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The Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard

 5

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;

he expected it to yield grapes,

but it yielded wild grapes.

 

3

And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem

and people 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 expected 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 it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;

I will also command the clouds

that they rain no rain upon it.

 

7

For the vineyard of the L ord of hosts

is the house of Israel,

and the people of Judah

are his pleasant planting;

he expected justice,

but saw bloodshed;

righteousness,

but heard a cry!

Social Injustice Denounced

8

Ah, you who join house to house,

who add field to field,

until there is room for no one but you,

and you are left to live alone

in the midst of the land!

9

The L ord 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 a mere ephah.

 

11

Ah, you who rise early in the morning

in pursuit of strong drink,

who linger in the evening

to be inflamed by wine,

12

whose feasts consist of lyre and harp,

tambourine and flute and wine,

but who do not regard the deeds of the L ord,

or see the work of his hands!

13

Therefore my people go into exile without knowledge;

their nobles are dying of hunger,

and their multitude is parched with thirst.

 

14

Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite

and opened its mouth beyond measure;

the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitude go down,

her throng and all who exult in her.

15

People are bowed down, everyone is brought low,

and the eyes of the haughty are humbled.

16

But the L ord of hosts is exalted by justice,

and the Holy God shows himself holy by righteousness.

17

Then the lambs shall graze as in their pasture,

fatlings and kids shall feed among the ruins.

 

18

Ah, you who drag iniquity along with cords of falsehood,

who drag sin along as with cart ropes,

19

who say, “Let him make haste,

let him speed his work

that we may see it;

let the plan of the Holy One of Israel hasten to fulfillment,

that we may know it!”

20

Ah, you 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

Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes,

and shrewd in your own sight!

22

Ah, you who are heroes in drinking wine

and valiant at mixing drink,

23

who acquit the guilty for a bribe,

and deprive the innocent of their rights!

Foreign Invasion Predicted

24

Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble,

and as dry grass sinks down in the flame,

so their root will become rotten,

and their blossom go up like dust;

for they have rejected the instruction of the L ord of hosts,

and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

 

25

Therefore the anger of the L ord was kindled against his people,

and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them;

the mountains quaked,

and their corpses were like refuse

in the streets.

For all this his anger has not turned away,

and his hand is stretched out still.

 

26

He will raise a signal for a nation far away,

and whistle for a people at the ends of the earth;

Here they come, swiftly, speedily!

27

None of them is weary, none stumbles,

none slumbers or sleeps,

not a loincloth is loose,

not a sandal-thong broken;

28

their arrows are sharp,

all their bows bent,

their horses’ hoofs seem like flint,

and their wheels like the whirlwind.

29

Their roaring is like a lion,

like young lions they roar;

they growl and seize their prey,

they carry it off, and no one can rescue.

30

They will roar over it on that day,

like the roaring of the sea.

And if one look to the land—

only darkness and distress;

and the light grows dark with clouds.

 


14. Therefore hell hath enlarged his soul 8686     Therefore hell hath enlarged herself. — Eng. Ver. In this verse the Prophet intended to heighten the alarm of men who were at their ease, and not yet sufficiently affected by the threatenings which had been held out to them. Though it was shocking to behold captivity, and also famine, yet the slowness and insensibility of the people was so great that they did not give earnest heed to these tokens of God’s anger. Accordingly the Prophet threatens something still more dreadful, that hell has opened his belly to swallow them all up.

I said a little ago, that what is here stated in the past tense refers partly to the future. Nor is it without good reason that the Prophet speaks of the events as plain and manifest; for he intended to bring them immediately before the people, that they might behold with their eyes what they could not be persuaded to believe. Again, when he compares hell or the grave to an insatiable beast, by the soul he means the belly into which the food is thrown. The general meaning is, that the grave is like a wide and vast gulf, which, at the command of God, yawns to devour men who are condemned to die. This personification carries greater emphasis than if he had said that all are condemned to the grave.

And her glory hath descended, and her multitude. He joins together the nobles and men of low rank, that none may flatter themselves with the hope of escape: as if he had said, “Death will carry you away, and all that you possess, your delicacies, wealth, pleasures, and everything else in which you place your confidence.” It is therefore a confirmation of the former statement, and we ought always to attend to the particle לכן (laken,) therefore; for the people ascribed their calamities to fortune, or in some other way hardened themselves against the Lord’s chastisements. On this account Isaiah says that these things do not happen by chance. Besides, men are wont to argue with God, and are so daring and presumptuous that they do not hesitate to call him to account. In order, therefore, to restrain that pride, he shows that the punishments with which they are visited are just, and that it is owing entirely to their own folly that they are miserable in every respect.


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