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 - yedyd - 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 dod usually denotes an uncle, a fathers 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

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. - Shaws 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 shir, a song,

after 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 - dodey, for 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 mem, of the plural, thus, dodi.

shirathdodim is the same with shiryedidoth, 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 bekerenben

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

Hesperiae tenuem producit in aequora linguam, Adriacas flexis claudit quae cornibus undas.

Lucan, 2:612, of Brundusium, i.e., , which, in the ancient language of that country, signifies stags 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.

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

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 Uzziahs 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. 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 ldd 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 do)d 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

(izze)k, to hoe; Arab. mizak, mizaka); and as he found it choked up with stones and boulders, he

got rid of this rubbish by throwing it out sikke)l, 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 (Chatse)b bo instead of Cha/tsab bo, with a and the

accent drawn back, because a Beth was thereby easily rendered inaudible, so that Chatse)b is not a participial adjective, as Bttcher 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,

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 u)bshin, the letters being

transposed; and in the Mishnah (Ma'aseroth i. 2, Zeb'ith iv 8) is the standing word applied to grapes that are only half ripe (see Lwy's Leshon Chachamim, or Wrterbuch des

talmudischen Hebrisch, Prag 1845). With reference to the wild grape (4 5), a

writer, describing the useful plants of Greece, says, Its fruit (= 5) 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 Lords hopes and disappointment with His vineyard. (A. B. Davidson, LL. D.)

Truth to be presented in varied form

Aarons 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

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 Jacobs 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 Jacobs heart, it would have been, to say the least, somewhat incongruous to speak of Jacob as Benjamins 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 epochthe 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 Fathers 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.

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 Lords 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 Gods 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

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 Wicliffewhose writings were of no small advantage to the revival of religion, both in his own country and in Bohemiaprotested 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,

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. Isaiahs 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 Gods 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. Pharaohs 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 mans 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 mans heart. The disposition to run counter to Heaven, which is coeval with unregenerate souls, is the root of the worlds upas. How came it? It does not belong to

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 worlds 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.

III. AS UTTERLY LOST. (Homilist.)

A history of the Jews

We have in this parable a summing up of the history of Gods chosen people.

I. GODS CARE FOR THEMtheir privileges.

II. GODS GRIEF OVER THEMtheir Sin and unfaithfulness.

III. GODS SENTENCE UPON THEMtheir 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 isfruit, 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.)

Gods expectation of fruit

I. THE MOTIVES OR REASONS INDUCING US TO FRUITFULNESS.

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

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 Nebuchadnezzars golden god worshipped with half the eager frenzy of today. Utterly reckless of Naboths honest claim to his little vineyardregardless 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 speculationsoh, 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

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 withit 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 thatit 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 facesthe land question and the liquor question. The lesson which we have to learn is the one

which the prophet sought to impress in his timethat 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 weour community, our state, our nationare 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 , 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

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-

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 (

, 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 COUNTRYS SINS

735 B.C.

THE prophecy contained in these chapters belongs, as we have seen, to the same early period of Isaiahs 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 prophets 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 prophets own experience; here, in chapter 5, we have its careful array in the light and before the people.

The point of Isaiahs 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

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 Israels 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 mens 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 Isaiahs 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 countrys woes; Isaiahs burden is his peoples 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 prophets 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 peoples 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 peoples prejudices in face. His point has been evidently carried. "For the vineyard of

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 peoples 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 patriots 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 Isaiahs 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 Jehovahs 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 countrys 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 countrys enemies for his countrys good, and recite the long roll of Gods 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-mens 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

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 statesmans wit, but all the patience and zeal of which a nations conscience is capable. It is in this that the force of Isaiahs 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 countrys 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 nations 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

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 Isaiahs 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 peoples 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 mens 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. Isaiahs 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

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 Isaiahs 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 tha