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5. Song of the Vineyard

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 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 “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah,
   judge between me and my vineyard.
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?
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.
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.”

    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.

Woes and Judgments

    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.

⁹ The LORD Almighty has declared in my hearing:

   “Surely the great houses will become desolate,
   the fine mansions left without occupants.
¹⁰ A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath That is, about 6 gallons or about 22 liters of wine;
   a homer That is, probably about 360 pounds or about 160 kilograms of seed will yield only an ephah That is, probably about 36 pounds or about 16 kilograms of grain.”

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

    ¹⁸ Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit,
   and wickedness as with cart ropes,
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.”

    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 clever in their own sight.

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

    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!
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.
²⁸ Their arrows are sharp,
   all their bows are strung;
their horses’ hooves seem like flint,
   their chariot wheels like a whirlwind.
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.
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.

9. This is in the ears of Jehovah of hosts. Here something must be supplied; for he means that the Lord sits as judge, and as taking cognizance of those things. When covetous men seize and heap up their wealth, they are blinded by their desire of gain, and do not understand that they will one day render an account. Never, certainly, were men so utterly stupid as not to ascribe some judgment to God; but they flatter themselves so far as to imagine that God does not observe them. In general, therefore, they acknowledge the judgment of God: when they come to particular cases, they take liberties, and suppose that they are not bound to proceed to that extent.

If many houses be not laid desolate. Having warned them that none of these things escape the eyes of God, lest they should imagine that it is a knowledge which does not lead to action, he immediately adds, that vengeance is close at hand. He likewise makes use of an oath; for the expression If not is a form of swearing that frequently occurs in the Scriptures. ⁸⁰⁸⁰ The following is a striking instance: To whom I sware in my wrath, If they shall enter into my rest; that is, they shall not enter into my rest. (Psalm 95:11.), — Ed. In order to strike them with greater terror he breaks off the sentence with studied abruptness. ⁸¹⁸¹ The classical reader may be reminded of a fine instance of ἀποσιώπησις, by which the effect of a speech is prodigiously heightened:
Quos ego — sed motos praestat componere fluctus. — Virg. AEn. 1:135. He might indeed have brought out this threatening with full expression, but the incomplete form is better fitted to keep the hearer in doubt and suspense, and is therefore more alarming. Besides, by this instance of reserve the Lord intended to train us to modesty, that we may not be too free in the use of oaths.

But what does he threaten? Many houses will be laid desolate. This is a just punishment, by which the Lord chastises the covetousness and ambition of men, who did not consider their own meanness, that they might be satisfied with a moderate portion. In a similar manner the poet ridicules the mad ambition of Alexander the Great, who having learned from the philosophy of Anacharsis that there were many worlds, sighed to think, that after having worn himself out by so many toils, he had not yet made himself master of one world. “One globe does not satisfy the Macedonian youth. He writhes in misery on account of the narrow limits of the world, as if he were confined to the rocks of Gyaros, or to the puny Seriphos. But when he shall enter the city framed by potters, he will be content with a tomb. Death alone acknowledges how small are the dimensions of the bodies of men.” ⁸²⁸²
Unus Pellaeo juveni non sufficit orbis:
AEstuat infelix angusto limite mundi,
Ut Gyari clausus scopulis parvaque Seripho:
Quum tamen a figulis munitam intraverit urbem,
Sarcophago contentus erit. Mors sola fatetur,
Quantula sint hominum corpuscula.
Juven. Sat. 10:168-173.

Instances of the same kind occur every day, yet we do not observe them; for the Lord exhibits to us, as in a mirror, the absurd vanity of men, who spend a vast amount of money in building palaces that are afterwards to become the receptacles of owls and bats and other animals. These things are plainly before our eyes, and yet we do not apply our mind to the consideration of them. So sudden and various are the changes that happen, so many houses are laid desolate, so many cities are overthrown and destroyed, and, in short, there are so many other evident proofs of the judgment of God; and yet men cannot be persuaded to lay aside this mad ambition. The Lord threatens by the Prophet Amos:

“You have built houses of hewn stones,
but you shall not dwell in them.” (Amos 5:11.)

And again,

“He will smite the great house with breaches,
and the little house with clefts.” (Amos 6:11.)

These things happen daily, and yet the lawless passions of men are not abated.