Scripture Daily

Context No. 1785 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 5:1-16: in context

1Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. 2He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in the middle of it, and also cut out a wine press in it. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. 3“Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard. 4What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes? 5Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled down. 6I will lay it a wasteland. It won’t be pruned or hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.” 7For the vineyard of the LORD of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression, for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress. 8Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the middle of the land! 9In my ears, the LORD of Armies says: “Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful, unoccupied. 10For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah.” 11Woe to those who rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, who stay late into the night, until wine inflames them! 12The harp, lyre, tambourine, and flute, with wine, are at their feasts; but they don’t respect the work of the LORD, neither have they considered the operation of his hands. 13Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst. 14Therefore Sheol has enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, their multitude, their pomp, and he who rejoices among them, descend into it. 15So man is brought low, mankind is humbled, and the eyes of the arrogant ones are humbled; 16but the LORD of Armies is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness.

Isaiah sings a love song that turns to sorrow. His beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill; he dug it, cleared its stones, planted select vines, built a watchtower, cut a winepress, and did everything a vinedresser could do. He looked for it to yield good grapes, but it yielded only wild ones. What more could I have done for my vineyard, God asks, that I have not done? And he explains: the vineyard is his people, in whom he looked for justice but found oppression, for righteousness but heard a cry of distress.

The heart of the song is God's wounded question: what more could I have done for my vineyard? He had lavished every care on it, prepared the soil, planted the finest vines, protected and tended it, done everything a vinedresser could do to make it fruitful. And in return it yielded wild grapes, sour and worthless; he looked for the good fruit of justice and righteousness, and found oppression and cries of distress. The song is God's lament over a people he had cared for who bore bad fruit despite all his tending. There is a searching question in this for us. God has lavished care on our lives too, given us so much, his word, his provision, his patience, his very Son, doing, in a sense, everything a loving God could do to make our lives fruitful. And the question the song puts to us is what fruit we yield in return. Do our lives bring forth the good fruit God looks for, the justice, the righteousness, the love, the obedience, that answer to all he has given; or do we yield wild grapes, lives that, for all God's care, bear little of the fruit he seeks? It is a sobering thing to hear God ask, what more could I have done? For it implies that the failure to bear fruit is not for lack of anything on God's part; he has done all that could be done. The responsibility lies with the vineyard. This is not meant to crush us but to wake us: to reckon honestly with the fruit our lives are yielding in return for all God has poured into them, and to be a vineyard that answers his care with good fruit rather than wild grapes.

Given all God has lavished on my life, his word, his provision, his patience, his Son, what fruit am I yielding in return, the good fruit of justice, righteousness, and love that he looks for, or wild grapes, and can I hear his wounded question, what more could I have done, as a call to answer his care with the fruit he seeks?

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