Isaiah Chapter 5

The comparison of Isa. 5 with Isa. 6 illustrates most strikingly the ways of God in the judgement of His people. They are quite distinct. Indeed Isa. 6. comes in abruptly in outward form, itself distinct from what follows down to Isaiah 9:7 inclusively. All this intervening portion (Isaiah 6:1-13) forms a strikingly peculiar parenthesis, but a parenthesis of profound interest and instruction; after which the strain of woe, begun in Isa. 5, is resumed in the thickening disasters of Israel and of the land up to their mighty and everlasting deliverance, which yet awaits its accomplishment in the latter day.

But if these chapters were distinct in time as they certainly are in character, the Spirit of God has been pleased to set them in immediate juxtaposition with a view to our better admonition. In fact they are the two-fold principle or standard of judgement which God is wont to apply to His people. In the one He would have us to look back, in the other to look forward; in the former by all He has done for them He measures what they should have been toward Him; in the latter He judges them by His own glory manifested in their midst. The one answers to the law by which is the knowledge of sin; the other to the glory of God, from which every soul comes short (Romans 3:20; Rom 3:23)

In Isa. 5 the prophet sings a song of Jehovah, his well beloved, about His vineyard. Moses had already (Deut. 32) spoken in the ears of Israel a song which celebrates in magnificent language the sovereign choice and blessing of God, the sins and punishment of the people, but withal His final mercy to His land and people, with whom the spared nations are to rejoice. Our chapter takes in a narrower field of view.

"I will sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill; and he dug it up, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine; and he built a tower in the midst of it, and also hewed a winepress therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes" (vv. 1, 2). There was no failure on God's part. He had established Israel in the most favourable position, separated them to Himself, removed stumbling-blocks, crowned them with favours, vouchsafed not only protection but every means of blessing. "And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it?" was His appeal to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah (vv. 3, 4). Yet was all in vain. The result was only bad fruit. "Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" They, like Adam, transgressed the covenant. It was the old story over again. Human responsibility ends in total ruin. Man departs from God and corrupts his way on the earth. "And now let me tell you what I am about to do to my vineyard; I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down; and I will lay it waste - it shall not be pruned nor hoed; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgement, but behold bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold a cry" (vv. 5-7 Such is His own application of the parable. Thus the nation, as a whole, is weighed in the divine balances, and found wanting. So manifest and grievous is the case, that God challenges the men of Judah to judge between Him and His vineyard, though they themselves are the degenerate trees in question. There was no more doubt of the goodness shown to Israel than of their obligation to yield fruit for God. But obligation produces no fruit meet for Him. What was the consequence on such a ground as this? Nothing but woe after woe. Their doom would be according to their guilt.

The truth is that, on the footing of responsibility, every creature has failed save One, Who was the Creator, whatever might be His lowly condescension in appearing within the ranks of men. And what is the secret of victory for the believer now or of old? We must be above mere humanity in order to walk as saints; yea, in a sense, be above our duty in order rightly to accomplish it. As of old, those only walked blamelessly according to the law, who looked to the Messiah in living faith; so saints now can glorify God in a holy righteous walk, only as they are under grace, not law. The sense of deliverance and perfect favour in the sight of God frees and strengthens the soul where there is the new life; the written word illustrated in Christ is the Christian rule. Therein, not in the law, is the true transcript of God.

It will be observed, accordingly, that there is nothing of Christ here as the means and channel of grace. Consequently all is unrelieved darkness and death; and the prophet presses home the evidence of overwhelming constant evil in the people of God. Not a ray of comfort or even hope breaks through, but only their sins and His judgements chime continually. It is the severity of God, Who did not spare the natural branches, as the apostle says in Romans 11:21. Detailed sin is retributively dealt with, as under the government of God in His people. A sixfold series of bold and open sins then follows with their punishments from Jehovah.

"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! In mine ears [saith] Jehovah of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, [even] great and fair, without inhabitant. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield [but] an ephah. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, [that] they may follow strong drink; that tarry late into the night, [till] wine inflame them! And the harp and the lute, the tabret and the pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of Jehovah, neither have they considered the operation of his hands. Therefore my people are gone into captivity, for lack of knowledge; and their honourable men [are] famished, and their multitude [are] parched with thirst. Therefore Sheol hath enlarged her desire, and opened her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their tumult, and he that rejoiceth among them, descend [into it]. And the mean man is bowed down, and the great man is humbled, and the eyes of the lofty are humbled: but Jehovah of hosts is exalted in judgement, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness. Then shall the lambs feed as in their pasture, and the waste places of the fat ones shall wanderers eat. Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope; that say, Let him make speed, let him hasten his work, that we may see [it]; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know [it]! Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto [them that are] wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Woe unto [them that are] mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink; who justify the wicked for a reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! Therefore as the tongue of fire devoureth the stubble, and as the dry grass sinketh down in the flame, [so] their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have rejected the law of Jehovah of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel" (vv. 8-24).

There is a woe to such as joined house to house and field to field, reckless of all but their own aggrandizement: Jehovah shall desolate so that their coveted vineyards and lands shall yield but a tithe of what they put in (vv. 8-10). There is a woe to the luxurious hunters of social pleasure: captivity shall drain them, and Hades itself shall swallow up the mean and the mighty - multitudes without measure (vv. 11-17). And as for the bold sinners who scoffingly invited Jehovah to make speed that they might see His work (vv. 18, 19); and for the moral corrupters, who broke down all moral distinction, and the wise in their own eyes, who could do without God, and the unjust friends of the wicked, whose heroism was in wine and strong drink, being foes of the righteous, there is woe upon woe with utter destruction; "because they have cast away the law of Jehovah of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel" (vv. 20-24).

"Therefore is the anger of Jehovah kindled against his people and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them, and the hills did tremble, and their carcasses [were] as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out still. And he will lift up an ensign to the nations afar off, and will hiss for them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly: none shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken: their arrows [are] sharp, and all their bows bent; their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind. Their roaring [shall be] like a lioness, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall growl, and lay hold of the prey, and carry [it] away safe, and there shall be none to deliver. And they shall roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. And if [one] look unto the land, behold darkness [and] distress, and the light is darkened in the clouds thereof" (vv. 25-30).

He had dealt with them already, but the strokes are not exhausted. "For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out still." Such is the sad and recurring burden, as may be seen in chapters 9, 10. The avenging nations may be far away; but He would give the signal to them and the hiss (as for one far off), and "behold, they shall come with speed lightly." A most graphic picture follows of their vigour and promptness, their equipment and fierce determination from which none can shield or escape. Against Israel shall these foes roar. But they are not yet defined by name. "And if one look unto the land, behold darkness [and] distress, and the light is darkened in the heavens (or clouds) thereof." Such is the lot of man, or rather here of Israel, where Christ is not. There is no deliverance, only judgement after judgement on the people and the land. Unrelieved darkness rests there. Such is the issue of Israel in their land, of Judah and Jerusalem tried under law, no matter what the favours of Jehovah on His vineyard and the plant of His pleasures. If He waited for judgement, behold bloodshed; if for righteousness, behold a cry. What on this ground could follow but woe upon woe?