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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.

24. Therefore as the flame of fire devoureth the stubble. Lest it should be thought that he has so frequently cried out without good reason, he again shows what grievous and dreadful punishment awaits the nation, and threatens utter destruction to the stubborn, because they did not permit themselves to be brought back to the right path, but obstinately resisted instruction. He employs metaphors exceedingly well adapted to express his meaning, and better fitted to affect their hearts than if he had spoken plainly and without a figure. He begins with a comparison, but immediately slides into a metaphor, attributing a root and branch to the nation as to a tree. Under those two words he includes all the strength, either hidden or visible, that belongs to the nation, and says that the whole will be destroyed; for when the root, which alone gives strength and nourishment to the tree, becomes rotten, it is all over with the tree; and in like manner he threatens that it is all over with the nation, and that its whole strength is wasted and consumed.

Because they have rejected the law of Jehovah of hosts. He does not now enumerate, as formerly, the particular kinds of crime by which they had provoked the wrath of God, but assigns a general cause, namely, contempt of the law of God; for this, as all men know, is the source of everything bad. And it is no small aggravation of their crime that, when the will of God had been made known to them in his law, it was not through ignorance or mistake, but through inveterate malice, that they shook of the yoke of God, and abandoned themselves to every kind of licentiousness; which was nothing else than to reject so kind a Father, and to give themselves up to be the slaves of the devil. Besides, he accuses them of open revolt; as if he had said that it was not in one or a few instances that they were rebellious, but that they might be regarded as treacherous apostates, and had altogether forsaken God.

And loathed the word of the Holy One of Israel. He complains that they not only despised the word of God, but — what is far more shocking — turned away from it, or threw it away in wicked disdain. But if contempt for the law of God is the source, head, and accumulation of all that is evil, there is nothing against which we ought more carefully to guard than that Satan should take away our reverence for it; and if there are any faults to which we are liable, we ought, at least, to allow a remedy to be applied to them, if we do not choose, by wickedly rejecting it, to draw down upon ourselves everlasting destruction.