Chapter 5

This whole chapter is set off in prose format. 

The vineyard on the hill, with choice vines, a watchtower, and a wine vat in the middle.  But it yielded wild grapes.  Israel.  A nation called out, special to God, His holy nation.  And look what they have become, their unfaithfulness, their whoring with other gods, their haughty and arrogant bearing, their disdain of consequences.  This is possibly the first use of the analogy of Israel as a vineyard.  God asks Jerusalem and Judah what else He could have done, what did they lack, that caused the grapes to be wild.  So God will break down the hedge and the wall, and the vineyard will be overrun. 

2023 - Think of the parallel between this in Isaiah, and the parable of the vineyard in Luke 20.  Also called the parable of the wicked tenants.  Surely Jesus is expanding on Isaiah in Luke.  I included a longer note in Luke 20 that is worth reading, shown as a 2023 addendum.  The two are just too parallel to deny.

2024 - I noticed today that Isaiah is addressing Judah and Jerusalem.  He has done it that way a number of times.  The kingdom was divided at this point, and the north was "Israel".  But why would these prophecies only be to Judah when in fact it is Israel that will fall first?  Judah doesn't fall until Jeremiah, 100-150 years later.

Ahh!  But look at vs 7 - "For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, And the men of Judah His delightful plant."  I would say this is just poetic language, and not a distinction between Israel as the "protection" and Judah as the "crop", though in fact at this time Israel was a geographic buffer zone between Judah and Assyria.  So it could mean that.  If we go with that then Jerusalem itself - the city of God - is the prize that is threatened.  And this is in fact how it all went down.  First the buffer is over run, and then the "plants" are destroyed.

Vss 5-7 give us God's plan for this vineyard that he so carefully planted, protected, tended.  At this point, it does not say that He will directly destroy the vineyard.  That's not what He does at all.  Instead, he removes its hedge - which protects it from wild animals that will eat the fruit, attack the roots, and so on.  Then he will break down the wall, so that large animals, foot traffic, evil men who have no respect for it - even hate it because of the one who owns it - will trample it down.  They will abuse it, burn parts, throw bricks and break windows.  Like that.  God will no longer tend it, no longer "corral it" towards the ends that he has in mind for it.  He will no longer keep the truly harmful out of it - the briars and the thorns will be allowed to grow and thrive within the cultured vineyard.  And there will be no water.  The vineyard will be weakened systemically as it thirsts for water.  The essentials will be gone. 

This is how God deals with nations.  It is different than with people.  He chastises people, but from a nation gone wrong He just steps away and lets the corrupt nature of man take over, lets the destructive have their way.

What a post for FB...If anyone would even read it....

Verse 7 leaves no doubt that Israel is the vineyard, and that Israel has failed miserably in God's sight.  It is not the righteous seat of justice that God wants it to be.

2025 - This prophecy, according to vs 3, is spoken to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah.  And yet for the first time, in vs 7, we are specifically told that it is about Israel.  I looked up the words here translated, and that is precisely what they convey.  Jerusalem is being informed as to God's reaction to a good vineyard that never yields good grapes, despite all possible care and preparation.

Now start some woes.  There were two of them in chapter 3 (vss 9, 11).  This chapter has 6 in the ESV.  There are 7 in the NKJV, since there are two in verse 22 in that translation.  Seven seems better...and I don't read the underlying language, so maybe there are only six, and the seventh woe is yet to come?  MSB note in NASB comments on the sixth woe, mentions nothing about a seventh.

2024 - Six woes and not seven because the fall if Israel is not the end of justice.  Judah must also fall, and the "missing woe" lets us know that the pouring out of justice will continue.  Look at this phrase from vs 25" "For all this His anger is not spent, But his hand is still stretched out."  The fall if Israel is not the end.  This is the first of five times that we will see this thought reiterated.  In 5:25; 9:12, 17, 21; and 10:14.  This is perhaps our first glimpse at the ongoing punishment of Israel.  The Double Punishments of 586 BC and 70 AD.  In the first instance they were rejecting the Old Covenant, and in the second they were rejecting the New.  Isaiah saw that this would go on and on and on.

First woe is those who are accumulators, who have far more than they need leaving nothing available to others.  This is about pies that are limited in size.  If someone gets more, another must get less.

Second woe is about those who drink early and late, who feast and party, and never consider God.

Vss 13-17 foretell a disaster where people will be taken into exile, high and haughty men, will be brought low.  Honorable men will starve and thirst.  The whole land is to be devastated.  The picture is of a land that is falling to its enemies, falling into chaos, where it seems that even nature itself has turned against it so that it can no longer support its people.

2024 - We get two woes and then a "therefore".  The greedy accumulators and the dissipatory wine drinkers are the first two woes, and THEN we get exile and death.  I think Sheol opening its mouth without measure is a prophecy of how many will be killed in the Assyrian invasion.  Remember that at this time both the good and the evil went to Sheol, though to different parts of Sheol.  This section goes from vss 8-17.  To look at this section in...well let's say way too much detail...:

In vs 8, first woe, the adding and joining are a participle and an imperfect,

In vs 9, "shall become" is imperfect.

In vs 10, "will yield" is imperfect both times

Vs 11, Second woe, rising and staying are both participles, and inflame is imperfect.

Vs 12, "are accompanied" and "consider" are both of type perfect, while "pay attention" is imperfect. So the idea conveyed here is that the accompaniment is completed, and the considering is complete.  So the banqueting is over, and any thinking about God's part in their situation - their blessings - is not longer on anyone's mind.  God is taken for granted here.  See how "paying attention" is imperfect, implying that this negative, this not paying attention, is an ongoing thing.  We get the idea that nothing has changed.  Their original neglect - during their celebrating - goes on now as a lack of consideration.  They never think of god at all.  They do not reflect on their situation.

vs 13, "Therefore" begins.  The only verb in this verse is "go", and it is type perfect.  Meaning a completed action.  The only way I see to understand it this way is that it means God has decided that this event will happen, and in the perfect, it will not be undone.  There can be no forgiveness, given that the perfect is used.  God has decided, and the perfect tells us that the decision is final.  Surely this is how the people of that time would have understood it, because they new it had not happened.  Never in their history had such a thing happened, and yet here is Isaiah using the perfect to say it is done.  This would have made a powerful impression on these people.

Vs 14, "opened" is in the perfect, and "descend" is sequential.  Wow.  See the picture?  Hell's mouth is yawning open already, in anticipation of what is to come, what has already been decided.  And what is coming is that MANY will die, and "fall" into hell's open jaws!  Can this be conveyed in English? 

2025 - In this verse though, it also says that it is Jerusalem's splendor and multitude , her noise and the jubilant within her that will descend.  This is about Jerusalem, about the fall of the Southern Kingdom.  I am not sure how we are to resolve this.

I see that in vs. 13 it says "my people go into exile".  In hindsight we know this is happens both to Israel and Judah.  Perhaps in 14, Sheol's mouth is enlarged to take still more, those from unrepentant Judah?

"go into exile" is perfect tense.  A done deal?  Or something that is viewed as a single event seems more appropriate here.  But open and enlarge are both in this perfect tense and then descend is a sequential perfect.  This makes sense as a stand alone without needing, or even implying a change in the object of the prophecy. 

Vs 15, "Humbled" and the first "abased" are sequential imperfect.  These are results, and tie back to the perfect "go" in vs 13...I think, and not to the "opened" in vs 14.  It is the dead who will go into Sheol, and it seems to me that humbled and abased are words that apply to the living.  Going into exile would surely be a humbling experience as you were marched with hundreds of others, in a classless horde, to slavery.  Imagine that happening to you.  From a nice house in a nice neighborhood to an old slave who will be lucky to be fed because we can do so little work for our new master.  Abased because we are chained together with those who used to see us as their "betters".  That second abased is imperfect but not sequential.  Not sure how to read that...Some other translations give us the idea of cast down eyes, of hanging heads.  Humiliation.  Perhaps this will be an ongoing disposition of character following these events.  It isn't necessary sequential, but will be reinforced by that life of slavery.  Forever abased.  Such a dismal prospect.

Can this even be conveyed in English?  I suppose it could, surely it can...I mean by unraveling these verbs I just said it in English, but my "extended version" is surely not very efficient.  Hebrew does it in a much more succinct way.

vs 16, starts with "but", which is a lot like "therefore", though they are very different words in this case.  "Will be exalted" is sequential imperfect and "will show himself" is a participle.  Imperfect tells us that the exaltation will be ongoing...but look further.  Exalted in judgment.  God is exalted by the exercise of justice toward the rebellious house of Israel.  Likely this exaltation is in the eyes of those not directly affected.  That is, those who see from afar that these unfaithful, sinful, arrogant Israelites finally get what's coming to them for their neglect of their God, give credit to, give exaltation to, the God who has at last "taken care of the situation".  Is that why God sometimes seems to let things go so very far beyond what we as mere man would call just?  It shows us both the divine patience of God and also reminds us not to be complacent about that patience, because God retains the right - and the power - to "fix" things in his own timing?

2024 - The above was a wonderful exercise in diving deeply into a passage.  Look how much more could be extracted by looking at these verbs in more detail, and in understanding the things conveyed in Hebrew that are not at all obvious - or even possible to extract - in simple English.  BUT, this takes a LOT of time...so I am pushing on with the rest of my reading.

Third woe, to those who promote wickedness, who advance injustice, while "daring" God to do something about it.  Arrogant and haughty, laughing at God's warnings.  Vs 19 is about those who sarcastically ask to see God's work.  They don't believe in Him, or that He controls events.

Fourth woe is to those who call evil good and good evil.  Who put darkness for light, bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.  These are those who pervert obvious truth, and by saying it enough, attempt to make it so.  This needs to be posted.  Isa. 5:20.

Like breaking the law yourself and then demanding an apology from those you coerced to break the law with you, because they let you do it.  Pelosi's haircut.

Fifth woe, to those wise in their own eyes, shrewd in their own sight. 

Sixth woe, to those who are "heroes at drinking wine".

2024 - The first time, we had two woes and then a therefore, this time we have four woes before we get to therefore.  Look at three through 6 in the context of 2024 America:

First, those who dare God to do something about it.  They interpret God's patience as disinterest.

Second, calling good evil, evil good.  Bible teaching in our day is a bad thing, not for children in public schools, while homosexuality, abortion, all the letters in LGBTQ+ are all "good".  Couldn't be more predictive...and likely, we are not the first to sink so low.  Israel was there already in Isaiah's time.

Third, the wise in their own eyes.  How arrogant of us to think we have finally figured out how things "really" are after 6000 years of human history.  We are the smartest, most inciteful, most discerning and wise.

Fourth, those who take pride in their capacity to indulge. 

God is angry and has "stretched out his hand against them".  Corpses are as refuse in the streets, yet He is still not satisfied.  This is the verse:

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. [Isa 5:25 ESV]

Look at that last phrase.  For all this...  So despite the devastation that God is bringing on Israel, it will not be enough, their crime deserves more punishment and He is a just God.  This verse is well before we see the prediction of double punishment, but surely it is a precursor - it is the explanation for exactly why the punishment of Israel is ongoing to this day.

God will call other nations to descend on Judah, to attack and overrun.  The invaders will be an unstoppable force.  Is this what comes next for us?  Is this going to be the fate of the US?  Russia or China will invade, and we'll be helpless to resist?  For all I know Pelosi and crew will "invite" them to come in and keep the peace!  The Dems could make it "legal" for us to be invaded!