Late summer on a very fertile hill: a low stone wall, a round stone watchtower in the middle, a winepress cut in the rock, and rows of vines hung with small, hard, dark wild grapes.

Zion on trial

Isaiah 5

What more could God have done for you?

30 verses≈ 6 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

1–5Zion on trialJudah’s sin, the mountain raised, the vineyard’s songChapter 5
6Holy, holy, holyIsaiah’s call, in the year King Uzziah died (about 740 BC)
7–12ImmanuelAhaz’s fear, the sign, the Child, the shoot of Jesse
13–23The nations judgedBabylon to Tyre: the LORD is Judge of all the earth
24–27The whole earthThe earth laid waste, and death swallowed up
28–35Woe and a KingEgypt’s help or the LORD’s, and the King in His beauty
36–39Hezekiah’s crisisSennacherib, 701 BC: the prayer, the sickness, the envoys
40–48Comfort My peopleTo the exiles ahead: Cyrus, the idols, the Servant
49–55The Servant and ZionPierced for our transgressions; Zion restored
56–66New heavens and earthA house of prayer, the Anointed One, all things new

The Song of the Vineyard

Isaiah

Spring morning on a terraced hillside: a man sets the last stones on a new round stone watchtower, cleared stones piled into low walls, young vines in rows and a winepress newly cut in the rock below.

I will sing for my beloved a song of his vineyard:

My beloved had a vineyard

on a very fertile hill.

He dug it up and cleared the stones

and planted the finest vines.

He built a watchtower in the middle

and dug out a winepress as well.

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Isaiah

Isaiah

He waited for the vineyard to yield good grapes,

but the fruit it produced was sour!

God

“And now, O dwellers of Jerusalem

and men of Judah,

I exhort you to judge

between Me and My vineyard.

What more could have been done for My vineyard

than I have done for it?

Why, when I expected sweet grapes,

did it bring forth sour fruit?

God

The same hillside vineyard years later under a dry gray sky: the wall broken down in gaps, the watchtower’s top fallen, thorns and briers through the untended vines and goats on the terraces.

Now I will tell you what I am about to do to My vineyard:

I will take away its hedge,

and it will be consumed;

I will tear down its wall,

and it will be trampled.

I will make it a wasteland,

neither pruned nor cultivated,

and thorns and briers will grow up.

I will command the clouds

that rain shall not fall on it.”

Isaiah

For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts

is the house of Israel,

and the men of Judah

are the plant of His delight.

Isaiah

Question

Quick question

The song starts as a love song and ends as a verdict. Read 5:7 again before you answer.

Who is the vineyard in Isaiah’s song?

Woes to the Wicked

Isaiah

Isaiah

Woe to you who add house to house

and join field to field

until no place is left

and you live alone in the land.

God

I heard the LORD of Hosts declare:

“Surely many houses will become desolate,

great mansions left unoccupied.

For ten acres of vineyard

will yield but a bath of wine,

and a homer of seed

only an ephah of grain.”

Isaiah

Woe to those who rise early in the morning

in pursuit of strong drink,

who linger into the evening,

to be inflamed by wine.

At their feasts are the lyre and harp,

tambourines and flutes and wine.

They disregard the actions of the LORD

and fail to see the work of His hands.

God

Therefore My people will go into exile

for their lack of understanding;

their dignitaries are starving

and their masses are parched with thirst.

Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat

and opens wide its enormous jaws,

and down go Zion’s nobles and masses,

her revelers and carousers!

Isaiah

So mankind will be brought low, and each man humbled;

the arrogant will lower their eyes.

Isaiah

But the LORD of Hosts will be exalted by His justice,

and the holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness.

Isaiah 5:16

Isaiah

Isaiah

Lambs will graze as in their own pastures,

and strangers will feed in the ruins of the wealthy.

Isaiah

A stony road up a hillside at noon: a man strains forward alone, thick ropes over his shoulder, hauling a heavy two-wheeled ox cart loaded high, with no ox.

Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of deceit

and pull sin along with cart ropes,

to those who say, “Let Him hurry and hasten His work

so that we may see it!

Let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come

so that we may know it!”

Isaiah

Woe to those who call evil good

and good evil,

who turn darkness to light

and light to darkness,

who replace bitter with sweet

and sweet with bitter.

Isaiah

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes

and clever in their own sight.

Isaiah

Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine

and champions in mixing strong drink,

who acquit the guilty for a bribe

and deprive the innocent of justice.

Isaiah

Isaiah

Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes the straw,

and as dry grass shrivels in the flame,

so their roots will decay

and their blossoms will blow away like dust;

for they have rejected the instruction of the LORD of Hosts

and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Isaiah

Therefore the anger of the LORD burns against His people;

His hand is raised against them to strike them down.

The mountains quake,

and the corpses lie like refuse in the streets.

Despite all this, His anger is not turned away;

His hand is still upraised.

Six woes

Whiteboard

Greed, pleasure, mockery, twisted words, pride and bribes: six woes, and one verdict.

Isaiah

Evening on a bare hilltop: a tall pole with a plain dyed cloth streaming in the wind; far below across a plain, the dust cloud of a great marching column coming on fast.

He lifts a banner for the distant nations

and whistles for those at the ends of the earth.

Behold—how speedily and swiftly they come!

None of them grows weary or stumbles;

no one slumbers or sleeps.

No belt is loose

and no sandal strap is broken.

Their arrows are sharpened,

and all their bows are strung.

The hooves of their horses are like flint;

their chariot wheels are like a whirlwind.

Isaiah

The Judean hill country at evening under a vast dark storm front rolling in from the sea, the last light blotted out by cloud, a single maned lion small on a ridge in the foreground.

Their roaring is like that of a lion;

they roar like young lions.

They growl and seize their prey;

they carry it away, and no one can rescue it.

In that day they will roar over it,

like the roaring of the sea.

If one looks over the land,

he will see darkness and distress;

even the light will be obscured by clouds.

0:21

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

Pray

LORD of Hosts, You planted me and cared for me, and You looked for good fruit. Forgive the sour fruit in my life. Make me call good what You call good, and let my life bear justice and mercy. Amen.

You’ve experienced

Isaiah 5

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A verse to carry with you

But the LORD of Hosts will be exalted by His justice, and the holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness.

Isaiah 5:16

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