Isaiah 5:1-7 is a parable, often referred to as the song of the vineyard. It begins a segment in the canonical text of Chapter 5 a poem of rebuke. Parallels to this passage are in Isaiah 3:13-15; 27:2 ff; Jeremiah 2:21; Psalm 80:7-19; and Exodus 15:17. Jesus would tell a similar parable in Mark 12:1-12. The singer is a friend of the bridegroom. It describes the broken relationship between Israel and Yahweh. The piece is an extended metaphor in the form of a melancholy love song that expresses themes prominent not only in the book of Isaiah but running throughout prophetic literature: Yahweh’s love for Israel; Yahweh’s repeated attempts to bring Israel prosperity and eminence; Israel’s persistent rejection of Yahweh’s guidance; Yahweh’s disappointment and anger. The prophet adopts the unusual role of a troubadour or balladeer. We see a similar role in Exodus 15:1, 14:21, Numbers 21:17, Judges 5:3, I Samuel 18:7, II Chronicles 29:28, 30. However, it is rare for singers to sing about the activities of others, apart from the dealings of Yahweh on behalf of the people of Israel. In this parable, the Lord is the farmer and Israel is the vineyard. At first, the identity of the characters is not evident. Only gradually does the audience realize that it is they themselves who are being rebuked. The parable by the prophet Nathan before King David has a similar structure.
1Let me sing for (or about) my beloved (dodi[1]); my love-song concerning his vineyard. The prophet is here assuming a stance that is virtually unique in biblical literature. This kind of self-conscious artistry is rare in the Bible, as most biblical writers did not afford themselves or their hearers-readers the luxury of extended third-person metaphors. The image of a vineyard as beloved or lover is common in the Hebrew love poetry of the Song of Songs (e.g., 1:6, 14; 2:3, 15, etc.) and as a metaphor for Israel is occasionally found in prophetic literature (here and Jeremiah 12:10). The prophet elaborates on the image here. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. The beloved chooses a vineyard on choice ground. 2 He dug it and cleared it of stones,[2] and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower, a word also used to describe, among other substantial structures, the tower attached to the city of Babel in Genesis 11:4, in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it. The beloved undertakes extensive labor to turn that vineyard into a profitable enterprise, overturning weeds and clearing the area of stones. All this detail is included to show the extensive labor, time, and money lavished on the vineyard. God spared no expense to create a fruitful vineyard, which makes its yield even more frustrating. He expected (qawah, eagerly anticipate, to wait with hope) it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild (be`ushim,[3] or rotten) grapes. 3 And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, remembering that we have classical poetic parallelism[4] that identifies the one group to whom the prophet speaks. He invites them to judge between me and my vineyard. The prophet abruptly shifts from third-person to first-person narrative. See II Samuel 12:1-9 for the prophet Nathan’s use of a parable when God led him to confront King David about his sins relating to Bathsheba and Uriah; David was taken in by the parable and unwittingly passed judgment on himself. The prophet is, of course, in the traditional role of the classical prophet, speaking on behalf of Yahweh/the Beloved and against the very people summoned as judges. In summoning the people to adjudicate the situation, the prophet is employing a classic literary form found extensively in the Hebrew Bible, the rîv or lawsuit form. Although various terms are used in different contexts, the basic idea is the same: Yahweh has a complaint (or “indictment,” Hosea 4:1, or “controversy,” Micah 6:2) against the people and invokes impartial witnesses to decide who is the aggrieved party. In an ancient version of the lawsuit, the writer summons the primordial elements “heaven and earth” as witnesses (Deuteronomy 30:19; 31:28), and Yahweh rises, as the complainant, “to argue his case. (Isaiah 3:13; see also Jeremiah 25:31). The imagery is very ancient and stretches back to the earliest period of biblical literature (with roots in earlier northwest Semitic/Canaanite religion), when people understood heaven to be a royal court inhabited by various divine beings who could function as witnesses in divine disputes. In time, that imagery of divine witnesses shifted first to natural elements then, as here, to historical peoples, and eventually to an impersonal book — the book of life (Malachi 3:16; Revelation 20:12, 15) or set of books (Daniel 7:10; 12:1). 4 What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? To answer that question, let us review what God has done. God called a people to become the people of God to become a light to the nations. The biblical witness reveals this as far back as Abraham. “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2). God delivered the people of God innumerable times, including their deliverance from peril during their escape from bondage. “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him” (Exodus 15:1-2). God became their God. Their God delivered them and protected them. God also fed them, literally and metaphorically. The food provided in the wilderness fed their bodies, and the law and the words of the prophets among them nurtured their souls. God was merciful and patient. “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 103:8). Exodus 34:6-7, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” God healed their diseases. See Psalm 103:3 and recall Deuteronomy 7:15 where God promises that “the Lord will turn away from you every illness; all the dread diseases of Egypt that you experienced, he will not inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.” God forgave their sins. “Yet he, being compassionate, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them; often he restrained his anger, and did not stir up all his wrath” (Psalm 78:38). God was faithful. “Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to his people Israel according to all that he promised; not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke through his servant Moses” (I Kings 8:56). Yet, when I expected (qawah) it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? 5 And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. A possible parallel to the type of judgment Isaiah will describe is in Psalm 81, where the Lord liberated the people from Egypt, but the people did not obey, so the Lord gave them over to their stubborn hearts and counsels. If they would listen, then the Lord would act against their enemies (Psalm 81:10-16). Paul will use a similar argument in that the judgment of God is to give humanity over to its debased mind and the resulting sinful deeds (Romans 1:28-32). Thus, 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. The Lord can turn rain into powder (Deuteronomy 28:24) or refuse to allow rain to come (I Kings 17:1 and Elijah). In the rain agriculture of ancient Israel, where rivers provided extremely limited riverine agriculture, drought was a regular and fearsome occurrence (with three-year-long droughts typically occurring twice in a 40-year period.[5] Jesus has something similar, speaking to the fig tree that is not bearing fruit. He curses it. You can only wait so long for fruit, and if it does not happen, the tree comes down and becomes firewood. See Matthew 21:18-22. He also tells his disciples, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. … Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned” (John 15:1, 6). The apostle Paul warns the church at Corinth to take a hard look at the experience of the Israelites. “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors … ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. … Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and God struck them down in the wilderness. Now these things occurred as examples for us … and faithful witnesses wrote them down to instruct us. … So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall” (I Corinthians 10:1-12). 7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah. We should view the reference to 'house of Israel" and people of Judah" as recognizing the essential oneness of the people of the Lord. Thus, it refers to a threat to both. The poem drops all pretenses in the concluding verse of the song, in which it now reveals itself as an oracle of judgment from the Lord. This house/people are his pleasant planting; he expected (qawah) justice (mispach), but saw bloodshed (mishpat), demonstrating their faithlessness; righteousness (tse’aqah), but heard a cry (tsedaqah) from the oppressed! In this pairing of nouns that verbally plays upon their expected opposites, they have demonstrated their faithlessness.
The cartoon, Ziggy, has an episode in which Ziggy says, "I guess I'll go see how my garden is doing..." As he walks in the garden, the grass is bigger than most of the things he has in the garden. "Hmmm..." he says. He sees a corn stalk: "Oh! This looks like corn! I didn't plant any, though!!! It must have volunteered!" He exclaims in surprise: "Oh! One of my beet plants lived!" He peers at another plant: "Oh, the plant I thought was lettuce turns out to be a weed! Hmmm, it's doing well, though!" He goes back to the house: "Well, all in all, I'd say my garden is doing a lot better than last year!" That story summarizes my experience with gardening. I have none. So far, in my life, I have had little desire to learn.
Yet, I can understand why someone would like it. Planting seeds or small plants and watching them grow would bring satisfaction. One must take some responsibility for learning what will grow in the soil you have and what the plant needs. Yet, once you learn all that, and do it, you expect your garden to be fruitful. If it is not, something bad has happened.
A web site describes three steps to keeping or maintaining a healthy garden. 1) Cut back: Cut back all the dead grasses and plants from last winter to a mere 2-3 inches. 2) Division: Take a good hard look at your garden. Which plants are getting unruly and large? You can divide these plants with no hesitation. Position these new plants in your garden in pleasing locations. 3) Weed and Mulch: There is no need to clean up all the leaves in your garden if you plan on mulching. Just pull up all the weeds and mulch to your heart's content. Mulch heavily -- a few inches will prevent further weeds from appearing but take care not to smother your plants. Do not pile mulch high around your plants but leave lots of room for them to breathe and grow. Mulch keeps your garden moist and cool as well as smothering weeds and providing some nutrients to your plants.[6]
Planting a garden begins long before a seed is placed in the ground. The gardener envisions the desired harvest and then selects the finest quality seeds. The gardener prepares the soil and enriches it so that the garden will return the highest yield. The gardener considers space, sunlight and water requirements when planning the placement of each vegetable and fruit. By the time the gardener tills the ground and plants the seeds, the gardener has already invested much hope in a garden that is yet to grow. Therefore, the gardener waits, watches and waters, looking for the first sign of growth. Who is at fault for the failed harvest — the gardener or the garden? In the life cycle of plants, “for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven … a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 2b). For gardeners, hope, revenue, and sustenance may be lost on a soured harvest, but there is always another time and season.
Unlike me, God loves gardening. God loves to plant seeds, nurture then, and help them grow.
For Isaiah, more is at stake in the vineyard’s failure to produce a sweet and plentiful harvest than merely one season’s crop. What begins as a friend’s love song for a bride and her bridegroom quickly moves to a courtroom where charges are made and those charged are indicted. The rhyme and pattern of the song seem chaotic, until we recognize that the emphasis shifts from the nurture and care invested in the vineyard to the unexpected harvest of wild grapes (v. 4b). It is intentional chaos, revealing the confused frustration between the prophet and God’s people. Israel and Judah have produced “wild grapes” that the owner of the vineyard did not intend and the prophet did not plant. From losing a year’s crop to a loss of faithfulness, the vineyard now faces ruin, populated by briers and thorns. A people face destruction because of the injustice they have produced.[7]
When God looks upon our garden, what does God see? When God looks from the watchtower, we will want God to see a fruitful vineyard. How can that happen?
First, we are to cut back, for the people of God can misuse the abilities and opportunities that God gave them. What do I need to slash in my life? What do I need to cut out and destroy? What behaviors, associations, and habits are hindering me from getting closer to God, getting closer to others, becoming a better person? Paul talks about this theme in Philippians 3, where even the things in which he took pride as a Jewish person he now considered worthless for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ. Likewise, Hebrews 12:1 refers to "laying aside" the things that slow us down. The prophet Isaiah wants us to know that God expects us to live faithful and fruitful lives.
• God made them for justice, but they practiced injustice.
• God made them to be fruitful, but they were barren.
• God made them for righteousness, but they practiced wickedness.
• God made them for service, but they preferred strong drink (5:11).
• God made them for good, but they practiced evil (5:20).
• God made them for truth, but they uttered falsehoods.
• God made them to dwell in light, but they live in darkness.
They failed to be what God created them to be, and to do what God intended them to do, and the result of their failure is destruction. This is God’s warning.
Second, is Division: how are we doing in our attempts to grow into good and healthy grapes? This step refers to the positive things that are crowding my life. My life is full of doing good things. I have become busy trying to do many things well. My family life is suffering. I do not have enough time for myself. This step involves revisiting my priorities and may require the reallocation of my resources. God has done everything to help us be fruitful, but there are daily choices that we must make if we are to keep from going bad. Are we paying attention to the issues of justice and righteousness that God considers so important to our fruitfulness?
Third, we are to weed and mulch to become God’s "pleasant planting" today. This step refers to daily spiritual and emotional maintenance. How can I keep my garden, a metaphor for our lives, healthy and fruit bearing? Do I have any plan at all? Most gardeners and farmers have a detailed plan for keeping a garden or acreage in decent shape. What is mine? Our challenge as Christians is to be both faithful and fruitful, trusting the guidance of God and sharing divine love and grace with the world. We have a responsibility to do what we can to restore the church walls that are crumbling and support the watchtowers that are in danger of toppling. Isaiah says the Lord is looking for justice and righteousness.
For many years, justice meant "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But Jesus says, "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also ... Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you" (Matthew 5:38-42). Revenge is not a good plan. Stinginess is not a good plan. The justice of Jesus does not include the bloody gouging of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Instead, it is the way of nonviolence -- the refusal to hit back when a person strikes you on the cheek, hurting them in the same way that they hurt you. In addition, Jesus asks us to create a more just and fair society by the practice of radical generosity -- sharing our coats and cloaks with those in need, and giving to everyone who begs from us.
We begin with justice and move on to righteousness, which means being in a right relationship with God and the people around us. Now righteousness used to mean, "love your neighbor and hate your enemy." Nevertheless, Jesus says, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:43-45). Being a fruitful Christian means pursuing a right relationship with both friends and enemies and doing this through offers of love instead of hatred. Paul will urge us to set aside certain vices and build certain virtues. He will urge us to make sure that our everyday lives of work, family, and community involvements feel the change that our new life in Christ brings. We attempt such things not because we are particularly loving, graceful, or wonderful people, but because we want to be children of our Father in heaven -- children of the one who "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good" (v. 45).
As we follow Jesus along this path, we restore the Christian walls that are crumbling and the towers that are in danger of toppling. We allow the Lord, who has planted us in a fertile spot, to nurture us and give us the care we need to become good fruit. Turn the other cheek. Practice generosity. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. These are difficult spiritual practices, truly challenging approaches to justice and righteousness.
By being faithful and fruitful followers of Jesus, we can change the view from the tower.
[1] Pronounced doe-DEE, appears 19 times in the Hebrew of the Song of Solomon. The word translated “beloved,” is an adjective (in the form of a passive participle) from an unattested root meaning “to love.” The form is used exclusively in poetry.
[2] Using an unusual verb that means both “to put to death by stoning” and, in the conjugation found here, “to clear of stones”.
[3] The idea here is much stronger in Hebrew than the English translation suggests. The Hebrew root means “to stink,” a word that describes the smell of the cursed Nile because of its dead fish (Exodus 7:18, 21). “Rotten grapes” comes closer than “wild grapes” to the Hebrew.
[4] The addressees are not two different groups of people — Jerusalemites and Judahites — but rather are one group: inhabitants (A) of Jerusalem (B) and people (A’) of Judah (B’).
[5] see Carol Meyers, “Kinship and Kingship — The Early Monarchy,” in The Oxford History of the Biblical World, ed. M. D. Coogan [New York: Oxford University Press, 1998], 240).
[6] --For more information, see "Spring cleaning in 4 easy steps," Garden Secrets website.
gardensecrets.org/2013/03/07/spring-cleaning-in-4-easy-steps. Retrieved March 23, 2013.
[7] Jeffrey W. Carter, in D. L. Bartlett & B.B. Taylor (eds.), Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year A, vol. 4 (Westminster John Knox, 2011), 122-24.
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