Isaiah Chapter 5

From The Open Bible Project

5:1 Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill.

• (a) The prophet by this song sets before the people’s eyes their ingratitude and God’s mercy.
• (b) That is, to God.
• (c) Meaning that he had planted his Church in a place most plentiful and abundant.

5:2 He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in its midst, and also cut out a winepress therein. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

• (d) He spared no diligence or cost.
• (e) In (Isaiah 5:7) he declares what they were.

5:3 "Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard.

• (f) He makes them judges in their own cause, for as much as it was evident that they were the cause of their own ruin.

5:4 What 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?

5:5 Now 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 of it, and it will be trampled down.

• (g) I will take no more care for it: meaning, that he would take from them his word and ministers and all other comforts, and feed them contrary plagues.

5:6 I will lay it a wasteland. It won't be pruned nor hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it."

5:7 For 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.

• (h) Judgment and righteousness are true fruit of the fear of God and therefore in the cruel oppression there is no religion.
• (i) Of them who are oppressed.

5:8 Woe 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 midst of the land!

• (k) That is, for the poor to dwell in.

5:9 In my ears, Yahweh of Armies says: "Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful, unoccupied.

• (l) I have heard the complaint and cry of the poor.

5:10 For [4] ten acres [See Isaiah Footnotes 4] of vineyard shall yield [5] one bath, [See Isaiah Footnotes 5] and a [6] homer [See Isaiah Footnotes 6] of seed shall yield an [7] ephah. [See Isaiah Footnotes 7]"

• (m) Which contains about 5 gallons, so that every acre would yield only half a gallon.
• (n) Which contains 50 gallons.
• (o) An ephah contains 5 gallons and is in dry things as much as a bath is in liquids.

5:11 Woe 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!

• (p) Who spare no pain nor diligence to follow their lusts.
• (q) Who are never weary of their rioting and excessive pleasures but use all means to provoke to the same.

5:12 The 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.

• (r) They do not regard the provident care of God over them, nor for what end he has created them.

5:13 Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst.

• (s) That is, will certainly go: for so the prophets use to speak as though the thing which will come to pass were done already.
• (t) Because they would not obey the word of God.

5:14 Therefore [8] Sheol [See Isaiah Footnotes 8] 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.

• (u) Meaning, the grave will swallow up them who will die for hunger and thirst, and yet for all this great destruction it will never be satisfied.

5:15 So man is brought low, mankind is humbled, and the eyes of the arrogant ones are humbled;

5:16 but Yahweh of Armies is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness.

5:17 Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, and strangers will eat the ruins of the rich.

• (x) God comforts the poor lambs of his Church, who had been strangers in other countries, promising that they would dwell in these places again, of which they had been deprived by the fat and cruel tyrants.

5:18 Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and wickedness as with cart rope;

• (y) Who use all allurements, opportunities and excuses to harden their conscience in sin.

5:19 Who say, "Let him make speed, let him hasten his work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it!"

• (z) He shows what are the words of the wicked, when they are menaced by God’s judgments, (2 Peter 3:4).

5:20 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!

• (a) Who are not ashamed of sin, nor care for honesty but are grown to a desperate impiety.

5:21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!

• (b) Who contemn all doctrine and admonition.

5:22 Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and champions at mixing strong drink;

• (c) Who are never weary, but show their strength, and brag in gluttony and drunkenness.

5:23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for the innocent!

5:24 Therefore 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.

• (d) Both they and their posterity so that nothing will be left.

5:25 Therefore 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 midst of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out.

• (e) He shows that God had so sore punished this people, that the dumb creatures if they had been so plagued would have been more sensible, and therefore his plagues must continue, till they begin to seal them.

5:26 He will lift up a banner to the nations from far, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come speedily and swiftly.

• (f) He will make the Babylonians come against them at his beck, and to fight under his standard.

5:27 None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the belt of their waist be untied, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken:

• (g) They will be prompt and lusty to execute God’s vengeance.
• (h) The enemy will have no impediment.

5:28 whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. Their horses' hoofs will be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind.

5:29 Their 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.

• (i) By which is declared the cruelty of the enemy.

5:30 They 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.

• (k) The Jews will find no comfort.
• (l) In the land of Judah.