Isaiah 1.2
Notes
Transcript
Prayer Requests:
Carol, Jamison
Laura, prays for Ruth Ayala, health and diagnostic work
Derek, mini stroke on Saturday,
Gordon, granddaughter moving to Cleveland
Judy, blessing Heidi and Melwyn adopting
Nan, son job hunting
Mary jane, daughter and whole family on a plane now to go to Ohio, safe trip
Willards—
ACC
Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Happy birthday patti
We continue on in these opening chapters of Isaiah. They truly function as a unit that serves as a preface to the whole unified vision from the prophet. Chapter 5 is the end of this preface and it ends on a down note (in case there hasn’t been enough of that already!) Last week, though things have been dark in these opening chapters, there were hints of God’s grace, flickers of light of a future restoration, of the possibility that their sin could be made clean!
I will be honest with us today, chapter 5 is a bleak end to this preface. Though there is little here we can hold on to with hope, I will say this: the whole introduction and especially chapter 5, powerfully depict Judah’s sin, the need for judgment and it creates a profound theological vacuum that only God's triumphant grace through the atoning work of the Messiah can fill.
I often ask of a text, how does this point us to the gospel? The answer is harder to come by with this passage, but it is necessary to understand the truths here in order to see Judah’s need (and our own need) for redemption.
We’ll break chapter 5 into three parts today—v. 1-7 form a love poem of sorts, an image of Judah planted by a loving master, but the vineyard has failed to live up to the expectations of its master; v. 8-23 represent a series of “Woes!” elucidating the specific sins and judgments of the people; and finally, v. 24-30 is a final judgement by way of foreign exile.
Let’s get into it: Isaiah 5:1-7
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!
The primary image here of Judah is that of a vineyard. Isaiah is singing a love song of sorts to His beloved—YHWH—thus highlighting the aspirational kind of relationship Israel should have with their God. This is language that borders on the imagery of Christ as the bridegroom and the church his bride, similar language is used in the book of Hosea in which Israel is an unfaithful wife to God.
But here a beloved master has planted a vineyard. And how would we describe the way this master has planted his vineyard? Deep devotion! Deep attentive, care!
Look at the language: he dug it, cleared it of stones, he prepared this place to receive the seeds that it would be fertile and bear fruit! He planted it, he built a watchtower, he hewed out a wine vat so there would be a place—he planted the seeds, installed the protection of watchtowers and then made a place for the fruit of the labor to go. Five positive verbs there for what the vineyard master is doing. And then one more verb in v. 2, what is it?
Expected. He expected it to yield grapes. And with one line, all the hope of his good work is upended: but it yielded wild (or sour!) grapes. These grapes are worthless, the cannot be used for wine or food, they’re bitter and best to be thrown out.
Do you see the diligent work of this devoted vineyard master? Look at all his hard work, doing all these things that were necessary to maximize production and well-being of the vineyard and all it yields is disappointment.
Two images come to mind. First is my wife’s garden in our yard. She has a raised planter box, choice soil from Green Acres, she installed a fence around it to fend off the enemies of the dog and the three-year-old, she waters it everyday. There is a ton of work that goes into even a small garden, and there’s still disappointment when it doesn’t yield the expected results.
It’s like anyone of us who have raised kids. All the things you’ve done, all the resources you’ve poured into their lives, all the things you’ve given them, all the ways you’ve protected them and prepared them and so on. And none of that is a guarantee of future success, of future faith, or future closeness in relationship with you. I know that’s a hard thing, but the sadness that any of us feel as parents is something, some tiny thing, of what God feels toward his people.
And I’ll make an observation about vineyards that I think is helpful. In Judah and Israel there were plenty of vineyards, and many places had vineyards planted on fertile hillsides. These would have been terraced vineyards, tiered up and down the hillside. The vineyards would have retaining walls and watchtowers. Sure, the watchtower was meant to be a place to watch for enemies. But it was also a place to inspect your neighbor’s vineyard and it’s retaining wall. If there were places in the wall that needed repair, chances are, you’d see it from your watchtower before you neighbor would.
But it was in your best interest to look at for your neighbor’s vineyard and its retaining wall. Why? because as soon as one wall comes down, the vineyard is coming down on top of everything planted downhill of it. There was a sense of community responsibility with these vineyards. That’s what God is saying about their society as a whole: I did all this work, I prepared you, gave you the law and the covenant, rescued you from slavery, planted you in a land in which i drove out your enemies and I even gave you a community to watch out for one another, to keep one another out of sin and…this is the result?
Isaiah 5:4 “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?”
Now the “love poem” moves into YHWH’s response:
Isaiah 5:5–7 “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!”
Here the vineyard master is undoing what’s been done. If the land is not producing fruit, you rip it out and start over! Now all those positive verbs in the first few verses are replaced by negative actions: “remove, devour, break, trampled, make it a wasted, command no rain.”
We see that the vineyard depends on the owner and the owner is allowing the vineyard to go to waste.
Now, move beyond the poetic, what is going on here with Judah, what’s the indictment. V. 7 reveals this for us. Isaiah 5:7 “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!”
The grapes the Lord wanted: justice and righteousness. The expectation that they would be a community that practiced the law of God (that’s righteousness) and cared generously for one another (that’s justice!). They’re supposed to look out for one another like the watchtowers, instead, they care little for one another.
There’s some great Hebrew wordplay here highlighting YHWH’s disappointment: God looked for justice but only found bloodshed.
Justice in Hebrew is mishpat, while the Hebrew word for bloodshed is mispah. It’s clunky, but you might translate it in English like this from one scholar: "he looked for right but, behold, only riot.”
And the wordplay doesn’t end there. He looked for righteousness (Hebrew: sedaqa) but behold, an outcry (se aqa). It’s all revealing to us what God expected from his people and how they twisted it into something else. You could almost see it like this: even just a letter off or a degree off is still far from what God intended for his people.
Jesus draws on much of the languages here of the vineyard for his own parables. I think of the parable of the tenants, those who want to overthrow the master of their vineyard. Or I think about the parable of the talents in which the master leaves something and comes back disappointed with the results, unmet expectations.
Let’s move on to something fun: the six woes!
8 Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land. 9 The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing: “Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant. 10 For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah.” 11 Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them! 12 They have lyre and harp, tambourine and flute and wine at their feasts, but they do not regard the deeds of the Lord, or see the work of his hands. 13 Therefore my people go into exile for lack of knowledge; their honored men go hungry, and their multitude is parched with thirst. 14 Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite and opened its mouth beyond measure, and the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitude will go down, her revelers and he who exults in her. 15 Man is humbled, and each one is brought low, and the eyes of the haughty are brought low. 16 But the Lord of hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness. 17 Then shall the lambs graze as in their pasture, and nomads shall eat among the ruins of the rich. 18 Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, who draw sin as with cart ropes, 19 who say: “Let him be quick, let him speed his work that we may see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near, and let it come, that we may know it!” 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! 21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! 22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink, 23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right!
There are six woes here throughout and I would say that the tone and mood is not one of condemnation but one of sadness and lament. There’s a sense in which the behavior of the woes has brought destruction on them in and of themselves. There is not really a need for divine intervention (though that is coming) for these behaviors are destructive to the people and the community.
The first woe is an interesting one: Isaiah 5:8 “8 Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land.” What is he talking about? It’s an indictment against an economic policy in which wealthy landowners buy up more and more farms from poorer and vulnerable neighbors, crowding out smaller farms and putting them out of business. It destroys the “neighborly fabric of the community,” it eliminates the culture in which neighbor is looking out for neighbor (we talked about this before) and it harms those with less resources. Unrestrained capitalism that harms others! This happens today.
And the result? Desolate and empty houses, small yields even from huge vineyards. The image it reminds me of is from a film, Empire of the Sun. It’s the decadence of British colonialism in Shanghai, mansions upon mansions. And when war comes, when Japan invades, all these houses lie empty. Jamie, the young boy left behind, runs through the mansions that lie empty.
The second woe is about those who start drinking strong drink early in the morning! Now, it doesn’t seem to be merely an indictment of drunkenness on its face, but rather the effects of that drink. Look at Isaiah 5:13 “13 Therefore my people go into exile for lack of knowledge; their honored men go hungry, and their multitude is parched with thirst.” The force is this: their drunkenness leads to a disregard of their neighbors and it harms others!
Do you see the theme?
Isaiah 5:18–21 “18 Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, who draw sin as with cart ropes, 19 who say: “Let him be quick, let him speed his work that we may see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near, and let it come, that we may know it!” 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! 21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!”
We see a quick set of three woes: iniquity and falsehood; those who call evil good and good evil; those who are wise in their own eyes.
All of it of a piece together: injustice driven by unfettered autonomy and the wisdom of self. The people want to make themselves like God, that’s the temptation in the garden of eden, now instead of trusting God’s wisdom for what is right and wrong, the people trust in their own wisdom. That leads to what? Harm of others, glorying in self! This is like the time of the judges!
Finally, Isaiah 5:22–23 “22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink, 23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right!” returns to a woe against alcohol, but again is in the context of justice being perverted!
The cumulative effect of this section is to show a community that has lost its center, its purpose, and its well-being. And the result?
We see a big “therefore” in v. 25
25 Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people, and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them, and the mountains quaked; and their corpses were as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.
God is angry with the people, he will strike them and put an end to this twisted culture and society. How will he do this?
26 He will raise a signal for nations far away, and whistle for them from the ends of the earth; and behold, quickly, speedily they come! 27 None is weary, none stumbles, none slumbers or sleeps, not a waistband is loose, not a sandal strap broken;
He will raise up a foreign nation as his tool, his instrument for judgment. I love the language here because it’s positive language applied to a looming threat. Your enemies will not tire or slumber! That’s language that will be used again in Isaiah 40:30–31 “30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” But in the later usage it’s positive, filled with hope.
What’s in view here is the enemy Assyria and, unbeknownst to Judah at the time, the real future enemy in Babylon, for it will be Babylon that will successfully overthrow Jerusalem.
Here’s how we finish the preface of Isaiah: despair, distress, darkness, hardly daring to hope. This is probably where the reader is meant to be led. But we also need to really be here before we can fully grasp the goodness of our salvation. That’s true for any of us. That we truly grasp our total dependence and need for the vineyard master to renew us. Amen.
