Isaiah

Isaiah 5

30 verses · Major Prophets · Old Testament

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 Yahweh of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and 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, Yahweh 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 Yahweh, 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 Yahweh of Armies is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness. 17Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, and strangers will eat the ruins of the rich.
18Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and wickedness as with cart rope, 19who say, “Let him make haste, let him hasten his work, that we may see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it!” 20Woe 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! 21Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! 22Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and champions at mixing strong drink; 23who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for the innocent!
24Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. 25Therefore Yahweh’s anger burns against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them and has struck them. The mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the middle of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out.
26He will lift up a banner to the nations from far away, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come speedily and swiftly. 27No one shall be weary nor stumble among them; no one shall slumber nor sleep, neither shall the belt of their waist be untied, nor the strap of their sandals be broken, 28whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. Their horses’ hoofs will be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind. 29Their roaring will be like a lioness. They will roar like young lions. Yes, they shall roar, and seize their prey and carry it off, and there will be no one to deliver. 30They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress. The light is darkened in its clouds.

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What others are saying

4 commentators · 86 notes on this chapter

Matthew HenryEnglish Puritan / Nonconformist · 1708–17143

Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.

Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.

v. 1–7

See what variety of methods the great God takes to awaken sinners to repentance by convincing them of sin, and showing them their misery and danger by reason of it. To this purport he speaks sometimes in plain terms and sometimes in parables, sometimes in…

v. 8–17

The world and the flesh are the two great enemies that we are in danger of being overpowered by; yet we are in no danger if we do not ourselves yield to them. Eagerness of the world, and indulgence of the flesh, are the two sins against which the prophet, in…

v. 18–30

Here are, I. Sins described which will bring judgments upon a people: and this perhaps is not only a charge drawn up against the men of Judah who lived at that time, and the particular articles of that charge, though it may relate primarily to them, but is…

John GillParticular Baptist / High Calvinist · 1746–176330

The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.

Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.

v. 1

Now will I sing to my well beloved,.... These are the words of the Prophet Isaiah, being about to represent the state and condition of the people of Israel by way of parable, which he calls a song, and which he determines to sing to his beloved, and calls…

v. 2

And he fenced it,.... With good and wholesome laws, which distinguished them, and kept them separate from other nations; also with his almighty power and providence; especially at the three yearly festivals, when all their males appeared before God at…

v. 3

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah,.... All and everyone of them, who were parties concerned in this matter, and are designed by the vineyard, for whom so much had been done, and so little fruit brought forth by them, or rather so much bad…

Keil & DelitzschGerman Lutheran, conservative-critical · 1861–187525

The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.

Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.

v. 1–2

The prophet commenced his first address in chapter 1 like another Moses; the second, which covered no less ground, he opened with the text of an earlier prophecy; and now he commences the third like a musician, addressing both himself and his hearers with…

v. 3–4

The song of the beloved who was so sorely deceived terminates here. The prophet recited it, not his beloved himself; but as they were both of one heart and one soul, the prophet proceeds thus in Isa 5:3 and Isa 5:4 : "And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and…

v. 5

"Now then, I will tell you what I will do at once to my vineyard: take away its hedge, and it shall be for grazing; pull down its wall, and it shall be for treading down." Before "now then" (vattâh) we must imagine a pause, as in Isa 3:14. The Lord of the…

Jamieson, Fausset & BrownScottish Presbyterian / Reformed · 187128

The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.

Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.

v. 2

fenced--rather, "digged and trenched" the ground to prepare it for planting the vines [MAURER]. choicest vine--Hebrew, sorek; called still in Morocco, serki; the grapes had scarcely perceptible seeds; the Persian kishmish or bedana, that is, "without seed"…

v. 3

And now, &c.--appeal of God to themselves, as in Isa 1:18; Mic 6:3. So Jesus Christ, in Mat 21:40-41, alluding in the very form of expression to this, makes them pass sentence on themselves. God condemns sinners "out of their own mouth" (Deu 32:6; Job 15:6…

v. 4

God has done all that could be done for the salvation of sinners, consistently with His justice and goodness. The God of nature is, as it were, amazed at the unnatural fruit of so well-cared a vineyard.

World English Bible — Public domain