for those which have nearly the same sound have an opposite meaning. משׁפט (mishpat) denotes judgment; משׁפח (mishpach) denotes conspiracy or oppression; צדקה (tzĕdākāh) denotes righteousness; צעקה (tzĕākāh) denotes the cry and complaint of those who are oppressed by violence and injustice; sounds which are not wont to be heard where every man receives what is his own.

Fruitlessness does not merely violate the Lord’s formal intention, it contradicts his heart. Justice is mišpāṭ, bloodshed is miśpāḥ. The meaning is uncertain but these two words look and sound almost identical! Kidner suggests ‘he looked for right but, behold, riot’—in the sense of moral and social anarchy. Likewise righteousness is ṣĕdāqâ and cries of distress is ṣĕ‘āqâ.

Isaiah’s mastery of language produces rhyming pairs, mišpāṭ … miśpāḥ … ṣedāqâ … ṣe‛āqâ. Kidner offers a deft attempt to capture this assonance with ‘right … riot … decency … despair’

Thoughts on the Passage:

Whatever the future might hold, however redemption might occur, the plain fact was that somehow present sin must be faced and dealt with. No future hope, such as that contained in 4:2–6, could ever obscure or obviate present evil.

This song/parable is referenced by Jesus in His parable of the Landowner:

Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. - Matthew 21:33

Jeremiah uses the same illustration from God:

Yet I planted you a choice vine, A completely faithful seed. How then have you turned yourself before Me Into the degenerate shoots of a foreign vine? – Jeremiah 2:21

This parable was put into a song that it might be the more moving and affecting, might be the more easily learned and exactly remembered, and the better transmitted to posterity; and it is an exposition of the song of Moses (Deu. 32), showing that what he then foretold was now fulfilled.

It brought forth wild grapes; not only no fruit at all, but bad fruit, worse than none, grapes of Sodom, Deu. 32:32.

For their vine is from the vine of Sodom, And from the fields of Gomorrah; Their grapes are grapes of poison, Their clusters, bitter. – Deuteronomy 32:32

Sadly, this description of the “wild grapes” is a description in the Song of Moses of the enemies of God.

Thus, the very choice vine of God had produced the same fruit as the enemies of God.

My beloved, says he, when she fares well and becomes fat, will kick. (Deut. 32:15)

But Jeshurun [Israel] grew fat and kicked— You are grown fat, thick, and sleek— Then he forsook God who made him, And scorned the Rock of his salvation - Deuteronomy 32:15

1 – very fertile hill – God chose precisely the place for the vineyard to be planted. The location was perfect, specifically chosen to be the place where the vineyard could thrive.

2 – The landowner cleared all the obstacles to production and then prepared the land to make good use of the produce.

Sparing no expense to provide everything needed to produce a bumper crop, the owner of the vineyard (1) chose a fertile hillside; (2) dug it up (ʿāzaq, occurs only here); (3) cleared it of stones; (4) planted it with the choicest vines (śōrēq); (5) built a watchtower for protection; (6) and [lit. ‘and even’] cut out a winepress for wine production (two troughs of rock connected by a channel or pipe served as wine vats; juice from grapes crushed in the upper trough ran down into the lower trough). The words ‘and even’ suggest the wine vat was extravagant, in that shared winepresses were probably more common.

2 – Hewed wine vat – not just a winepress, but a vat carved out of the rock below the ground. This was meant to be a permanent setup, not a temporary location.

It was never the landowner’s intention to abandon the vineyard – He did not intend to use the produce and move on.

He built a tower, not a hut. He built a wall, not a fence. He HEWED a vat, not simply bringing in a barrel or tub.

Isaiah’s Beloved had great expectations of his vineyard. He built a watchtower, not a temporary hut (1:8); winepress should be ‘wine-vat’, for storage of the crop—and cut in the rock for permanency.

2 – Wild, sour, stinking grapes can be produced in our lives by either positive sin or a lazy inattention to our conduct and our hearts. Either of these may produce fruit that is unfit for sanctification toward the Lord of Hosts.

But instead of grapes all it yielded was bad fruit (lit. ‘stink-fruit’). Every care had been lavished, but yet the vine retained its natural wildness—as if grace had never touched it.

If this type of fruit is what the landowner desired, no provision needed to have been made. These would grow in the wild as plentifully as in the arbor; but they would be of no good use to anyone.

4 – What more could He have done?

It might be said by the wicked that the landowner could have removed all the surrounding influences and corruption from outside the wall, thus sterilizing the surroundings down into an infertile pavement. But the location was chosen specifically by the landowner as the perfect location even when it was surrounded by the curse. Only those who try to shift all blame for their sin onto the Creator would invent such calumny against Him and His good design.

A church, or yet a believer, in the world is planted in the midst of the curse; our purpose in that location is to beautify the area, to make it wholesome and good for something.

The curse may also perhaps be beaten back by our presence, as the gospel of Jesus Christ pollenates and seeds the area outside the protecting walls.

“A little leaven leavens the whole lump” – when hidden in a measure.

At the very least, we whose hearts have been set apart, sanctified, by the Holy Spirit are expected to accomplish the purpose for which we were planted – to bring forth good fruit for Him.

4 – Isaiah does not here enter into subtle reasonings about the expectations which God had formed, but describes the manner in which the people ought to have acted, that they might not lose the benefit of such excellent advantages. Thus God commands that the Gospel be proclaimed for the obedience of faith, (Rom. 16:26,) not that he expects all to be obedient, but because, by the mere hearing of it, unbelievers are rendered inexcusable.

Though God do not pierce the hearts of men by the power of his Spirit, so as to render them obedient to him, yet they will have no right to complain that this was wanting; for every pretence of ignorance is fully and abundantly taken away by the outward call. Besides, God does not speak here of his power, but declares that he was not under any obligation to do more than he did.

5 – And why will He open the wall and remove the tending and defense of the vineyard? Because the fruit, the “stink-grapes” are fit only for the predators of this world, not for the Holy God. The fruit being produced is fit only for beasts and for fodder, to be relentlessly poached and wasted by the ravenous pigs that had formerly been kept at bay.

5 - I will be vexed and troubled with it no more; since it will be good for nothing, it shall be good for nothing; in short, it shall cease to be a vineyard, and be turned into a wilderness: the church of the Jews shall be unchurched; their charter shall be taken away, and they shall become lo-ammi—not my people.”

5-6 – The judgment God proclaims on His vineyard is not that He will plow it under, but that He will throw it to the mercy of nature. It is the removal of His protection, the undoing of His provision, that will cause the destruction of the vineyard.

He will turn it over to the wilderness it imitates, the wildness that has infected it.

Now the punishment to be inflicted on them amounts to this, that they will be deprived of the gifts which they had abused, when God shall not only withdraw his care of them, but shall give them up to be plundered by their enemies. At the same time he shows how wretched their condition will be, when God shall have ceased to bestow on them his multiplied favours.

6 - No more pains shall be taken with them by magistrates or ministers, the dressers and keepers of their vineyard; it shall not be pruned nor digged, but every thing shall run wild, and nothing shall come up but briers and thorns, the products of sin and the curse,” Gen. 3:18.

Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; - Genesis 3:18

6 - Hence it is evident how manifold are the weapons with which God is supplied for punishing our ingratitude, when he sees that we despise his kindness… But we ought simply to conclude, that as God continually bestows on us innumerable benefits, so we ought to be earnestly on our guard lest, by withdrawing first one and then another, he punish us for despising them.

7 - The whole nation was the vineyard; the individual men were the plants. Thus he accuses the whole body of the nation, and then every individual; so that no man could escape the universal condemnation, as if no part of the expostulation had been addressed to himself.

7 - The same doctrine ought to be inculcated on us at the present day. Christ affirms that he is the vine, (John 15:1,) and that, having been ingrafted into this vine, we are placed under the care of the Father; for God is pleased to perform towards us the office of a husbandman, and continually bestows those favours which he reproachfully asserts that he had granted to his ancient people. We need not wonder, therefore, if he is greatly enraged when he bestows his labour uselessly and to no purpose. Hence that threatening, Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he will cut off, and cast into the fire. (John 15:2, 6)

We should call to remembrance what Paul says, that we were like wild olive-plants, but that they were the true and natural olive-tree. (Rom. 11:25.) Since we who were strangers have been ingrafted into the true olive-tree, the Lord has cultivated and adorned us with unceasing care. But what kind of fruits do we bring forth? Assuredly they are not only useless, but even bitter. So much the greater is the ingratitude for which we ought to be condemned, for the blessings which he has bestowed and heaped on us are far more abundant

At what moment, or at what event, does the Master decide the vineyard must be undone? What seems a sudden event has in reality been a building provocation. The timing was all based on the vineyard owner, not based on the passing of time or necessarily a precipitating event.

When the patience of the Master has, in His heart alone, been worn to the breaking point, then He will unleash the forces of destruction against the vineyard.

Though the grapes may NEVER have been sweet or of good use, His patience across perhaps decades has finally, by His determination alone, reached an end. His goodwill and protection has finally been exhausted.

Primary Preaching Point:

What could God owe his unfruitful people?

Sermon Text:

We come this morning to look at this song of Isaiah, the parable of the Vineyard.

And while we tend to focus on the tragic ending of the song, I invite you to consider this song from the beginning.

To read and hear it as if you were hearing it for the first time, the way Isaiah’s original audience heard it.

Many of us read the Scripture without doing this, whether it is a familiar passage or not.

In many Bibles, chapters and their sections have headings that give us some idea what is contained in that section.

They are really helpful when we want to find a subject or a verse quickly, but they can distract us when we are reading to understand the content of the passage.

This can also happen in passages where we are familiar with a memory verse – we fail to pay attention to the details leading up to the verse since we think we already understand it.

That is also something to consider when underlining or highlighting texts in your Bible, or using a “Journaling Bible”.

There is nothing wrong with making notes in a Bible to aid your study, but I would recommend that the Bible you use for reading be free of markings that might cause you to skip over sections.

It is easy to miss something in your reading as your eyes are drawn to the extraneous markings that would otherwise be helpful in your study.

In the past, I have taken notes in the margin of one Bible and used another for devotional reading. Now I take my notes in a notebook so keep from distracting myself.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at our passage today from the very beginning.

He begins by calling this song a “love song”.

I think there are two very good reasons for beginning this way:

1. The style of the song is similar to other love songs of the day, even those seen in the Song of Solomon.

This would have been a familiar style with familiar subjects.

The people of that day would have been immediately familiar with those motifs, and they might even already guess where this song was going.

Of course, it doesn’t go where they might expect.

Because this love song turns to a tragedy in short order.

Barely is the setting of the song complete than we are introduced to the tragedy of the song: the grapes were bad.

2. It is also a love song because it proclaims what the master did for the sake of the vineyard.

Consider what the Beloved did to establish the vineyard:

He chose the perfect location – a very fertile hill.

He prepared the ground – digging and clearing it of stones.

He planted vines He chose – as the master, He knew what made for good vines.

But then He did even more:

He took the stones and built a wall around the vineyard – to keep the wilderness at bay.

He built a tower in the middle of the vineyard – both to protect the vineyard and to give workers a place to dwell.

And He “hewed” out a wine vat.

This is important, because this is a LOT of work.

He didn’t just hire a wooden wine vat to be brought in for the harvest, as was so often the case.

He dug down to the rock of the hill and cut a vat out of the rock beneath the soil.

Chiseling and breaking away the rock piece by piece until there was a safe and permanent place to collect the juice from His prized grapes.

Notice the care the master took in preparing the vineyard.

Nothing was done simply for the short term.

The vineyard was designed to endure.

It was meant to stand.

Built of stone and not wood.

The master was not simply looking to exploit the vineyard and then move on.

He put his planning and effort and heart into making the vineyard a delight.

In verse 7, he calls this vineyard not merely “His pleasant planting” – His “INTENSE pleasure and delight”

Nothing from outside could attack the vines.

And the ground inside was prepared and tended to give them the greatest advantage.

But then the vineyard yielded only “wild grapes”.

The word used is “stink-grapes”, rotten grapes that produced putrid, rotting aromas rather than the fruit the master intended it to produce.

These chosen vines were producing rotten fruit.

Now I will not get into the agricultural aspects of grape-growing because that is not the purpose of this song.

It is not the point of this parable to gain insight into growing a vineyard.

The fact is – the fruit that the master was expecting from His beloved vineyard was rotten, stinking.

That is the point.

For all His care, for all his efforts, for all His provisions – the vines produced only stink-grapes.

And we see in verse 7 the identity of the elements of the parable revealed:

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting…

The vineyard is the nation; the vines are the individual people within it.

It was they who had produced such rottenness from inside the protection of God’s foresight and care.

We see the same message in the words of our Lord when He drove the moneychangers from the temple in Matthew 21:13:

And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ den.”

From within the pleasant, protected area granted by the mercy of God, they had produced bad fruit.

Instead of living as a sanctified, set-apart people, they had cherished and coveted the things of this world, both material and personal.

he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!

It could also be said, approaching the poignancy of the way Isaiah wrote it:

He looked for right, but found only riot; for decency and found only despair.

The master of this vineyard is none other than the Holy God of all Creation.

And he set this vineyard apart for His own possession, His own use.

These were His people, as is the church today.

And among them, He expected, He wanted to delight to see, justice and righteousness.

But instead he found, in these same people He had established, bloodshed and cries of distress stemming for THEIR works.

It wasn’t merely their hypocrisy, which would have been bad enough.

They weren’t even pretending to holiness, not even seeking to be useful and to be used by Him.

They had long-since forgotten the purpose for which they had been freed from Egyptian slavery, for which they had been led to and given the land of promise.

They practiced their sin,

Defended their sin,

And held to their sin even as they called themselves “God’s people”.

They might observe the holidays, practice the rituals, but their lives STANK before the Holy God.

Christian, it should always be in our hearts to ask ourselves whether our lives produce the fruit that our God intends, or whether we, too, stink of the rottenness of this world.

We weren’t saved from the decay of this world to simply allow us to roll around in it.

You weren’t freed from your slavery to sin so you could go and serve it six days a week, and then serve God one.

If you have been saved, you are the recipient of a holy calling, set apart for a purpose in the presence of God all the time.

It would be a tragedy that, when called to be used in His service, you were too polluted to be used.

No doubt these men of Judah could have pointed out many times they had done good things.

But how much pollution does it take to disqualify us?

Put another way – how much dung or rot do you want in a glass of water?

The apostle Paul, as he was pleading for holiness from the Corinthian church, said:

I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. – 1 Corinthians 9:27

And so we reach the point of the tragic song:

What the master had so carefully and painstakingly prepared will be torn down.

Hear the cry of the beloved master:

What more was there to do for my vineyard , that I have not done in it?

What more could I have done than I have already done?

So many people, wicked people, want to blame God for their punishment, even for their sin.

But He has given them everything, including His holy word and commandment, to show them how to be right with Him.

What more can He do?

More than creating you?

More than placing in your heart the knowledge of right and wrong?

More than giving His Law through the Scriptures?

More than sending His only Son to die on a cross and take God’s wrath against sin upon Himself to give you His righteousness?

What else would you have God do to cause you to bear good fruit for Him?

Do you think He has not done enough, or do you know in your heart it is you who has been slothful in obedience or friendly to sin?

We are not told how long the master of the vineyard endured the bitter fruit of His vines, but we can be reasonably sure He did not declare His judgment at the very first harvest.

The vines needed to grow, to develop in the gracious vineyard the master had built.

It takes a while, in many cases, before the judgment of God falls.

He gives time for the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin.

Time for us to realize the grave peril of sin.

Time for us to repent and turn from sin.

And some take this slowness of judgment as evidence that God will not judge at all.

They harden their hearts in sin, convinced that if God has not judged me in the past, He will not judge me in the future.

How long does it take before God’s judgment falls?

In our parable today, there is no timetable expressed,

No inciting incident or “last straw” declared.

It is only that the master of the vineyard has reached the end of his longsuffering and has declared His judgment on his vineyard.

Jesus told a parable about the patience of God in waiting for us ot bear good fruit:

A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any. 7 And he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?’ 8 And he answered and said to him, ‘Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; 9 and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.’ ” – Luke 13:6-9

Christian, don’t presume upon the grace and mercy of God while you persist in sin.

Don’t comfort yourself with the thought that since you have escaped judgment on your willful sin so far, you will continue to escape it.

God’s patience will always run short, particularly when His holy, called people fail to take their holiness seriously.

We are warned about this specifically in Romans 11:17-22:

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, 18 do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. 19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” 20 Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; 21 for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. 22 Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.

Finally, we must see how God’s judgment will proceed on His vineyard.

He declares:

I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. 6 I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

All the protections that the master had made, all the provisions he had built for the care of the vineyard will be removed.

All the defenses he had put in place to protect his precious vines will be removed, and they will be exposed to the curse outside.

The tower will no longer defend it;

The workers will no longer tend.

The refreshing rains will no longer fall.

And the wall, which had had kept the ravenous hogs outside the vineyard, will be removed.

The master is not going to plow the vineyard under himself;

He is simply going to turn it over to the curse of briers, thistles, and predators to consume and trample the vineyard into a wasteland.

These fruits, rotten and stinking, were fit only for pigs, and to the pigs they will go.

In exchange for the kindness of the master, the kindness of God, the vines returned only stinking, unholy fruit;

And so they will be consumed by the unholy elements of this world.

The mercy of the Beloved is exchanged for the “mercy” of fallen nature and corruption.

Those gifts of God they had shunned in the race to feed their sinful lusts will be removed entirely.

It is so easy to become accustomed to God’s blessing even while we ignore His call to holiness.

In the song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32:15, we see that when Israel became fat, he kicked against God:

He forsook the God who made him. He scorned the Rock of his salvation.

How fat in the midst of God’s blessing have we become?

How many times do we indulge our sin while we give little thought to His righteousness?

Beloved, just because the judgment of God hasn’t yet fallen in full force upon us does not mean it is not coming.

What will we do in the day when His sustaining hand is removed?

When His protection has ceased?

When His provision is stopped?

And when we are set at the mercy of evil we cannot now even see?

Will you continue to seek after sin, planning for it and making provision for it?

Or will you repent, crying out to God as your only hope for forgiveness and righteousness?

If you will not repent, do not be surprised to find yourself at the mercy of a world without mercy.

But let me be quick to point out that when this same warning was delivered in the book of Hebrews, chapter 6, the writer said this:

Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. – Hebrews 6:9

This warning of God’s judgment is not idle, it is real land it is terrible;

We need to feel the horror and repulsion toward sin that is born in the heart of God,

but for those who are living in Christ, striving toward holiness in your salvation, the protection of God will never fail you.

He will be with you always, even to the end of the age.

We must know the truly terrifying consequences of sin so that we can hate sin as God hates it.

Hate it so much that when you feel the least touch of sin in your life, you strangle it, kill it, destroy it with no mercy or quarter.

Nothing of sin to pollute you, to taint the fruit of your life, so that you will produce the holy fruit of the Holy Spirit of God for His glory.

Fear not if you are in Christ, you truly dwell in the shelter of the Most High:

You will not be afraid of the terror by night, Or of the arrow that flies by day; 6 Of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, Or of the destruction that lays waste at noon. – Psalm 91:5-6