Isaiah 5: 6 and 7

⁶ “I will lay it waste;
It will not be pruned or hoed,
But briars and thorns will come up.
I will also charge the clouds to rain no rain on it.”

⁷ For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel
And the men of Judah His delightful plant.
Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed;
For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.

Although there is more to come from Chapter 5, the Parable of the Vineyard ends with our last two verses today, Isaiah 5: 6 and 7. In verse 6, Isaiah completes the picture of the vineyard as it will stand under God's providential care--neither pruned nor hoed, and rife with briars and thorns. 

I've just come back from my extended family's yearly trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We always pass by a vineyard, well cared for with its vines staked and its bases clear of weeds. Tiny globules forming off the vine in the hot sun. Not the time to see ripened grapes, but I can sense that the excellent care of the vine and foundational grounding will allow for the best possible fruit at harvest.


Not so the vineyard in the parable, as God says that He will "lay it waste," going so far as to order the clouds "to rain no rain." [I love that phrasing, even though I'm not sure what else God planned for the clouds to rain down.] The point is that God is in charge of this entire effort, and His intentions are purposeful and non-negotiable.

"'Have You completely rejected Judah?

Or have You loathed Zion?

Why have You stricken us so that we are beyond healing?....

Are there any among the idols of the nations who give rain?

Or can the heavens grant showers?

Is it not You, O Lord our God?

Therefore we hope in You,

For You are the one who has done all these things.'"

--Jeremiah 14: 19 and 22, excerpts

God gave Jeremiah a prayer for mercy during this time of proposed drought that God shared through Isaiah. The "waste" that was to land upon Judah would certainly appear as a rejection by God. But, this was a nation that, for all intents and purposes, didn't acknowledge that God brought the rains in the first place. Their sin and its consequences would be as the stinging briars left behind in their land, though felt in their hearts all the way to Babylon.

"Then they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its fortified buildings with fire and destroyed all its valuable articles. Those who had escaped from the sword he [Zedekiah] carried away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia...."

--II Chronicles 36: 19 and 20

Isaiah closes out the parable by explaining what the symbols are: the vineyard being Israel (Israel and Judah), and the men of Judah, "his delightful plant." But, as we know from reading earlier, what God had planned to be a plant of great personal enjoyment and productivity had become a vineyard of stinkin' bad fruit. His care in the staking, pruning and tilling of the perfect soil had been contaminated by worldly bugs, rampant unbridled growth and a resulting yield of sour grapes. This was a vineyard that would face complete devastation, but not at the hand of a God who had run out of grace in His storehouse.

 

"Note, God, in a way of righteous judgment, denies his grace to those that have long received it in vain. The sum of all is that those who would not bring forth good fruit should bring forth none. The curse of barrenness is the punishment of the sin of barrenness, as Mark 11:14 [Christ's cursing of the fig tree]."

--Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Bible

God waited in expectation of fruitfulness, but the wages of sin is death--death to a vineyard! God had given His grace in abundance, but the field of thanksgivings to Him and His Name lay barren. His people had turned against Him and against themselves. [Isaiah 3: 14, "It is you who have devoured the vineyard...."]

"It is very sad with a soul when instead of the grapes of humility, meekness, patience, love, and contempt of the world, which God looks for, there are the wild grapes of pride, passion, discontent, malice, and contempt of God—instead of the grapes of praying and praising, the wild grapes of cursing and swearing, which are a great offence to God."

--Matthew Henry

"Woes for the Wicked," as we leave our parable for an exposition on six judgments facing Judah.... 'Til next Wednesday!

Photo: publicdomainpictures.net

* * *

Next week: Isaiah 5: 8-12

Note: I read from the New American Standard Bible translation,
specifically, The MacArthur Study Bible (NASB).
I will quote other sources if used in a post.
I also use Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
(with notes from the King James Version).

Isaiah 5: 1 and 2

Isaiah 5:1-2

Parable of the Vineyard

¹ Let me sing now for my well-beloved

A song of my beloved concerning His vineyard.
My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.
² He dug it all around, removed its stones,
And planted it with the choicest vine.
And He built a tower in the middle of it
And also hewed out a wine vat in it;
Then He expected it to produce good grapes,
But it produced only worthless ones.

When I was looking at the upcoming weeks' schedule for study a few weeks back, I noticed the title of the beginning of Isaiah Chapter 5: "Parable of the Vineyard." My first thought was, "A parable? In the Old Testament? A prophet's words?" Very excited! 

We hear 'parable' and we think Jesus. I do, anyway. In some of His teaching, Jesus used these stories, these metaphors, to explain concepts and truths he was trying to teach. Though commonplace language and expressions were used, still, not everyone understood them. Even now, culturally displaced as we are in 2012, we may not understand them without helpful resources. But for those Jesus was trying to reach, parables explained a mighty bit. 

In the Greek, the word literally means "a throwing beside," from para- "alongside" + bole "a throwing, casting, beam, ray," related to ballein "to throw." [Dictionary.com] Jesus did not originate the parable. He used it as an effective teaching tool, as it was often used by others in that day and in the days before Jesus arrived. It should not surprise us, given what we know of Isaiah's creative writing, that God would use this approach through him in this prophecy. Not surprising, either, that Isaiah would set his parable around a vineyard, as the growing of grapes and the production of wine would be something the entire nation of Israel would know something about.

As we begin with verse 1, Isaiah is the one singing. The keeper of the vineyard--if not given away by the NASB's use of 'His' in verse 1--is clearly apparent by the end of verse 7 as "the Lord," meaning Jesus. This is a song about the Lord "touching his vineyard," as the King James Version reads. What is the vineyard?

"You removed a vine from Egypt;
You drove out the nations and planted it."

--Psalm 80:8

God's chosen people--"the vineyard"--removed from the land of bondage in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land, Israel. The vineyard was planted on "a fertile hill" or a "fruitful hill," in other translations, which, in the margin notes is translated as "a horn, the son of fatness." In the Hebrew, 'horn' carries with it the idea of being a projection, as if sound coming from a horn or the end of the horn itself, which projects out to distribute the sound. "Fatness" or oil denotes the idea of richness. God's people were planted in a place of blessing out of "the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus," as Paul would later write in an epistle to the Ephesians (2:7). This planting was intended to be a growth opportunity, projecting the Word of God and His holiness from this rich beginning. (And I love the fact that 'grapes' in the Hebrew comes from an unused root meaning to bear fruit [Strong's]. More on this in a moment.)

Continuing with verse 2, the care taken by Lord in the planting of this vineyard is most notable. He prepared this soil with great intent, digging and removing stones that might otherwise cause the roots not to take hold. "He built a tower in the middle of it," implying a place of protection and watchfulness over the vineyard. He placed a wine vat, or winepress, in the vineyard. This aspect of the vineyard not only speaks to the fruit being put to good use but the idea of the firstfruits being returned to God as a sacrifice of thanksgiving. If those listening to Isaiah were led to think of their forefathers, these words would have spoken to them of a God who truly was their Beloved...once.

“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

"...The choicest vine" Isaiah uses in verse 2 to speak of the chosen people of God. A vine to yield the best possible, ripest, most delicious grape. "He planted it with the choicest vine, set up a pure religion among them, gave them a most excellent law, instituted ordinances very proper for the keeping up of their acquaintance with God," explains Matthew Henry in his commentary. What God had intended to be a vine that would grow, be fruitful and project His Kingdom out into the world had become, in Jeremiah's words, a "degenerate shoot." In Isaiah's words, "only worthless ones [grapes]," meaning, in Hebrew, "stinking or worthless things; poison-berries." [Strong's] Now you know where "sour grapes" comes from.

"For their vine is from the vine of Sodom,
And from the fields of Gomorrah;
Their grapes are grapes of poison,
Their clusters, bitter.
'Their wine is the venom of serpents,
And the deadly poison of cobras....'"

--Deuteronomy 32: 32 and 33

"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 (Deut. 32:1-47), showing that what he then foretold was now fulfilled."

--Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Bible

God's expectation for His Son's vineyard was that it "produce good grapes" (vs. 2)--that it bear good fruit. It didn't happen! Everything was established to be just so, perfect conditions for growth, for fruitfulness, for the best kind of prosperity and success. Yet, it was not to be. As if to invoke the fall of mankind in the garden again, the vineyard that is God's people, Israel--Israel and Judah--would take matters into their own hands, cultivating success of their own will and following other gods. They did not heed the warning of Moses--the end of the song mentioned above: "Take to your heart all the words with which I am warning you today, which you shall command your sons to observe carefully, even all the words of this law. For it is not an idle word for you; indeed it is your life." (Deuteronomy 32: 45-47a)


As I write today, so many situations and thoughts of others come to mind. My church is in the midst of making decisions concerning its denominational affiliation. There are many issues and questions--unresolved issues of the past and questions we may have never explored answers to thoroughly enough, so that we are questioning our convictions. What is the church? What do we really believe? What would God have us do? How did we get here and where are we going? As overwhelming as it has been to address big questions with many worldviews, how marvelous an opportunity to do just that?! Look at that word in Deuteronomy: "For it is not an idle word for you...." God's Word is "living and active," says Hebrews 4:12. It continues to speak, guide, help in discernment--and, yes, to warn.


Where have we been planted? What kinds of "grapes" are we producing? Whose expectations are the most important to satisfy? Do we believe that the Lord is our caretaker and that He continues to be the watchtower of our vineyard, the clearer of stones from our roots? Do we recognize that our being grafted into the True Vine is not a position of idle connection but is a lifeline to growth, maturity and prosperity? Eternal fruitfulness? Do we believe and trust that He can "build us back" into a thriving "choice vine" on a "fertile hill" if we yield in all obedience and love to the One who planted us?

"A bare profession, though ever so green, will not serve: there must be more than buds and blossoms. Good purposes and good beginnings are good things, but not enough; there must be fruit, a good heart and a good life, vineyard fruit, thoughts and affections, words and actions, agreeable to the Spirit, which is the fatness of the vineyard (Gal. 5:22, 23) [fruit of the Spirit passage], answerable to the ordinances, which are the dressings of the vineyard, acceptable to God, the Lord of the vineyard, and fruit according to the season."

--Matthew Henry (italics his)

 More from this rich parable....'Til next Wednesday!

Photo: winesediments.net

* * *

Next week: Isaiah 5: 3-5

Note: I read from the New American Standard Bible translation,
specifically, The MacArthur Study Bible (NASB).
I will quote other sources if used in a post.
I also use Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
(with notes from the King James Version).

Isaiah 4:1-3

A Remnant Prepared

1 For seven women will take hold of one man in that day, 

saying, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, 

only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach!”

² In that day the Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, 
and the fruit of the earth will be the pride 
and the adornment of the survivors of Israel.  
3 It will come about that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem 
will be called holy—everyone who is recorded for life in Jerusalem.

Chapter 4 may be quite short [we'll finish next week], but it is a passage of hope in the midst of judgments. At least, once you get past verse 1.


Verse 1 might well have gone with the end of Chapter 3, as the daughters of Zion received their calling out by God. "Your men will fall by the sword," we read last week in Isaiah 3:25. Indeed, enough men will fall that there will be a shortage of men. This is the situation described in verse 1, with many women trying to secure a single husband. In the battle that left Judah captive to Babylon, men fell. But this passage also alludes to the Day of the Lord in which men will fall and the wicked [like the women of Judah] will be punished with no husbands.

The quote from the women in verse 1 might sound as part rally cry from the days of women's lib. "I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan," right? They said they could take care of themselves. But remember the days of Isaiah. Women didn't do these kinds of things for themselves. These women not only overstepped their area of responsibility, but they were willing to take any husband they could grab for the sake of his name, just to save themselves the shame of not being married.

"...These women will be bound to support themselves; they will eat bread of their own earning, and wear apparel of their own working, and the man they court shall be at no expense upon them, only they desire to be called his wives, to take away the reproach of a single life. They are willing to be wives upon any terms, though ever so unreasonable; and perhaps they rather because in these troublesome times it would be a kindness to them to have a husband for their protector. ...That modesty, which is the greatest beauty of the fair sex, was forgotten, and with them the reproach of vice was nothing to the reproach of virginity, a sad symptom of the irrecoverable desolations of virtue."

--Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Bible

If anyone was to remove the reproach of these sinful women, it was God. They needed only to have remembered His servant Jacob's wife, Rachel, and her struggles to have children. She blamed God for the reproach of her infertility and took matters into her own hands. It was quite a few children born to other mothers later that "...she conceived and bore a son and said, 'God has taken away my reproach,'" (Genesis 30:23) in the birth of her son, Joseph. Eventually, by His grace, God will remove the reproach of Judah--a remnant of Judah, more specifically.

Verse 2 brings us to mention of "the survivors of Israel." This means that some are survivors and some are not. This group of survivors is called the remnant. What the prophets begin to foretell is a time coming, a last time coming (the Day of the Lord), in which ultimate judgment will be pending. God in His holiness will take with Him for eternal life--"everyone who is recorded for life" (vs. 3)--those who are the true believers by faith in Him and His Son, Jesus Christ, depicted in verse 2 as "the Branch of the Lord."

"'Behold, the days are coming,' declares the Lord,
'When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch;
And He will reign as king and act wisely
And do justice and righteousness in the land.'"

--Jeremiah 23:5

What Judah has not known in this time of Isaiah's prophecy is a king who acts wisely or justice that prevails. To know that a time of a "beautiful and glorious" reign, from the lineage of David, is in the wings should have provided hope to the lost nation. For some, it must have, as the base of the remnant would come through them. Of course, this is not the people who would see the first Advent of our Lord, but, over the generations--if the word of the Lord were faithfully shared down through the generations, as God commanded--the remnant would and will know His Son. Difficult to be faithful through captivity, unlawful governments, and the continued sinfulness of mankind. But God has not forgotten, and Paul's words are an enduring reminder:

"I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? 'Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.' But what is the divine response to him? 'I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.' In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice."

--Romans 11:1-5 

'Branch' in the Hebrew can also refer to a sprout. [Strong's] Jesus was certainly more than a sprout, but He is the initial catalyst for the larger picture of spiritual growth and salvation that the Bible is talking about. The metaphor literally grows as we read the Savior's words recorded in John 15. "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing." (John 15:5)

Judah would not be saved by a revival of its own doing. It did not abide in the Father. It was not a fruit-bearing nation of the type that was pleasing to God. Yet, for some, a time will come when the "fruit" evident upon the earth and a recognition of the Branch of the Lord will distinguish them from others who cry out, "Lord! Lord!" yet will go to eternal doom, familiarly unacknowledged.

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'"

--Matthew 7: 21-23

Jesus said that you will know "by their fruits," those who are abiding in Him. The Jewish remnant and the Christian know the same God and will demonstrate the same good fruits in their lives, even if the Christian does not share the Jewish heritage as one of the remnant. As Chapter 11 of Romans continues, Paul goes into much detail about how God is working out His plan of salvation for all His people! What we must hold fast to, as would be the words of Isaiah upon Judah, the holiness of the one true God and live "by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD." (from Deuteronomy 8:3)

"Note, If Christ be precious to us, his gospel will be so and all its truths and promises—his church will be so, and all that belong to it. These are the good fruit of the earth, in comparison with which all other things are but weeds. It will be a good evidence to us that we are of the chosen remnant, distinguished from the rest that are called Israel, and marked for salvation, if we are brought to see a transcendent beauty in Christ, and in holiness, and in the saints, the excellent ones of the earth."

--Matthew Henry

Cloud and fire return over Mount Zion, as Chapter 4 concludes. ....'Til next Wednesday!

Photo: psywarrior.com

* * *

Next week: Isaiah 4: 4-6

Note: I read from the New American Standard Bible translation,
specifically, The MacArthur Study Bible (NASB).
I will quote other sources if used in a post.
I also use Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
(with notes from the King James Version).