The Prophecy of Isaiah - Lesson 5: The Lord's Vineyard (Isaiah 5)

“The Lord’s Vineyard”
Isaiah 5:1–30

1. A Song about a Vineyard (5:1-7)

a. The song’s characters

1) The singer: Isaiah, the Prophet
2) The vineyard owner: the Lord
3) The vineyard: Israel/Judah

b. The Song’s Meaning

1) The Lord created and owns the vineyard (Israel/Judah) (v. 1)

Isaiah 5:1 I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.

2) The Lord expended great care and effort in planting the vineyard (Israel/Judah) (v. 2)

Isaiah 5:2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.

3) The Lord intended to reap a harvest of good fruit (righteousness and justice) from the vineyard (Israel/Judah) (vv. 3–4, 7)

Isaiah 5:3 “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.
Isaiah 5:4 What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?
Isaiah 5:7 The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

4) Instead, he received only bitter fruit (distress, bloodshed) from his vineyard (Israel/Judah). (4, 7)
5) The Lord will leave his vineyard (Israel/Judah) to be devastated by the elements (enemies) (vv. 5-6)

Isaiah 5:5 Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled.
Isaiah 5:6 I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.”

2. The Vineyard’s Harvest of Bitter Fruit (5:8-24)

a. Oppressive Landowners (8-10)¹

Isaiah 5:8 Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land.
Isaiah 5:9 The Lord Almighty has declared in my hearing: “Surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants.
Isaiah 5:10 A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine; a homer of seed will yield only an ephah of grain.”

b. Pursuers of Drunken Revelry (11-12)

Isaiah 5:11 Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine.
Isaiah 5:12 They have harps and lyres at their banquets, pipes and timbrels and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord, no respect for the work of his hands.

c. God Testers (18-19)

Isaiah 5:18 Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes,
Isaiah 5:19 to those who say, “Let God hurry; let him hasten his work so we may see it. The plan of the Holy One of Israel— let it approach, let it come into view, so we may know it.”

d. The Morally Twisted (20)

Isaiah 5:20 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.

e. The Self-Exalted (21)

Isaiah 5:21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.

f. The Immoral Opportunists (22-23)

Isaiah 5:22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks,
Isaiah 5:23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent.

3. The Destruction of the Vineyard (13-17, 24-30)

a. Appropriate judgment: loss of land, hunger, thirst (13)

Isaiah 5:13 Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding; those of high rank will die of hunger and the common people will be parched with thirst.

b. Total judgment in divine action: death, humbling, ruination (14–17)

Isaiah 5:14 Therefore Death expands its jaws, opening wide its mouth; into it will descend their nobles and masses with all their brawlers and revelers.
Isaiah 5:15 So people will be brought low and everyone humbled, the eyes of the arrogant humbled.
Isaiah 5:16 But the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will be proved holy by his righteous acts.
Isaiah 5:17 Then sheep will graze as in their own pasture; lambs will feed among the ruins of the rich.

c. Appropriate judgment: speedy disaster (24a) repays the call for the Lord to hasten (19); acquiescing in sin (18, 20) issues in helpless collapse into judgment (24bcd)

Isaiah 5:24 Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.

d. Total judgment: The Lord summons the invincible foe (Assyria) (25–30)

Isaiah 5:25 Therefore the Lord’s anger burns against his people; his hand is raised and he strikes them down. The mountains shake, and the dead bodies are like refuse in the streets. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.
Isaiah 5:26 He lifts up a banner for the distant nations, he whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Here they come, swiftly and speedily!
Isaiah 5:27 Not one of them grows tired or stumbles, not one slumbers or sleeps; not a belt is loosened at the waist, not a sandal strap is broken.
Isaiah 5:28 Their arrows are sharp, all their bows are strung; their horses’ hooves seem like flint, their chariot wheels like a whirlwind.
Isaiah 5:29 Their roar is like that of the lion, they roar like young lions; they growl as they seize their prey and carry it off with no one to rescue.
Isaiah 5:30 In that day they will roar over it like the roaring of the sea. And if one looks at the land, there is only darkness and distress; even the sun will be darkened by clouds.

 

^{₁ The subpoints for verses 8-23 come from Bryan E. Beyer, Encountering the Book of Isaiah.}