A VERSE BY VERSE COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH CHAPTER 5.

1. ISAIAH 5 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
The Song of the Vineyard
1 I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.
1.BARNES, “Now will I sing - This is an indication that what follows is poetic, or is
adapted to be sung or chanted.
To my well-beloved - The word used here - ‫ידיד‬ ye
dı yd - is a term of endearment. It
properly denotes a friend; a favorite; one greatly beloved. It is applied to saints as being the
beloved, or the favorites of God, in Psa_127:2; Deu_33:12. In this place, it is evidently applied to
Yahweh, the God of the Jewish people. As there is some reason to believe that the God of the
Jews - the manifested Deity who undertook their deliverance from Egypt, and who was revealed
as “their” God under the name of ‘the Angel of the covenant’ - was the Messiah, so it may be that
the prophet here meant to refer to him. It is not, however, to the Messiah “to come.” It does not
refer to the God incarnate - to Jesus of Nazareth; but to the God of the Jews, in his capacity as
their lawgiver and protector in the time of Isaiah; not to him in the capacity of an incarnate
Saviour.
A Song of my beloved - Lowth, ‘A song of loves,’ by a slight change in the Hebrew. The
word ‫דוד‬ dod usually denotes ‘an uncle,’ a father’s brother. But it also means one beloved, a
friend, a lover; Son_1:13-14, Son_1:16; Son_2:3, Son_2:8, Son_2:9; Son_4:16. Here it refers to
Jehovah, and expresses the tender and affectionate attachment which the prophet had for his
character and laws.
Touching his vineyard - The Jewish people are often represented under the image of a
vineyard, planted and cultivated by God; see Ps. 80; Jer_2:21; Jer_12:10. Our Saviour also used
this beautiful figure to denote the care and attention which God had bestowed on his people;
Mat_21:33 ff; Mar_12:1, following.
My beloved - God.
Hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill - Hebrew ‘On a horn of the son of oil.’ The word
“horn” used here in the Hebrew, denotes the “brow, apex,” or sharp point of a hill. The word is
thus used in other languages to denote a hill, as in the Swiss words “shreckhorn, buchorn.” Thus

2. “Cornwall,” in England, is called in the old British tongue “Kernaw,” as lessening by degrees, like
a horn, running out into promontories, like so many horns; for the Britons called a horn “corn,”
and in the plural “kern.” The term ‘horn’ is not unfrequently applied to hills. Thus, Pococke tells
us (vol. ii. p. 67), that there is a low mountain in Galilee which has both its ends raised in such a
manner as to look like two mounts, which are called the ‘Horns of Hutin.’ Harmer, however,
supposes that the term is used here to denote the land of Syria, from its resemblance to the
shape ofa horn; Obs. iii. 242. But the idea is, evidently, that the land on which God respresents
himself as having planted his vineyard, was like an elevated hill that was adapted eminently to
such a culture. It may mean either the “top” of a mountain, or a little mountain, or a “peak”
divided from others. The most favorable places for vineyards were on the sides of hills, where
they would be exposed to the sun. - Shaw’s “Travels,” p. 338. Thus Virgil says:
- denique apertos
Bacchus amat colles.
‘Bacchus loves open hills;’ “Georg.” ii. 113. The phrase, “son of oil,” is used in accordance with
the Jewish custom, where “son” means descendant, relative, etc.; see the note at Mat_1:1. Here
it means that it was so fertile that it might be called the very “son of oil,” or fatness, that is,
fertility. The image is poetic, and very beautiful; denoting that God had planted his people in
circumstances where he had a right to expect great growth in attachment to him. It was not
owing to any want of care on his part, that they were not distinguished for piety. The Chaldee
renders this verse, ‘The prophet said, I will sing now to Israel, who is compared to a vineyard,
the seed of Abraham my beloved: a song of my beloved to his vineyard.’
2. CLARKE, “Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved “Let me
sing now a song,” etc. - A MS., respectable for its antiquity, adds the word ‫שיר‬ shir, a song,
after ‫נא‬ na; which gives so elegant a turn to the sentence by the repetition of it in the next
member, and by distinguishing the members so exactly in the style and manner in the Hebrew
poetical composition, that I am much inclined to think it genuine.
A song of my beloved “A song of loves” - ‫דודי‬ dodey, for ‫דודים‬ dodim: status constructus
pro absoluto, as the grammarians say, as Mic_6:16; Lam_3:14, Lam_3:66, so Archbishop
Secker. Or rather, in all these and the like cases, a mistake of the transcribers, by not observing a
small stroke, which in many MSS., is made to supply the ‫מ‬ mem, of the plural, thus, ‫דודי‬ dodi.
‫שירת‬‫דודים‬ shirath dodim is the same with ‫שיר‬‫ידידת‬ shir yedidoth, Psa_45:1. In this way of
understanding it we avoid the great impropriety of making the author of the song, and the
person to whom it is addressed, to be the same.
In a very fruitful hill “On a high and fruitful hill” - Hebrew ‫בקרן‬‫בן‬‫שמן‬ bekeren ben
shamen, “on a horn the son of oil.” The expression is highly descriptive and poetical. “He calls the
land of Israel a horn, because it is higher than all lands; as the horn is higher than the whole
body; and the son of oil, because it is said to be a land flowing with milk and honey.” - Kimchi on
the place. The parts of animals are, by an easy metaphor, applied to parts of the earth, both in
common and poetical language. A promontory is called a cape or head; the Turks call it a nose.
“Dorsum immane mari summo;” Virgil, a back, or ridge of rocks: -
“Hanc latus angustum jam se cogentis in arctum

3. Hesperiae tenuem producit in aequora linguam,
Adriacas flexis claudit quae cornibus undas.”
Lucan, 2:612, of Brundusium, i.e., Βρεντεσιον, which, in the ancient language of that country,
signifies stag’s head, says Strabo. A horn is a proper and obvious image for a mountain or
mountainous country. Solinus, cap. viii., says, “Italiam, ubi longius processerit, in cornua duo
scindi;” that is, the high ridge of the Alps, which runs through the whole length of it, divides at
last into two ridges, one going through Calabria, the other through the country of the Brutii.
“Cornwall is called by the inhabitants in the British tongue Kernaw, as lessening by degrees like
a horn, running out into promontories like so many horns. For the Britons call a horn corn, in
the plural kern.” - Camden. “And Sammes is of opinion, that the country had this name
originally from the Phoenicians, who traded hither for tin; keren, in their language, being a
horn.” - Gibson.
Here the precise idea seems to be that of a high mountain standing by itself; “vertex montis,
aut pars montis ad aliis divisa;” which signification, says I. H. Michaelis, Bibl. Hallens., Not. in
loc., the word has in Arabic.
Judea was in general a mountainous country, whence Moses sometimes calls it The Mountain,
“Thou shalt plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance;” Exo_15:17. “I pray thee, let me go
over, and see the good land beyond Jordan; that goodly mountain, and Lebanon;” Deu_3:25.
And in a political and religious view it was detached and separated from all the nations round it.
Whoever has considered the descriptions given of Mount Tabor, (see Reland, Palaestin.; Eugene
Roger, Terre Sainte, p. 64), and the views of it which are to be seen in books of travels,
(Maundrell, p. 114; Egmont and Heyman, vol. ii., p. 25; Thevenot, vol. i., p. 429), its regular
conic form rising singly in a plain to a great height, from a base small in proportion, and its
beauty and fertility to the very top, will have a good idea of “a horn the son of oil;” and will
perhaps be induced to think that the prophet took his image from that mountain.
3. GILL, “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 upon himself to do it;
by whom he means either God the Father, whom he loved with all his heart and soul; or Christ,
who is often called the beloved of his people, especially in the book of Solomon's song; or else
the people of Israel, whom the prophet had a great affection for, being his own people; but it
seems best to understand it of God or Christ:
a song of my beloved; which was inspired by him, or related to him, and was made for his
honour and glory; or "a song of my uncle" (q), for another word is used here than what is in the
preceding clause, and is rendered "uncle" elsewhere, see Lev_25:49 and may design King
Amaziah; for, according to tradition, Amoz, the father of Isaiah, was brother to Amaziah king of
Judah, and so consequently Amaziah must be uncle to Isaiah; and this might be a song of his
composing, or in which he was concerned, being king of Judah, the subject of this song, as
follows:
touching his vineyard; not his uncle's, though it is true of him, but his well beloved's, God or
Christ; the people of Israel, and house of Judah, are meant, comparable to a vineyard, as
appears from Isa_5:7 being separated and distinguished from the rest of the nations of the
world, for the use, service, and glory of God.

4. My beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill; or, "in a horn, the son of oil" (r); which
designs the land of Israel, which was higher than other lands; and was, as some observe, in the
form of a horn, longer than it was broad, and a very fruitful country, a land of olive oil, a land
flowing with milk and honey, Deu_8:7. The Targum is,
"the prophet said, I will sing now to Israel, who is like unto a vineyard, the seed of Abraham, my
beloved, a song of my beloved, concerning his vineyard. My people, my beloved Israel, I gave to
them an inheritance in a high mountain, in a fat land.''
4. HENRY, “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
prose and sometimes in verse, as here. “We have tried to reason with you (Isa_1:18); now let us
put your case into a poem, inscribed to the honor of my well beloved.” God the Father dictates it
to the honour of Christ his well beloved Son, whom he has constituted Lord of the vineyard. The
prophet sings it to the honour of Christ too, for he is his well beloved. The Old Testament
prophets were friends of the bridegroom. Christ is God's beloved Son and our beloved Saviour.
Whatever is said or sung of the church must be intended to his praise, even that which (like this)
tends to our shame. This parable was put into a song that it might be the more moving and
affecting, might be the more easily learned and exactly remembered, and the better transmitted
to posterity; and it is an exposition of he song of Moses (Deu. 32), showing that what he then
foretold was now fulfilled. Jerome says, Christ the well-beloved did in effect sing this mournful
song when he beheld Jerusalem and wept over it (Luk_19:41), and had reference to it in the
parable of the vineyard (Mat_21:33, etc.), only here the fault was in the vines, there in the
husbandmen. Here we have,
I. The great things which God had done for the Jewish church and nation. When all the rest of
the world lay in common, not cultivated by divine revelation, that was his vineyard, they were
his peculiar people. He acknowledged them as his own, set them apart for himself. The soil they
were planted in was extraordinary; it was a very fruitful hill, the horn of the son of oil; so it is in
the margin. There was plenty, a cornucopia; and there was dainty: they did there eat the fat and
drink the sweet, and so were furnished with abundance of good things to honour God with in
sacrifices and free-will offerings. The advantages of our situation will be brought into the
account another day. Observe further what God did for this vineyard. 1. He fenced it, took it
under his special protection, kept it night and day under his own eye, lest any should hurt it,
Isa_27:2, Isa_27:3. If they had not themselves thrown down their fence, no inroad could have
been made upon them, Psa_125:2; Psa_131:1-3 :4. 2. He gathered the stones out of it, that, as
nothing from without might damage it, so nothing within might obstruct its fruitfulness. He
proffered his grace to take away the stony heart. 3. He planted it with the choicest vine, set up a
pure religion among them, gave them a most excellent law, instituted ordinances very proper for
the keeping up of their acquaintance with God, Jer_2:21. 4. He built a tower in the midst of it,
either for defence against violence or for the dressers of the vineyard to lodge in; or rather it was
for the owner of the vineyard to sit in, to take a view of the vines (Son_7:12) - a summer-house.
The temple was this tower, about which the priests lodged, and where God promised to meet his
people, and gave them the tokens of his presence among them and pleasure in them. 5. He made
a wine-press therein, set up his altar, to which the sacrifices, as the fruits of the vineyard, should
be brought.
II. The disappointment of his just expectations from them: He looked that it should bring forth
grapes, and a great deal of reason he had for that expectation. Note, God expects vineyard-fruit

5. from those that enjoy vineyard-privileges, not leaves only, as Mar_11:12. A bare profession,
though ever so green, will not serve: there must be more than buds and blossoms. Good
purposes and good beginnings are good things, but not enough; there must be fruit, a good heart
and a good life, vineyard fruit, thoughts and affections, words and actions, agreeable to the
Spirit, which is the fatness of the vineyard (Gal_5:22, Gal_5:23), answerable to the ordinances,
which are the dressings of the vineyard, acceptable to God, the Lord of the vineyard, and fruit
according to the season. Such fruit as this God expects from us, grapes, the fruit of the vine, with
which they honour God and man (Jdg_9:13); and his expectations are neither high nor hard, but
righteous and very reasonable. Yet see how his expectations are frustrated: It brought forth wild
grapes; not only no fruit at all, but bad fruit, worse than none, grapes of Sodom, Deu_32:32. 1.
Wild grapes are the fruits of the corrupt nature, fruit according to the crabstock, not according
to the engrafted branch, from the root of bitterness, Heb_12:15. Where grace does not work
corruption will. 2. Wild grapes are hypocritical performances in religion, that look like grapes,
but are sour or bitter, and are so far from being pleasing to God that they are provoking, as
theirs mentioned in Isa_1:11. Counterfeit graces are wild grapes.
5. JAMISON, “Isa_5:1-30. A new prophecy; entire in itself. Probably delivered about the
same time as the second and third chapters, in Uzziah’s reign. Compare Isa_5:15, Isa_5:16 with
Isa_2:17; and Isa_5:1 with Isa_3:14. However, the close of the chapter alludes generally to the
still distant invasion of Assyrians in a later reign (compare Isa_5:26 with Isa_7:18; and Isa_5:25
with Isa_9:12). When the time drew nigh, according to the ordinary prophetic usage, he handles
the details more particularly (Isaiah 7:1-8:22); namely, the calamities caused by the Syro-
Israelitish invasion, and subsequently by the Assyrians whom Ahaz had invited to his help.
to — rather, “concerning” [Gesenius], that is, in the person of My beloved, as His
representative [Vitringa]. Isaiah gives a hint of the distinction and yet unity of the Divine
Persons (compare He with I, Isa_5:2, Isa_5:3).
of my beloved — inspired by Him; or else, a tender song [Castalio]. By a slight change of
reading “a song of His love” [Houbigant]. “The Beloved” is Jehovah, the Second Person, the
“Angel” of God the Father, not in His character as incarnate Messiah, but as God of the Jews
(Exo_23:20, Exo_23:21; Exo_32:34; Exo_33:14).
vineyard — (Isa_3:14; Psa_80:8, etc.). The Jewish covenant-people, separated from the
nations for His glory, as the object of His peculiar care (Mat_20:1; Mat_21:33). Jesus Christ in
the “vineyard” of the New Testament Church is the same as the Old Testament Angel of the
Jewish covenant.
fruitful hill — literally, “a horn” (“peak,” as the Swiss shreckhorn) of the son of oil;
poetically, for very fruitful. Suggestive of isolation, security, and a sunny aspect. Isaiah alludes
plainly to the Song of Solomon (Son_6:3; Son_8:11, Son_8:12), in the words “His vineyard” and
“my Beloved” (compare Isa_26:20; Isa_61:10, with Son_1:4; Son_4:10). The transition from
“branch” (Isa_4:2) to “vineyard” here is not unnatural.

6. 6. K&D, “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 enticing
words. Isa_1:1. “Arise, I will sing of my beloved, a song of my dearest touching his vineyard.”
The fugitive rhythm, the musical euphony, the charming assonances in this appeal, it is
impossible to reproduce. They are perfectly inimitable. The Lamed in lı̄dı̄dı̄ is the Lamed objecti.
The person to whom the song referred, to whom it applied, of whom it treated, was the singer's
own beloved. It was a song of his dearest one (not his cousin, patruelis, as Luther renders it in
imitation of the Vulgate, for the meaning of dod is determined by yadid, beloved) touching his
vineyard. The Lamed in l'carmo is also Lamed objecti. The song of the beloved is really a song
concerning the vineyard of the beloved; and this song is a song of the beloved himself, not a song
written about him, or attributed to him, but such a song as he himself had sung, and still had to
sing. The prophet, by beginning in this manner, was surrounded (either in spirit or in outward
reality) by a crowd of people from Jerusalem and Judah. The song is a short one, and runs thus
in Isa_1:1, Isa_1:2 : “My beloved had a vineyard on a fatly nourished mountain-horn, and dug
it up and cleared it of stones, and planted it with noble vines, and built a tower in it, and also
hewed out a wine-press therein; and hoped that it would bring forth grapes, and it brought
forth wild grapes.” The vineyard was situated upon a keren, i.e., upon a prominent mountain
peak projecting like a horn, and therefore open to the sun on all sides; for, as Virgil says in the
Georgics, “apertos Bacchus amat colles.” This mountain horn was ben-shemen, a child of
fatness: the fatness was innate, it belonged to it by nature (shemen is used, as in Isa_28:1, to
denote the fertility of a nutritive loamy soil). And the owner of the vineyard spared no attention
or trouble. The plough could not be used, from the steepness of the mountain slope: he therefore
dug it up, that is to say, he turned up the soil which was to be made into a vineyard with a hoe
(izzek, to hoe; Arab. mi‛zak, mi‛zaka); and as he found it choked up with stones and boulders, he
got rid of this rubbish by throwing it out sikkel, a privative piel, lapidibus purgare, then operam
consumere in lapides, sc. ejiciendos, to stone, or clear of stones: Ges. §52, 2). After the soil had
been prepared he planted it with sorek, i.e., the finest kind of eastern vine, bearing small grapes
of a bluish-red, with pips hardly perceptible to the tongue. The name is derived from its colour
(compare the Arabic zerka, red wine). To protect and adorn the vineyard which had been so
richly planted, he built a tower in the midst of it. The expression “and also” calls especial
attention to the fact that he hewed out a wine-trough therein (yekeb, the trough into which the
must or juice pressed from the grapes in the wine-press flows, lacus as distinguished from
torcular); that is to say, in order that the trough might be all the more fixed and durable, he
constructed it in a rocky portion of the ground (Chatseb bo instead of Chatsab bo, with a and the
accent drawn back, because a Beth was thereby easily rendered inaudible, so that Chatseb is not
a participial adjective, as Böttcher supposes). This was a difficult task, as the expression “and
also” indicates; and for that very reason it was an evidence of the most confident expectation.
But how bitterly was this deceived! The vineyard produced no such fruit, as might have been
expected from a sorek plantation; it brought forth no ‛anabim whatever, i.e., no such grapes as a
cultivated vine should bear, but only b'ushim, or wild grapes. Luther first of all adopted the
rendering wild grapes, and then altered it to harsh or sour grapes. But it comes to the same
thing. The difference between a wild vine and a good vine is only qualitative. The vitis vinifera,

7. like all cultivated plants, is assigned to the care of man, under which it improves; whereas in its
wild state it remains behind its true intention (see Genesis, §622). Consequently the word
b'ushim (from ba'ash, to be bad, or smell bad) denotes not only the grapes of the wild vine, which
are naturally small and harsh (Rashi, lambruches, i.e., grapes of the labrusca, which is used now,
however, as the botanical name of a vine that is American in its origin), but also grapes of a good
stock, which have either been spoiled or have failed to ripen.
(Note: In the Jerusalem Talmud such grapes are called ubshin, the letters being
transposed; and in the Mishnah (Ma'aseroth i. 2, Zebî'ith iv 8) ‫ישׁ‬ ִ‫א‬ ְ‫ב‬ ִ‫ה‬ is the standing word
applied to grapes that are only half ripe (see Löwy's Leshon Chachamim, or Wörterbuch des
talmudischen Hebräisch, Prag 1845). With reference to the wild grape (τᆵ ᅊγριόκληµα), a
writer, describing the useful plants of Greece, says, “Its fruit (τᆭ ᅊγριοστάφυλα) consists of
very small berries, not much larger than bilberries, with a harsh flavour.”)
These were the grapes which the vineyard produced, such as you might indeed have expected
from a wild vine, but not from carefully cultivated vines of the very choicest kind.
7. BI, “Hopes concerning the vineyard
The Lord’s hopes and disappointment with His vineyard.
(A. B. Davidson, LL. D.)
Truth to be presented in varied form
Aaron’s bells must be wisely rung. Sometimes the treble of mercy sounds well, at other times the
tenor of judgment, or counter tenor of reproof, sounds better: and it often happens that the
mean of exhortation sounds best of all. It is wisdom to observe circumstances, and know how to
curse as well as bless, chide as well as comfort, and speak war to a rebel as well as peace to a
friend. And herein, indeed, lies the wisdom and faithfulness of a teacher. (N. Rogers.)
Who was the speaker?
It is an interesting question, and one to which the answer is not altogether obvious. And who is
the well-beloved to whom these words are addressed? Only two answers seem possible. Either it
must be the prophet who speaks, and his God that he is addressing; or else it must be the eternal
Father that is addressing His co-eternal Son.
1. If we adopt, as most commentators seem to do, the former explanation, we have to face
two very serious difficulties, neither of which can I meet.
(1) The prophet here uses a term of endearment which would be strangely inconsistent
with his usual style of addressing God, and such a use of the Hebrew term here employed
occurs nowhere else in Scripture. It is a term of endearment of the strongest kind,
answering very closely to our English word “darling”; and it is easy to see that there is
something very repugnant to our ideas of seemliness and reverence in the application of
such a term to that God with whose majesty Isaiah was himself so profoundly impressed.
In every other ease in which this word is used as a term of endearment, it is addressed by

8. the stronger to the weaker, by the superior to the inferior. Thus Benjamin is spoken of as
the beloved of the Lord in the blessings of Deuteronomy, the thought suggested being,
that as Benjamin himself was Jacob’s favourite, the darling of his heart, so the tribe was
to be specially dear to the great Father of the race. But obviously, while Benjamin might
justly he called the darling of Jacob’s heart, it would have been, to say the least,
somewhat incongruous to speak of Jacob as Benjamin’s darling. The term would have
been wholly out of place here; and not less, but even more, out of place must it needs be
in the lips of an Isaiah addressing his God.
(2) Yet another difficulty has to be faced if we make the prophet the singer; for in that
case, his song clearly ends at the close of the second verse, whereas on this hypothesis it
must be assumed that there is an abrupt transition from the speech of the prophet to the
speech of God. But it seems clear that the whole passage, down to the end of the seventh
verse, constitutes the song referred to in the first verse, and it is all spoken of as a song
sung to the beloved.
2. Let us adopt the other explanation of the passage, and all at once becomes
straightforward and self-consistent, the only difficulty involved being that we have here a
marvellously explicit reference to a great theological verity, that was not fully revealed to the
world till the Christian epoch—the doctrine of the distinction of Persons (as we are obliged
to express it for lack of better terms) in the Divine Unity. This great truth is, however,
implied in many other passages of Old Testament Scripture, and therefore its occurrence
here need not trouble us. According to this second interpretation, it is the eternal Father that
is here addressing His well-beloved Son, the Angel of the Covenant, to whose tutelage the
ancient Theocracy was delivered, just as at a subsequent period He became, in the flesh, the
Founder and Head of the Christian Church. Here the expression used is just what might be
expected, and we are reminded of the voice which fell from heaven in New Testament times:
“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” In this exegesis the identity of the
singer and the unity of the song is preserved throughout, There is no abrupt transition from
the utterance of one person to that of another; for He who sings and He to whom the song is
sung are one. The Father does Himself that which He does through the Divine Word, and
hence the passage from the third person to the first in the third verse ceases to be
embarrassing; nay, additional force is added to the Divine expostulation; for the Father is
jealous with a holy jealousy for the Person and work of His Son. He knows how well that
work has been done, and has all the more reason to complain of its having been denied its
proper results and its merited reward. There is something infinitely pathetic in the idea of
this song of lamentation, poured forth from the great Father’s heart of love into the
sympathetic ear of His well-beloved Son, and in this enumeration of all that He, the well-
beloved of the Father, had wrought for favoured Israel. When man was created, he was
created as the result of the decree of a Divine council: “Let us make man in our own image.”
And now when, after years of trial, man has proved himself a miserable failure, the Divine
Father and the co-eternal Son are represented as conferring over the disastrous issue. (W.
HayAitken, M. A.)
The vineyard song
There are plaintive songs, mournful songs, as well as songs expressive of joy and delight.
I. THE APPELLATIVE ADDRESS. “My well-beloved.” Can you call Jesus so? “If any man love
not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed at the coming of the Lord.”

9. II. THE SONG. Observe, that whilst this vineyard is the choice of “my well-beloved,” and His
own hand plants it, He has a right to the fruits. Take care and do not rob Him. Do not tell me
anything about a sandy and barren Christianity. It is not worth twopence an acre, if you go by
the measurement. Do not tell me of a tree in the Lord’s vineyard that brings forth no fruit; tell
me rather of the post in the street. I look for the fruits of the Spirit, that He may be glorified in
and by you.
III. THE KNOWLEDGE WHICH IS REQUISITE FOR THE SINGERS. (J. Iron.)
Unfruitfulness reproved
1. It is natural to ask, Who is this that says, “I will sing a song to my Beloved”! I take these
words to be spoken, not in the person of Isaiah, but of God the Father to His Son our Lord,
who in the evangelical style is called, “the beloved Son of God, in whom He is well pleased.”
But how can the Church of those times be called the vineyard of the Son? I answer, Because
as the Father created all things by Him, so by Him He has always governed all things, and
more especially His Church.
2. The Church of God is styled a vineyard, which is a very pertinent resemblance of it. For as
a vineyard is a plot of ground separated from common field and pasture, in order to be
improved with such cultivation as that the vines and grapes it produces may supply the
owner with generous wines: so God’s Church consists of a people chosen by Him out of the
rest of the world, that they may worship Him by the laws and rules of His own revealing, and
so exercise a purer religion, and abound in the fruits of good living, above other men, who
have not the light of the same revelation, nor direction of the same laws. This similitude of a
vine, or vineyard, for the justness of the resemblance, is several times used to denote the
Church. (Psa_80:1-19.)
3. This vineyard is said to be situate in a very fruitful hill, alluding to the land of Canaan,
which was a high-raised, and a very fertile soil, agreeable to the character which Moses gives
of it (Deu_32:13).
4. God made a fence round about it, i.e., He distinguished His people from all other nations
by peculiar laws, statutes, and observances, not only in religion, but even in civil life, in their
very diet and conversation, so that it was impossible for them to remain Jews, and to
accompany freely with the rest of the world. He also fenced them with a miraculous
protection from the invasions of their adversaries, which bordered upon them on every side.
5. God cleared the soil of this vineyard from stones; not indeed in the literal sense, for this
country pretty much abounds with rocks and flints, which are so far from being always
prejudicial, that they are serviceable, not only for walls and buildings, but even for some
parts of agriculture. But this is a proper continuation of the allegory, that as stones should be
cast out of a vineyard, so God cast out the ancient inhabitants of Canaan, to make room for
the children of Israel. And with them He cast out their idols, made of wood and stone, and
demolished the temples dedicated to idolatry, that His own people might have no stumbling
blocks left in their way, but might be wholly turned to His service.
6. He planted it with the choicest vine, the true religion, and form of government both
ecclesiastical and civil, which He had revealed from heaven. He made excellent provision for
the instruction of His people, and the promulgation of His will and pleasure among them.
7. After much cultivation of His vineyard and choice of His vine, He justly expected a
plentiful product of the best kind of grapes; but was recompensed for all His pains with no
better than the fruits of wild, uncultivated nature; “grapes of Sodom and clusters of

10. Gomorrah,” as He complains (Deu_32:1-52). And He gives us a sample and taste of them in
some of the following words “He looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for
righteousness, but behold a cry.” The great increase of their fields and flocks, wherewith He
had blessed them, afforded them sufficient means of rendering those dues to religion, and
loving kindness to their neighbours, especially to the more indigent sort, which by many
sacred laws and serious exhortations He had enjoined. But instead of being led by the Divine
beneficence to works of liberality and charity, they only studied how to sacrifice to their
insatiable lusts and lewd affections.
8. Therefore with good reason God tells them and appeals to themselves for the justice of it,
that He would take away the hedge of His vineyard, and my it open to be wasted and trodden
under foot. The proper application of all this to ourselves, is briefly hinted by St. Paul
(Rom_11:21). “If God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not
thee.” (W. Reading, M. A.)
Britain highly favoured of God
The natural advantages of Great Britain have been deemed extremely great; an island (says an
early historian) “whose valleys are as Eshcol, whose forests are as Carmel, whose hills as
Lebanon, and whose defence is the ocean.” But our country has to enumerate advantages of a
still higher order,—both of a civil and of a religious nature. Our civil constitution is a fabric,
which, on account of its symmetry and grandeur, has even called forth the admiration of
foreigners. Respecting this invaluable constitution, the late Dr. Claudius Buchanan asks, “Was it
the peculiar wisdom of the Danes which constructed it? or of the Saxons, or of the Normans, or
of the natives of the island? What is the name of the great legislator who conceived the mighty
plan? Was it created by chance, or by design?. . .We know well by whose counsel and providence
our happy government hath been begun and finished. Our constitution is the gift of God, and we
have to acknowledge His goodness for this blessing, as we thank Him for life, and breath, and all
things.” But should we be less grateful for the benefits of a religious description, which have
been conferred in past years upon our ancestors, and so copiously upon ourselves? We have
reason to believe that the holy light of Christian truth was introduced amongst the Britons in the
apostolic age, and during the captivity of Caractacus; and that numerous churches being
gradually formed, the sanguinary rites of the Druids, practised in the dark recesses of their
forests, were exchanged for the pure worship of the Gospel. In the sixth century, Christianity,
though too much tinctured with the superstition of the age, was introduced amongst the
idolatrous Saxons. It was a benefit to many of our ancestors that the dawn of a reformation also
appeared, when the doctrines of the Waldenses were brought from France; and when the
intrepid Wicliffe—whose writings were of no small advantage to the revival of religion, both in
his own country and in Bohemia—protested against the reigning errors. This reformation,
though soon crushed, was renewed within about a century afterwards, and established under the
auspices of a young monarch whose name should be remembered with the warmest gratitude,—
the sixth Edward. The protestant Church was in the next reign greatly oppressed, and many
were added to the noble army of martyrs; but in the following reign it acquired a stability
unknown before; and notwithstanding the various difficulties with which it has struggled has
flourished to this day. (T. Sims, M. A.)
Man under the culturing care of Heaven
The Eternal employs fiction, as well as fact, in the revelation of His grit thoughts to man. Hence
we have in the Bible, fable, allegory, parable. Fiction, used in the way which the Bible employs it,

11. is a valuable servant of truth. It is always pure, brief, attractive, and strikingly apt. The Divine
idea flashes from it at once, as the sunbeam from the diamond. The text is one of the oldest
parables, and is run in a poetic mould. It is fiction set to music. “I will sing to my beloved a song
touching his vineyard.” Isaiah’s heart, as all hearts should be, is in loving transports with the
absolutely Good One, and by the law of strong affections he expresses himself in the language of
bold metaphor and the music of lofty verse. Love is evermore the soul of poetry and song. This
parabolic song is not only a song of love, but a song of sadness, for it expresses in stirring
imagery how the Almighty had wrought in mercy to cultivate the Hebrew people into goodness,
how unsuccessful He had been in all His gracious endeavours, and how terrible the judgment
that would descend from His throne in consequence of their unfruitfulness. We have man under
Divine culture here set before us in three aspects.
I. RECEIVING THE UTMOST ATTENTION. So much had the Eternal done for the Hebrew race
in order to make them good, that He appeals to the men of Jerusalem and Judah in these
remarkable words: “What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in
it?” What has the great moral Husbandman done towards our moral culture?
1. Look at nature. There is an intelligence, a goodness, a calm, fatherly tenderness,
animating, beautifying, and brightening all nature, which is, in truth, its moral soul, that
silently works evermore to fashion the heart of humanity for God.
2. Look at history. There is running through all history, as its very life, an Eternal Spirit of
inexorable justice and compassionating mercy, whose grand mission it is to turn the souls of
men from the hideousness of crime to the beauties of virtue, from confidence in man, “whose
breath is in his nostrils,” to trust in Him who liveth forever, from the temporary pleasures of
earth to the spiritual joys of immortality.
3. What are the events of our individual life? Why is our life, from the cradle to the grave,
one perpetual change of scene and state? Why the unceasing alternation of adversity and
prosperity, friendship and bereavement, sorrow and joy? Rightly regarded, they are God’s
implements of spiritual culture.
4. Look at mediation. Why did God send His only-begotten Son into the world? We are
expressly told that it “was to redeem men from all iniquity.”
5. Look at the Gospel ministry. Why does the great God ordain and qualify men in every age
to expound the doctrines, offer the provisions, and enforce the precepts of the Gospel of His
Son? Is it not to enlighten, renovate, purify, and morally save the souls of men?
II. BECOMING WORSE THAN FRUITLESS. “He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it
brought forth wild grapes.” The idea is that the Jewish people, under the culturing care of God,
produced instead of good fruit the foetid, noxious fruit of the wild vine. And truly their history
demonstrates this lamentable fact. From age to age they grew more and more corrupt, morally
offensive, and pernicious, Thus they went on until the days of Christ. Unfruitfulness is bad
enough, but pernicious fruitfulness is worse. The history of the world shows that it is a common
thing for men to grow in evil under the culturing care of God. Pharaoh’s heart was hardened
under the ministry of Moses; Saul advanced in depravity under the ministry of Samuel; and
Judas became a devil under the ministry of Christ Himself. Man growing in evil under the
culturing agency of God indicates two facts in human nature.
1. The spontaneity of man’s action. What stronger proof can there be that our Maker has
endowed us with a sovereign power of freedom than the fact that we act contrary to His
purpose regarding us, and neutralise His culturing efforts?
2. The perversity of man’s heart. The disposition to run counter to Heaven, which is coeval
with unregenerate souls, is the root of the world’s upas. How came it? It does not belong to

12. human nature as a constitutional element. It is our own creation, and for it eternal justice
holds us responsible.
III. SINKING INTO UTTER DESOLATION (verses 5, 6). These words threaten a three-fold
curse.
1. The withdrawal of Divine protection. “I will take away the hedge thereof,” etc. The
meaning is, that He will withdraw His guardianship from the Hebrew people. This threat
was fulfilled in their experience. Heaven withdrew its aegis, and the Romans entered and
wrought their ruin. What thus occurred to the Jew is only a faint symbol of what must
inevitably occur in the experience of all who continue to grow in evil under the culturing
agency of God.
2. A cessation of culturing effort. “It shall not be pruned nor digged; but there shall come up
briers and thorns.” The idea is that He would put forth no more effort to improve their
condition, that He would cease to send them visions and prophets. The time must come in
the case of all the unregenerate, when God will cease His endeavours to improve. His Spirit
will not “always strive with man.”
3. The withholding of fertilising elements. “I will also command the clouds that they rain no
rain upon it.” However protected the vineyard might be, and however enriched the soil, and
skilfully pruned the branches, if no rain come, the whole will soon be ruined. What a terrible
picture of a soul is this!—here is a soul from which its great Father has withdrawn all
protection, ceased all culturing efforts, and withholds all fertilising influences! Here is hell.
This subject starts many solemn reflections, and has many practical uses.
(1) It unfolds the mercifulness of God. How infinite His condescending love in taking
this little world under His culturing care.
(2) It reveals the morality of life. Man is a moral being, and everything here connected
with his life has a moral purpose, and a moral bearing.
(3) It explains all human improvement. God, as the great Husbandman, is here
“building fences,” “digging and pruning,” and thus helping on the world to moral
fruitfulness.
(4) It urges self-scrutiny. In what state is our vineyard?
(5) It suggests the grand finale of the world’s history. There is a harvest marching up the
“steeps of time.” (Homilist.)
Great opportunities
I. AS ABUNDANTLY POSSESSED. The vineyard here is represented—
1. As in a salubrious position. “In a very fruitful hill.”
2. As subject to culturing care. Canaan was the fruitful hill; the theocratic government was
the fence built around it. What rare opportunities has every man amongst us! Bibles in our
houses, churches near our dwellings, preachers of every type of mind, class of thought, and
oratorio power.
II. AS SHAMEFULLY ABUSED. “When I looked that it should bring forth grapes, it brought
forth wild grapes.”

13. III. AS UTTERLY LOST. (Homilist.)
A history of the Jews
We have in this parable a summing up of the history of God’s chosen people.
I. GOD’S CARE FOR THEM—their privileges.
II. GOD’S GRIEF OVER THEM—their Sin and unfaithfulness.
III. GOD’S SENTENCE UPON THEM—their punishment. (C. J. Ridgeway.)
Human life in parable
I. Here is human life PLACED IN A GOOD SITUATION. “In a very fruitful hill.”
II. Here is human life AS THE SUBJECT OF DETAILED CARE (Isa_5:2). He stood back and
waited like a husbandman. The vineyard was upon a hill, and therefore could not be ploughed.
How blessed are those vineyards that are cultivated by the hand! There is a magnetism in the
hand of love that you cannot have in an iron plough. He gathered out the stones thereof one by
one . . . He fenced . . . He built . . . He made a wine press. It is hand made. There is a peculiar
delight in rightly accepting the handling of God. We are not cultivated by the great ploughs of
the constellations and the laws of nature; we are handled by the Living One, our names are
engraven on the palms of His hands: “The right hand of the Lord doeth gloriously.” Human life,
then, is the subject of detailed care; everything, how minute soever, is done as if it were the only
thing to be done; every man feels that there is a care directed to him which might belong to an
only son.
III. Human life is next regarded AS THE OBJECT OF A JUST EXPECTATION. “He looked that
it should bring forth grapes.” Had, He not a right to do so? Is there not a sequence of events?
When men sow certain seed, have they not a right to look for a certain crop? When they pass
through certain processes in education, or in commerce, or in statesmanship, have they not a
right to expect that the end should correspond with the beginning? Who likes to lose all his care?
IV. Human life AS THE OCCASION OF A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT. “It brought forth wild
grapes.” (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
Life given for culture
It is not the best at the first; it has to be fenced, and the stones are to be taken out, and the
choice vine is to be planted, and the tower is to be set in the midst of it, and the wine press is to
be built therein. The child is but the beginning; the man should be the cultivated result. Culture
is bestowed for fruit. Culture is not given for mere decoration, ornamentation, or for the purpose
of exciting attention, and invoking and securing applause; the meaning of culture, ploughing,
digging, sowing is—fruit, good fruit, usable fruit, fruit for the healing of the nations. The fruit for
which culture is bestowed is moral. God looked for judgment and for righteousness. (Joseph
Parker, D. D.)
God’s expectation of fruit
I. THE MOTIVES OR REASONS INDUCING US TO FRUITFULNESS.

14. 1. Every creature in its kind is fruitful. The poorest creature God hath made is enabled, with
some gift, to imitate the goodness and bounty of the Creator, and to yield something from
itself to the use and benefit of others Shall not every creature be a witness against man, and
rise up in judgment to condemn him, if he be fruitless?
2. The fruitfulness of a Christian is the groundwork of all true prosperity.
3. If we be fruitful, bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit, there is no law against us
(Gal_5:22-23).
4. The circumstance of time calls upon us to bring forth the fruits of obedience. Forasmuch
as the Lord hath year by year, for so long succession of years, sought for fruit of us and found
none, it is now high time to bring forth plenty.
5. If all this will not serve to make us fruitful, that which our Saviour saith Joh_15:2;
Joh_15:6, should awaken us.
II. SOME PROFITABLE MEANS THAT MUST BE USED TO MAKE US GROW MORE
FRUITFUL.
1. See thou be removed out of thy natural soil, and be engrafted into another stock.
2. See thou plant thyself by the running brooks.
3. See thou labour for humility and tenderness of heart. The ground which is hard and
strong is unfit for fruit.
4. Beware of overshadowing thy heart by any sinful lust, whereby the warm beams of the
Sun of Righteousness are kept from it.
5. A special care must be had to the root that that grow well Faith is the radical grace.
6. We must be earnest with the Lord, that He would make us fruitful.
III. THE NATURE AND QUALITY OF THAT FRUIT WHICH WE MUST BRING FORTH.
1. Proper. It must be thy own.
2. Kindly, resembling the Author, who is the Spirit of grace.
3. Timely and seasonable (Psa_1:3).
4. Ripe.
5. A fifth property of good fruit is universalities. Fruits of the first and second table, of
holiness towards God and righteousness towards man. Fruits inward and outward.
6. Constant. (N. Rogers.)
Isaiah 5:2
It brought forth wild grapes
Wild grapes
The history of the Jewish nation is written for our warning, and the lessons taught by this
parable are sadly needed by the England of today.
There is not one word of this description of the vineyard at its best which is not true of this
highly favoured land. This, too, is a very fruitful hill. Under the soil, what unheard of mineral

15. riches, mines of wealth! Above the soil and in it what fertility, what productive power! Around
us, from port and bay and harbour, our merchant fleets take and fetch and gather the riches of
the earth! Here, too, is planted a chosen and favoured vine. Here God has planted the Anglo-
Saxon race, so blended with some other tribal blood that, even our enemies being judges, we
have been unequalled in hardy daring, conquering energy, splendid enterprise, and universal
stretch of power. We, too, have been strangely “fenced in” by the providence of God. Our iron
coasts, compassed by the inviolate sea, have largely made and kept us separate and safe. Out of
this land have also been gathered the stones of idolatry, barbarism, despotism, bigotry, slavery.
Here, too, the Husbandman hath built His tower and made His wine press. “The temples of His
grace, how beautiful they stand!” Surely the Lord hath not dealt so with any people! To us He
says, as well as to Israel of old, “What more could I do to My vineyard, that I have not done?
Why, then, when I looked for grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?” Is not this indictment true?
Wild grapes, offensive to God, mischievous to others, and ruinous to us, are being produced on
every hand. The Husbandman describes some of them.
1. The excessive greed of gain (Isa_5:8). The sin lies not in the mere addition of house to
house, by fair and lawful means, or a moderate gathering together of earthly good; but in
that mad rush and scramble, that strife and struggle to lay hold of all the hand can grasp.
Never was Nebuchadnezzar’s golden god worshipped with half the eager frenzy of today.
Utterly reckless of Naboth’s honest claim to his little vineyard—regardless of the right of
poorer neighbours to gain a livelihood, a powerful purse shall buy them out; huge estates
shall be enclosed in an ever-expanding ring fence; rampant speculators shall starve the
spinner and weaver by the cunning of a “cotton corner.” It is a moral wrong; it is a national
calamity; it is a wild grape which wins a “woe” from God. The one gleam of hope lies in the
fact that the monster will be its own destroyer. “Of a truth, many such houses, great and fair,
shall be without inhabitant.”
2. Another wild grape is the crying sin of intemperance (Isa_5:11).
3. Another wild grape is the headstrong rush after pleasure; the follies and frivolities of the
tens of thousands whose whole time and tastes and talents are wickedly laid on the shrine of
sensual delights. A perpetual round of feasting, junketing, dancing, sightseeing, and
sensational enjoyments is the be-all and end-all of their existence (Isa_5:12).
4. Another wild grape is sensuality in its grosser and fouler shapes. “Woe unto them which
draw iniquity with cords, and sin as with a cart rope.” In this ease the silken threads which
bound them to the gilded chariot of pleasure have been woven by the force of habit into
strong cords and cables, and they are drawn by the baser passions into bestial sensuality,
and within the veil of secrecy, and under the curtains of night, uncleanness reigns.
5. Another wild grape is infidelity. “Woe unto them that regard not the work of the Lord,
neither consider the operations of His hands.” They deny His creating power, they question
His existence, and as for the operation of His providence, not God but law and nature is the
cause of all! And all this in England!
6. Another wild grape here mentioned is fraud and falsehood: and still another is
dishonesty. “Woe to them who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter,” and so on. Again,
“Woe unto them which justify wickedness for reward!” Tricks of trade, scamped handiwork,
adulterated goods, lying puffs and advertisements, commercial frauds, haphazard
speculations—oh, ‘tis a sickening list! What shall be the end of it? Must England, like Israel,
perish, forsaken of her God? No nation that forgets God shall prosper: look on the ruins of
Babylon, of Greece, of Israel, of Rome. No city that forgets God shall prosper: read the sad
records of Nineveh, of Tyre, of Jerusalem, of Sardis, of Laodicea. No man that forgets God
shall prosper: look at the graves of Pharaoh, of Ahab, of Saul, of Herod, of Napoleon. If

16. England lives on, and grows in lustre as she lives, it must be because the King Emmanuel is
undisputed Monarch of the national heart, uncontrolled Director of the national policy and
the national will. (J. J.Wray, M. A.)
Isaiah an embodied conscience
Isaiah was speaking in the first years of the reign of Ahaz, who, by his luxury and effeminacy,
was beginning to imperil the splendid results of the reigns of Uzziah and Jotham. Like most men
who are embodied consciences, the prophet was looked upon as a busybody. Those are usually
most hated who do that which is most needed. Having attracted attention by his parable of the
vineyard and the grapes, Isaiah became a remorseless and terrible voice. The man seemed to
have disappeared, while the voice spoke the retributions of the Almighty. This embodied
conscience was terribly faithful. It is useless to attempt argument with a conscience. It can never
be argued with—it must be heard. It utters its imperative, and you are heedless at your peril.
Some things may be reasoned about; a matter of conscience, never. Furthermore, conscience is
always and of necessity prophetic. Whenever conscience tells you that you are wrong, it tells you
more than that—it tells you that you must turn or you will be punished. That is what makes it a
terror. Not only does it point the finger of shame; it also points the finger of doom. So is it with
the national conscience; it, too, is prophetic, and always speaks of judgment. Isaiah was the
conscience of Judah speaking its imperative, as Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison
were our national conscience in the days when the Republic protected slavery. Judah had grown
rich; she was getting careless; she was trusting in her riches. Judah had been sadly disciplined.
There had been earthquakes, loss of territory, defeat, and now there was approaching the
spectre of an Assyrian invasion. For all this she boasted of her riches and neglected God. (Amory
H. Bradford, D. D.)
Old foes with new faces
1. As soon as a people become rich, they usually begin to subvert the natural and Divine
order to their own selfishness. The tendency of riches is to lead people to do wrong. That
may be why it is so hard for a rich man to get into heaven. He makes the mistake of thinking
he can buy his way anywhere, and finds at last that character, not gold, is the currency he
needs.
2. The sternness of the prophet continues. Those who have grown rich have also grown
luxurious. They have learned the pleasures of the wine cup; they tarry long at the wine. The
land question is an old one; the liquor question is equally old. Again I ask, Who shall tell
why, as soon as men begin to prosper, they begin to do what is worst for themselves and
worst for the world? Read that fifth chapter from Isa_5:12-17. How true to life! “The mean
man is bowed down, and the great man is humbled.” The low-bred fellow drinks his fiery
liquor and wallows in the gutter; the high-bred and rich say that they can mind their own
business, and go to the same disgusting squalor. But Isaiah was speaking of the nation rather
than to individuals It was a national shame that such things were tolerated then; it is a
disgrace that such things are tolerated now. If Isaiah were alive today, or, better, if Jesus
Christ could have your attention for a moment, He would say, How can you justify
yourselves in giving so much time to purely economic questions and so little to the devising
of means for the abolition of what ruins the finest of our boys, blights homes that would
otherwise be beautiful and full of love, and makes so many of our rulers more like swine than
the sovereigns they were intended to be? These two old foes are still alive, with new faces—
the land question and the liquor question. The lesson which we have to learn is the one

17. which the prophet sought to impress in his time—that both individuals and nations are
responsible to God; that responsibility is real; and that there is a judgment seat before which
men and nations must stand. “For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is
stretched out still.” Let us not forget that we—our community, our state, our nation—are in
the moral order of God; that everything we do is making ourselves and all others better or
worse; that we are all called to fellowship with the prophets and apostles and faithful souls in
all ages, to do something toward bringing in the time when the good things of the world shall
belong to all people. (Amory H. Bradford, D. D.)
A reasonable expectation
God expects vineyard fruit from those that enjoy vineyard privileges. (M. Henry.)
8. CALVIN, “1.Now will I sing to my beloved. The subject of this chapter is different from that of the
former. It was the design of the Prophet to describe the condition of the people of Israel, as it then was, in
order that all might perceive their faults, and might thus be led by shame and self-loathing to sincere
repentance. Here, as in a mirror, the people might behold the misery of their condition. But for this, they
would have flattered themselves too much in their crimes, and would not have patiently listened to any
instructions. It was therefore necessary to present a striking and lively picture of their wickedness; and in
order that it might have the greater weight, he made use of this preface; for great and memorable events
were usually described in verse, that they might be repeated by every one, and that a lasting record of
them might be preserved. In like manner, we see that Moses wrote a song, and many other compositions,
(Exo_15:1; Deu_32:1,) in order that all the events might be proclaimed in this manner, both in public and
in private. The instruction becomes more widely diffused than if it had been delivered in plainer language.
For the same reason Isaiah composed this song, that he might present to the people a clearer view of
their wickedness; and, undoubtedly, he handled this subject with magnificent and harmonious language,
for the highest skill is commonly exercised in the composition of poems.
To my beloved. There can be no doubt that he means God; as if he had said that he would compose a
poem in behalf of God, that he might expostulate with the people about their ingratitude; for it gave
additional weight to his language to represent God as speaking. But a question arises, Why does Isaiah
call God his friend? Some reply that he was a kinsman of Christ, and I acknowledge that he was a
descendant of David; but this appears to be a forced interpretation. A more natural and appropriate one
would be, to adopt the statement of John, that the Church is committed to the friends of the bridegroom,
(Joh_3:29,) and to reckon prophets as belonging to that class. To them, unquestionably, this designation
applies; for the ancient people were placed under their charge, that they might be kept under their leader.
We need not wonder, therefore, that they were jealous and were greatly offended when the people
bestowed their attachment on any other. Isaiah therefore assumes the character of the bridegroom, and,
being deeply anxious about the bride entrusted to him, complains that she has broken conjugal fidelity,
and deplores her treachery and ingratitude.
Hence we learn that not only Paul, but all those prophets and teachers who faithfully served God, were
jealous of God’ spouse. (2Co_11:2.) And all the servants of God ought to be greatly moved and aroused
by this appellation; for what does a man reckon more valuable than his wife? A well-disposed husband
will value her more highly than all his treasures, and will more readily commit to any person the charge of
his wealth than of his wife. He to whom one will entrust his dearly-beloved wife must be reckoned very
faithful. Now to pastors and ministers the Lord commits his Church as his beloved wife. How great will be
our wickedness if we betray her by sloth and negligence! Whosoever does not labor earnestly to preserve
her can on no pretense be excused.
A song of my beloved. By using the word ‫,דודי‬ dodi, he changes the first syllable, but the meaning is the
same as in the former clause. Though some render it uncle, and others cousin, I rather agree with those

18. who consider it to contain an allusion; for greater liberties are allowed to poets than to other writers. By
his arrangement of those words, and by his allusions to them, he intended that the sound and rhythm
should aid the memory, and impress the minds, of his readers.
My beloved had a vineyard. The metaphor of a vineyard is frequently employed by the prophets, and it
would be impossible to find a more appropriate comparison. (Psa_80:8; Jer_2:21.) There are two ways in
which it points out how highly the Lord values his Church; for no possession is dearer to a man than a
vineyard, and there is none that demands more constant and persevering toil. Not only, therefore, does
the Lord declare that we are his beloved inheritance, but at the same time points out his care and anxiety
about us.
In this song the Prophet mentions, first, the benefits which the Lord had bestowed on the Jewish people;
secondly, he explains how great was the ingratitude of the people; thirdly, the punishment which must
follow; fourthly, he enumerates the vices of the people; for men never acknowledge their vices till they are
compelled to do so.
On a hill. He begins by saying that God had placed his people in a favorable situation, as when a person
plants a vine on a pleasant and fertile hill. By the word horn or hill I understand a lofty place rising above
a plain, or what we commonly call a rising-ground, (un coustau .) It is supposed by some to refer to the
situation of Jerusalem, but I consider this to be unnatural and forced. It rather belongs to the construction
of the Prophet’ allegory; and as God was pleased to take this people under his care and protection, he
compares this favor to the planting of a vineyard; for it is better to plant vines on hills and lofty places than
on a plain. In like manner the poet says, The vine loves the open hills; the yews prefer the north wind and
the cold (75) The Prophet, therefore, having alluded to the ordinary method of planting the vine, next
follows out the comparison, that this place occupied no ordinary situation. When he calls it the son of
oil or of fatness, (76) he means a rich and exceedingly fertile spot. This is limited by some commentators
to the fertility of Judea, but that does not accord with my views, for the Prophet intended to describe
metaphorically the prosperous condition of the people.
9. PULPIT, “ISRAEL REBUKED BY THE PARABLE OF A VINEYARD. This chapter stands in
a certain sense alone, neither closely connected with what precedes nor with what
follows, excepting that it breathes throughout a tone of denunciation. There is also a
want of connection between its parts, the allegory of the first section being
succeeded by a series of rebukes for sins, expressed in the plainest language, and the
rebukes being followed by a threat of punishment, also expressed with plainness.
The resemblance of the parable with which the chapter opens to one of those
delivered by our Lord, and recorded in the three synoptic Gospels, has been
frequently noticed.
Isa_5:1
Now will I sing to my Well-beloved. The prophet sings to Jehovah a song concerning
his vineyard. The song consists of eight lines, beginning with "My Well-beloved," and
ending with "wild grapes." It is in a lively, dancing measure, very unlike the general
style of Isaiah's poetry. The name "Well-beloved" seems to be taken by the prophet
from the Song of Songs, where it occurs above twenty times. It well expresses the
feeling of a loving soul towards its Creator and Redeemer. A song of my Well-

19. beloved. Bishop Lowth translates "A song of loves," and Mr. Cheyne "A love-song;"
but this requires an alteration of the text, and is unsatisfactory from the fact that the
song which follows is not a "love-song." May we not understand the words to mean
"a song concerning my Well-beloved in respect of his vineyard?" Touching his
vineyard. Israel is compared to a "vine" in the Psalms (Psa_80:8-16), and the Church
of God to a "garden" in Canticles (So Son_4:12; Son_5:1); perhaps also to a
"vineyard" in the same book (So Son_8:12). Isaiah may have had this last passage in
his mind. My Beloved hath a vineyard; rather, had a vineyard ( ἀμπελὼν ἑγενήθη τῷ
ἠγαπημένῳ , LXX.). In a very fruitful hill. So the passage is generally understood,
since keren, horn, is used for a height by the Arabs (as also by the Germans, e.g.
Matterhorn, Wetterhorn, Aarhorn, etc.), and "son of oil" is a not unlikely Orientalism
for "rich" or "fruitful." With the "hill" of this passage compare the "mountain"
of Isa_2:2, both passages indicating that the Church of God is set on aft eminence,
and "cannot be hid" (Mat_5:14).
10. EBC, “THE VINEYARD OF THE LORD,
OR TRUE PATRIOTISM THE CONSCIENCE OF OUR COUNTRY’S SINS
735 B.C.
THE prophecy contained in these chapters belongs, as we have seen, to the same early period of
Isaiah’s career as chapters 2-4, about the time when Ahaz ascended the throne after the long and
successful reigns of his father and grandfather, when the kingdom of Judah seemed girt with
strength and filled with wealth, but the men were corrupt and the women careless, and the
earnest of approaching judgment was already given in the incapacity of the weak and woman-
ridden king. Yet although this new prophecy issues from the same circumstances as its
predecessors, it implies these circumstances a little more developed. The same social evils are
treated, but by a hand with a firmer grasp of them. The same principles are emphasised-the
righteousness of Jehovah and His activity in judgment - but the form of judgment of which
Isaiah had spoken before in general terms looms nearer, and before the end of the prophecy we
get a view at close quarters of the Assyrian ranks.
Besides, opposition has arisen to the prophet’s teaching. We saw that the obscurities and
inconsistencies of chapters 2-4 are due to the fact that that prophecy represents several stages of
experience through which Isaiah passed before he gained his final convictions. But his
countrymen, it appears, have now had time to turn on these convictions and call them in
question: it is necessary for Isaiah to vindicate them. The difference, then, between these two
sets of prophecies, dealing with the same things, is that in the former (chapters 2-4), we have the
obscure and tortuous path of a conviction struggling to light in the prophet’s own experience;
here, in chapter 5, we have its careful array in the light and before the people.
The point of Isaiah’s teaching against which opposition was directed was of course its main
point, that God was about to abandon Judah. This must have appeared to the popular religion of
the day as the rankest heresy. To the Jews the honour of Jehovah was bound up with the
inviolability of Jerusalem and the prosperity of Judah. But Isaiah knew Jehovah to be infinitely
more concerned for the purity of His people than for their prosperity. He had seen the Lord
"exalted in righteousness" above those national and earthly interests, with which vulgar men
exclusively identified His will. Did the people appeal to the long time Jehovah had graciously led

20. them for proof that He would not abandon them now? To Isaiah that gracious leading was but
for righteousness’ sake, and that God might make His own a holy people. Their history, so full of
the favours of the Almighty, did not teach Isaiah, as it did the common prophets of his time, the
lesson of Israel’s political security, but the far different one of their religious responsibility. To
him it only meant what Amos had already put in those startling words, "You only have I known
of all the families of the earth: therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities." Now Isaiah
delivered this doctrine at a time when it brought him the hostility of men’s passions as well as of
their opinions. Judah was arming for war. Syria and Ephraim were marching upon her. To
threaten his country with ruin in such an hour was to run the risk of suffering from popular fury
as a traitor as well as from priestly prejudice as a heretic. The strain of the moment is felt in the
strenuousness of the prophecy. Chapter 5, with its appendix, exhibits more grasp and method
than its predecessors. Its literary form is finished, its feeling clear. There is a tenderness in the
beginning of it, an inexorableness in the end, and an eagerness all through which stamp the
chapter as Isaiah’s final appeal to his countrymen at this period of his career.
The chapter is a noble piece of patriotism-one of the noblest of a race who, although for the
greater part of their history without a fatherland, have contributed more brilliantly than perhaps
any other to the literature of patriotism, and that simply because, as Isaiah here illustrates,
patriotism was to their prophets identical with religious privilege and responsibility. Isaiah
carries this to its bitter end. Other patriots have wept to sing their country’s woes; Isaiah’s
burden is his people’s guilt. To others an invasion of their fatherland by its enemies has been the
motive to rouse by song or speech their countrymen to repel it. Isaiah also hears the tramp of
the invader; but to him is permitted no ardour of defence, and his message to his countrymen is
that they must succumb, for the invasion is irresistible and of the very judgment of God. How
much it cost the prophet to deliver such a message we may see from those few verses of it in
which his heart is not altogether silenced by his conscience. The sweet description of Judah as a
vineyard, and the touching accents that break through the roll of denunciation with such
phrases as "My people are gone away into captivity unawares," tell us how the prophet’s love of
country is struggling with his duty to a righteous God. The course of feeling throughout the
prophecy is very striking. The tenderness of the opening lyric seems ready to flow into gentle
pleading with the whole people. But as the prophet turns to particular classes and their sins his
mood changes to indignation, the voice settles down to judgment; till when it issues upon that
clear statement of the coming of the Northern hosts every trace of emotion has left it, and the
sentences ring out as unfaltering as the tramp of the armies they describe.
I. THE PARABLE OF THE VINEYARD
(Isa_5:1-7)
Isaiah adopts the resource of every misunderstood and unpopular teacher, and seeks to turn the
flank of his people’s prejudices by an attack in parable on their sympathies. Did they stubbornly
believe it impossible for God to abandon a State He had so long and so carefully fostered? Let
them judge from an analogous case in which they were all experts. In a picture of great beauty
Isaiah describes a vineyard upon one of the sunny promontories visible from Jerusalem. Every
care had been given it of which an experienced vinedresser could think, but it brought forth only
wild grapes. The vinedresser himself is introduced, and appeals to the men of Judah and
Jerusalem to judge between him and his vineyard. He gets their assent that all had been done
which could be done, and fortified with that resolves to abandon the vineyard. "I will lay it
waste; it shall not be pruned nor digged, but there shall come up briers and thorns." Then the
stratagem comes out, the speaker drops the tones of a human cultivator, and in the omnipotence
of the Lord of heaven he is heard to say, "I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain
upon it." This diversion upon their sympathies having succeeded, the prophet scarcely needs to
charge the people’s prejudices in face. His point has been evidently carried. "For the vineyard of

21. Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant; and He looked
for judgment, but behold oppression, for righteousness, but behold a cry."
The lesson enforced by Isaiah is just this, that in a people’s civilisation there lie the deepest
responsibilities, for that is neither more nor less than their cultivation by God; and the question
for a people is not how secure does this render them, nor what does it count for glory, but how
far is it rising towards the intentions of its Author? Does it produce those fruits of righteousness
for which alone God cares to set apart and cultivate the peoples? On this depends the question
whether the civilisation is secure, as well as the right of the people to enjoy and feel proud of it.
There cannot be true patriotism without sensitiveness to this, for however rich be the elements
that compose the patriot’s temper, as piety towards the past, ardour of service for the present,
love of liberty, delight in natural beauty, and gratitude for Divine favour, so rich a temper will
grow rancid without the salt of conscience; and the richer the temper is, the greater must be the
proportion of that salt. All prophets and poets of patriotism have been moralists and satirists as
well. From Demosthenes to Tourgenieff. from Dante to Mazzini, from Milton to Russell Lowell,
from Burns to Heine, one cannot recall any great patriot who has not known how to use the
scourge as well as the trumpet. Many opportunities will present themselves to us of illustrating
Isaiah’s orations by the letters and speeches of Cromwell, who of moderns most resembles the
statesman-prophet of Judah; but nowhere does the resemblance become so close as when we lay
a prophecy like this of Jehovah’s vineyard by the side of the speeches in which the Lord
Protector exhorted the Commons of England, although it was the hour of his and. their triumph,
to address themselves to their sins.
So, then, the patriotism of all great men has carried a conscience for their country’s sins. But
while this is always more or less a burden to the true patriot, there are certain periods in which
his care for his country ought to be this predominantly, and need be little else. In a period like
our own, for instance, of political security and fashionable religion, what need is there in
patriotic displays of any other kind? but how much for patriotism of this kind-of men who will
uncover the secret sins, however loathsome, and declare the hypocrisies, however powerful, of
the social life of the people! These are the patriots we need in times of peace; and as it is more
difficult to rouse a torpid people to their sins than to lead a roused one against their enemies,
and harder to face a whole people with the support only of conscience than to defy many nations
if you but have your own at your back, so these patriots of peace are more to be honoured than
those of war. But there is one kind of patriotism more arduous and honourable still. It is that
which Isaiah displays here, who cannot add to his conscience hope or even pity, who must hail
his country’s enemies for his country’s good, and recite the long roll of God’s favours to his
nation only to emphasise the justice of His abandonment of them.
II. THE WILD GRAPES OF JUDAH
(Isa_5:8-24)
The wild grapes which Isaiah saw in the vineyard of the Lord he catalogues in a series of Woes
(Isa_5:8-24), fruits all of them of love of money and love of wine. They are abuse of the soil
(Isa_5:8-10, Isa_5:17), a giddy luxury which has taken to drink (Isa_5:11-16), a moral blindness
and headlong audacity of sin which habitual avarice and drunkenness soon develop (Isa_5:18-
21), and, again, a greed of drink and money-men’s perversion of their strength to wine, and of
their opportunities of justice to the taking of bribes (Isa_5:22-24). These are the features of
corrupt civilisation not only in Judah, and the voice that deplores them cannot speak without
rousing others very clamant to the modern conscience. It is with remarkable persistence that in
every civilisation the two main passions of the human heart, love of wealth and love of pleasure,
the instinct to gather and the instinct to squander, have sought precisely these two forms
denounced by Isaiah in which to work their social havoc-appropriation of the soil and
indulgence in strong drink. Every civilised community develops sooner or later its land-question

22. and its liquor-question. "Questions" they are called by the superficial opinion that all difficulties
may be overcome by the cleverness of men; yet problems through which there cries for remedy
so vast a proportion of our poverty, crime, and madness, are something worse than "questions."
They are huge sins, and require not merely the statesman’s wit, but all the patience and zeal of
which a nation’s conscience is capable. It is in this that the force of Isaiah’s treatment lies. We
feel he is not facing questions of State, but sins of men. He has nothing to tell us of what he
considers the best system of land tenure, but he enforces the principle that in the ease with
which land may be absorbed by one person the natural covetousness of the human heart has a
terrible opportunity for working ruin upon society. "Woe unto them that join house to house,
that lay field to field, till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the
land." We know from Micah that the actual process which Isaiah condemns was carried out with
the most cruel evictions and disinheritances. Isaiah does not touch on its methods, but exposes
its effects on the country-depopulation and barrenness, -and emphasises its religious
significance. "Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without an
inhabitant. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield but an
ephah Then shall lambs. feed as in their pasture, and strangers shall devour the ruins of the fat
ones"-i.e., of the luxurious landowners (Isa_5:9, Isa_5:10, Isa_5:17). And in one of those elliptic
statements by which he often startles us with the sudden sense that God Himself is acquainted
with all our affairs, and takes His own interest in them, Isaiah adds, "All this was whispered to
me by Jehovah: In mine ears-the Lord of hosts" (Isa_5:9).
During recent agitations in our own country one has often seen the "land laws of the Bible" held
forth by some thoughtless demagogue as models for land tenure among ourselves; as if a system
which worked well with a small tribe in a land they had all entered on equal footing, and where
there was no opportunity for the industry of the people except in pasture and in tillage, could
possibly be applicable to a vastly larger and more complex population, with different traditions
and very different social circumstances. Isaiah says nothing about the peculiar land laws of his
people. He lays down principles, and these are principles valid in every civilisation. God has
made the land, not to feed the pride of the few, but the natural hunger of the many, and it is His
will that the most be got out of a country’s soil for the people of the country. Whatever be the
system of land-tenure-and while all are more or less liable to abuse, it is the duty of a people to
agitate for that which will be least liable-if it is taken advantage of by individuals to satisfy their
own cupidity, then God will take account of them. There is a responsibility which the State
cannot enforce, and the neglect of which cannot be punished by any earthly law, but all the more
will God see to it. A nation’s treatment of their land is not always prominent as a question which
demands the attention of public reformers; but it ceaselessly has interest for God, who ever
holds individuals to answer for it. The land-question is ultimately a religious question. For the
management of their land the whole nation is responsible to God, but especially those who own
or manage estates. This is a sacred office. When one not only remembers the nature of land-how
it is an element of life, so that if a man abuse the soil it is as if he poisoned the air or darkened
the heavens-but appreciates also the multitude of personal relations which the landowner or
factor holds in his hand-the peace of homes, the continuity of local traditions, the physical
health, the social fearlessness and frankness, and the thousand delicate associations which their
habitations entwine about the hearts of men-one feels that to all who possess or manage land is
granted an opportunity of patriotism and piety open to few, a ministry less honourable and
sacred than none other committed by God to man for his fellow-men.
After the land-sin Isaiah hurls his second Woe upon the drink-sin, and it is a heavier woe than
the first. With fatal persistence the luxury of every civilisation has taken to drink; and of all the
indictments brought by moralists against nations, that which they reserve for drunkenness is, as
here, the most heavily weighted. The crusade against drink is not the novel thing that many
imagine who observe only its late revival among ourselves. In ancient times there was scarcely a

23. State in which prohibitive legislation of the most stringent kind was not attempted, and
generally carried out with a thoroughness more possible under despots than where, as with us,
the slow consent of public opinion is necessary. A horror of strong drink has in every age
possessed those who from their position as magistrates or prophets have been able to follow for
any distance the drifts of social life. Isaiah exposes as powerfully as ever any of them did in what
the peculiar fatality of drinking lies. Wine is a mocker by nothing more than by the moral
incredulity which it produces, enabling men to hide from themselves the spiritual and material
effects of over-indulgence in it. No one who has had to do with persons slowly falling from
moderate to immoderate drinking can mistake Isaiah’s meaning when he says, "They regard not
the work of the Lord; neither have they considered the operation of His hands." Nothing kills the
conscience like steady drinking to a little excess; and religion, even while the conscience is alive,
acts on it only as an opiate. It is not, however, with the symptoms of drink in individuals so
much as with its aggregate effects on the nation that Isaiah is concerned. So prevalent is
excessive drinking, so entwined with the social customs of the country and many powerful
interests, that it is extremely difficult to rouse public opinion to its effects. And "so they go into
captivity for lack of knowledge." Temperance reformers are often blamed for the strength of
their language, but they may shelter themselves behind Isaiah. As he pictures it, the national
destruction caused by drink is complete. It is nothing less than the people’s captivity, and we
know what that meant to an Israelite. It affects all classes: "Their honourable men are famished,
and their multitude parched with thirst. The mean man is bowed down, and the great man is
humbled." But the want and ruin of this earth are not enough to describe it. The appetite of hell
itself has to be enlarged to suffice for the consumption of the spoils of strong drink. "Therefore
hell hath enlarged her desire and opened her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their
multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth among them, descend into it." The very
appetite of hell has to be enlarged! Does it not truly seem as if the wild and wanton waste of
drink were preventable, as if it were not, as many are ready to sneer, the inevitable evil of men’s
hearts choosing this form of issue, but a superfluous audacity of sin, which the devil himself did
not desire or tempt men to? It is this feeling of the infernal gratuitousness of most of the drink-
evil-the conviction that here hell would be quiet if only she were not stirred up by the
extraordinarily wanton provocatives that society and the State offer to excessive drinking- which
compels temperance reformers at the present day to isolate drunkenness and make it the object
of a special crusade. Isaiah’s strong figure has lost none of its strength today. When our judges
tell us from the bench that nine-tenths of pauperism and crime are caused by drink, and our
physicians that if only irregular tippling were abolished half the current sickness of the land
would cease, and our statesmen that the ravages of strong drink are equal to those of the
historical scourges of war, famine, and pestilence combined, surely to swallow such a glut of
spoil the appetite of hell must have been still more enlarged, and the mouth of hell made yet
wider.
The next three Woes are upon different aggravations of that moral perversity which the prophet
has already traced to strong drink. In the first of these it is better to read, draw punishment near
with cords of vanity, than draw iniquity. Then we have a striking antithesis-the drunkards
mocking Isaiah over their cups with the challenge, as if it would not be taken up, "Let Jehovah
make speed, and hasten His work of judgment, that we may see it," while all the time they
themselves were dragging that judgment near, as with cart-ropes, by their persistent diligence in
evil. This figure of sinners jeering at the approach of a calamity while they actually wear the
harness of its carriage is very striking. But the Jews are not only unconscious of judgment, they
are confused as to the very principles of morality: "Who call evil good, and good evil; that put
darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
In his fifth Woe the prophet attacks a disposition to which his scorn gives no peace throughout
his ministry. If these sensualists had only confined themselves to their sensuality they might

24. have been left alone; but with that intellectual bravado which is equally born with "Dutch
courage" of drink, they interferred in the conduct of the State, and prepared arrogant policies of
alliance and war that were the distress of the sober-minded prophet all his days. "Woe unto
them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight."
In his last Woe Isaiah returns to the drinking habits of the upper classes, from which it would
appear that among the judges even of Judah there were "six-bottle men." They sustained theft
extravagance by subsidies, which we trust were unknown to the mighty men of wine who once
filled the seats of justice in our own country. "They justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away
the righteousness of the righteous from him." All these sinners, dead through their rejection of
the law of Jehovah of hosts and the word of the Holy One of Israel, shall be like to the stubble, fit
only for burning, and their blossom as the dust of the rotten tree.
III. THE ANGER OF THE LORD
(Isa_5:25; Isa_9:8 - Isa_10:4; Isa_5:26-30)
This indictment of the various sins of the people occupies the whole of the second part of the
oration. But a third part is now added, in which the prophet catalogues the judgments of the
Lord upon them, each of these closing with the weird refrain, "For all this His anger is not
turned away, but His hand is stretched out still." The complete catalogue is usually obtained by
inserting between the 25th and 26th verses of chapter 5 (Isa_5:25-26). the long passage from
chapter 9, verse 8, to chapter 10, verse 4. It is quite true that as far as chapter 5 itself is
concerned it does not need this insertion; Isa_9:8-21; Isa_10:1-4 is decidedly out of place where
it now lies. Its paragraphs end with the same refrain as closes Isa_5:25, which forms, besides, a
natural introduction to them, while Isa_5:26-30 form as natural a conclusion. The latter verses
describe an Assyrian invasion, and it was always in an Assyrian invasion that Isaiah foresaw the
final calamity of Judah. We may, then, subject to further light on the exceedingly obscure
subject of the arrangement of Isaiah’s prophecies, follow some of the leading critics, and place
Isa_9:8-21; Isa_10:1-4 between verses 25-26 of chapter 5; and the more we examine them the
more we shall be satisfied with our arrangement, for strung together in this order they form one
of the most impressive series of scenes which even an Isaiah has given us.
From these scenes Isaiah has spared nothing that is terrible in history or nature, and it is not
one of the least of the arguments for putting them together that their intensity increases to a
climax. Earthquakes, armed raids, a great battle, and the slaughter of a people; prairie and forest
fires, civil strife and the famine fever, that feeds upon itself; another battle-field, with its
cringing groups of captives and heaps of slain; the resistless tide of a great invasion; and then,
for final prospect, a desolate land by the sound of a hungry sea, and the light is darkened in the
clouds thereof. The elements of nature and the elemental passions of man have been let loose
together; and we follow the violent floods, remembering that it is sin that has burst the gates of
the universe, and given the tides of hell full course through it. Over the storm and battle there
comes booming like the storm-bell the awful refrain, "For all this His anger is not turned away,
but His hand is stretched out still." It is poetry of the highest order, but in him who reads it with
a conscience mere literary sensations are sobered by the awe of some of the most profound
moral phenomena of life. The persistence of Divine wrath, the long-lingering effects of sin in a
nation’s history, man’s abuse of sorrow and his defiance of an angry Providence, are the
elements of this great drama. Those who are familiar with "King Lear" will recognise these
elements, and observe how similarly the ways of Providence and the conduct of men are
represented there and here.
What Isaiah unfolds, then. is a series of calamities that have overtaken the people of Israel. It is
impossible for us to identify every one of them with a particular event in Israel’s history
otherwise known to us. Some it is not difficult to recognise; but the prophet passes in a

25. perplexing way from Judah to Ephraim and Ephraim to Judah, and in one case, where he
represents Samaria as attacked by Syria and the Philistines, he goes back to a period at some
distance from his own. There are also passages, as for instance Isa_10:1-4, in which we are
unable to decide whether he describes a present punishment or threatens a future one. But his
moral purpose, at least, is plain. He will show how often Jehovah has already spoken to His
people by calamity, and because they have remained hardened under these warnings, how there
now remains possible only the last, worst blow of an Assyrian invasion. Isaiah is justifying his
threat of so unprecedented and extreme a punishment for God’s people as overthrow by this
Northern people, who had just appeared upon Judah’s political horizon. God, he tells Israel, has
tried everything short of this, and it has failed; now only this remains, and this shall not fail. The
prophet’s purpose, therefore, being not an accurate historical recital, but moral impressiveness,
he gives us a more or less ideal description of former calamities, mentioning only so much as to
allow us to recognise here and there that it is actual facts which he uses for his purpose of
condemning Israel to captivity, and vindicating Israel’s God in bringing that captivity near. The
passage thus forms a parallel to that in Amos, with its similar refrain: "Yet ye have not returned
unto Me, saith the Lord," (Amo_4:6-12) and only goes farther than that earlier prophecy in
indicating that the instruments of the Lord’s final judgment are to be the Assyrians.
Five great calamities, says Isaiah, have fallen on Israel and left them hardened:
1st, earthquake; (Isa_5:25)
2d, loss of territory; (Isa_9:8-12)
3d, war and a decisive defeat; (Isa_9:13-17)
4th, internal anarchy; (Isa_9:18-21)
5th, the near prospect of captivity. (Isa_10:1-4)
1. THE EARTHQUAKE.-Amos (Isa_5:25) closes his series withan earthquake; Isaiah begins
with one. It may be the same convulsion they describe, or may not. Although the skirts of
Palestine both to the east and west frequently tremble to these disturbances, an earthquake in
Palestine itself, up on the high central ridge of the land, is very rare. Isaiah vividly describes its
awful simplicity and suddenness. "The Lord stretched forth His hand and smote, and the hills
shook, and their carcases were like offal in the midst of the streets." More words are not needed,
because there was nothing more to describe. The Lord lifted His hand; the hills seemed for a
moment to topple over, and when the living recovered from the shock there lay the dead, flung
like refuse about the streets.
2. THE LOSS OF TERRITORY.-So (Isa_9:8-21) awful a calamity, in which the dying did not die
out of sight nor-fall huddled together on some far off battle-field, but the whole land was strewn
with her slain, ought to have left indelible impression on the people. But it did not. The Lord’s
own word had been in it for Jacob and Israel, (Isa_9:8) "that the people might know, even
Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria." But unhumbled they turned in the stoutness of their
hearts, saying, when the earthquake had passed: "The bricks are fallen, but we will build with
hewn stones"; the "sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars." Calamity did
not make this people thoughtful; they felt God only to endeavour to forget Him. Therefore He
visited them the second time. They did not feel the Lord shaking their land, so He sent their
enemies to steal it from them: "the Syrians before and the Philistines behind; and they devour
Israel with open mouth." What that had been for appalling suddenness this was for lingering
and harassing-guerilla warfare, armed raids, the land eaten away bit by bit. "Yet the people do
not return unto Him that smote them, neither seek they the Lord of hosts."
3. WAR AND DEFEAT.-The (Isa_9:13-17) next consequent calamity passed from the land to the
people themselves. A great battle is described, in which the nation is dismembered in one day.

26. War and its horrors are told, and the apparent want of Divine pity and discrimination which
they imply is explained. Israel has been led into these disasters by the folly of their leaders,
whom Isaiah therefore singles out for blame. "For they that lead these people cause them to err,
and they that are led of them are destroyed." But the real horror of war is that it falls not upon
its authors, that its victims are not statesmen, but the beauty of a country’s youth, the
helplessness of the widow and orphan. Some question seems to have been stirred by this in
Isaiah’s heart. He asks, Why does the Lord not rejoice in the young men of His people? Why has
He no pity for widow and orphan, that He thus sacrifices them to the sin of the rulers? It is
because the whole nation shares the ruler’s guilt; "every one is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and
every mouth speaketh folly." As ruler so people, is a truth Isaiah frequently asserts, but never
with such grimness as here. War brings out, as nothing else does, the solidarity of a people in
guilt.
4. INTERNAL ANARCHY.-Even (Isa_9:18-21) yet the people did not repent; their calamities
only drove them to further wickedness. The prophet’s eyes are opened to the awful fact that
God’s wrath is but the blast that fans men’s hot sins to flame. This is one of those two or three
awful scenes in history, in the conflagration of which we cannot tell what is human sin and what
Divine judgment. There is a panic wickedness, sin spreading like mania, as if men were
possessed by supernatural powers. The physical metaphors of the prophet are evident: a forest
or prairie fire, and the consequent famine, whose fevered victims feed upon themselves. And no
less evident are the political facts which the prophet employs these metaphors to describe. It is
the anarchy which has beset more than one corrupt and unfortunate people, when their mis-
leaders have been overthrown: the anarchy in which each faction seeks to slaughter out the rest.
Jealousy and distrust awake the lust for blood, rage seizes the people as fire the forest, "and no
man spareth his brother." We have had modern instances of all this; these scenes form a true
description of some days of the French Revolution, and are even a truer description of the civil
war that broke out in Paris after her late siege.
"If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences, I will come,
Humanity must perforce prey on itself
Like monsters of the deep."
5. THE THREAT OF CAPTIVITY.-Turning (Isa_10:1-4) now from the past, and from the fate of
Samaria, with which it would appear he has been more particularly engaged, the prophet
addresses his own countrymen in Judah, and paints the future for them. It is not a future in
which there is any hope. The day of their visitation also will surely come, and the prophet sees it
close in the darkest night of which a Jewish heart could think-the night of captivity. Where, he
asks his unjust countrymen-where "will ye then flee for help? and where will you leave your
glory?" Cringing among the captives, lying dead beneath heaps of dead-that is to be your fate,
who will have turned so, often and then so finally from God. When exactly the prophet thus
warned his countrymen of captivity we do not know, but the warning, though so real, produced
neither penitence in men nor pity in God. "For all this His anger is not turned away, but His
hand is stretched out still."
6. THE ASSYRIAN INVASION.-The (Isa_5:26-30) prophet is, therefore, free to explain that
cloud which has appeared far away on the northern horizon. God’s hand of judgment is still
uplifted over Judah, and it is that hand which summons the cloud. The Assyrians are coming in
answer to God’s signal, and they are coming as a flood, to leave nothing but ruin and distress
behind them. No description by Isaiah is more majestic than this one, in which Jehovah, who
has exhausted every nearer means of converting His people, lifts His undrooping arm with a
"flag to the nations that are far off, and hisses" or whistles "for them from the end of the earth.