My Well-Beloved has a Vineyard
Isaiah 5:1–7 (NKJV)
Now let me sing to my Well-beloved A song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard:
My Well-beloved has a vineyard
On a very fruitful hill.
He dug it up and cleared out its stones,
And planted it with the choicest vine.
He built a tower in its midst,
And also made a winepress in it;
So He expected it to bring forth good grapes,
But it brought forth wild grapes.
“And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,
Judge, please, between Me and My vineyard.
What more could have been done to My vineyard
That I have not done in it?
Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes,
Did it bring forth wild grapes?
And now, please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard:
I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned;
And break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.
I will lay it waste;
It shall not be pruned or dug,
But there shall come up briers and thorns.
I will also command the clouds
That they rain no rain on it.”
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,
And the men of Judah are His pleasant plant.
He looked for justice, but behold, oppression;
For righteousness, but behold, a cry for help.
We take a look this morning at a passage in the Book of Isaiah. Isaiah the prophet had a long ministry of over fifty years some 750 years before Christ. He lived to see the Northern Kingdom of Israel be taken into Assyrian captivity for their continued rebellion and sin against Yahweh. He also lived to see the miraculous deliverance of Judah and Jerusalem from the same Assyrians in the days of Hezekiah the king.
The Book of Isaiah is a prophetic book. It has some of the most hopeful and beautiful passages in all of Scripture. At the same time, it also paints some very dark pictures of judgment. Next to the much longer book of Psalms, it is the most quoted book in the New Testament. It contains prophesies of the Virgin Birth of Christ, the coming of the Gentiles to the light, prophesies of the millennial kingdom, and of the suffering and the death of Jesus.
A little bit of background material of God’s vision for Israel will be helpful to fully understand this passage. God’s vision for His people is that of the equality of the Israelites. The Torah and the Book of Joshua talk about the division of the land of Canaan to each Israelite. Each family had a place to grow wheat and barley. Each had their own source of water, something of great value in the semi-arid land. Each family was to have grape vines, fig, and olive trees. The shade of the large leaves of the fig tree provided food and rest in hot sun. Barley was made into a common staple, bread. It also provided fodder for livestock. Wheat could be sold as a cash crop for hard money to purchase what was needed outside the farm. Olives provided oil for cooking and light. The idea is that God provided each Israelite family with the necessities.
We also learn from history that Yahweh’s plans for Israel did not work out as he desired. Some Israelites were better managers than others. Others wasted their inheritance on frivolous things. The rich took advantage of the poor. There was robbery and murder. Cities grew which changed the agricultural equality to the massing of wealth in the cities. Israel and Judah suffered “natural” disasters and foreign invasions as well. These are the wages of sin and rebellion. Yahweh was not caught be surprise. The Torah allowed those who had bankrupted for whatever reason to sell themselves into servitude and their land. But after seven years, they were to be released from servitude and there land restored. They were also to be provided with enough means to make a clean start. This shows how the LORD desired to restore harmony and balance and to restore the equality of all Israelites before Him.
The times which Isaiah lived were the best of times for some and the worst of times for others. Isaiah 5 comes before Isaiah 6 which records the death of King Uzziah. This does not necessarily mean that the first five chapters were recorded before Isaiah’s inaugural vision, but it at least provides a general framework of time. King Uzziah reigned on the throne for 52 years and other than the great transgression of offering incense in the Temple, he is recorded as having been a good king. His son, Jotham, who co-ruled with him in the later part of his reign also was a good king, as far as kings go. The long reign of Uzziah led to stability, peace, and prosperity, at least to the few on the top. Prosperous times lead to inequity. The rich get richer and the poor poorer. This was the case in Isaiah’s day. And Isaiah, like many of the old Testament prophets railed against this injustice.
The story of the well-beloved’s vineyard is set in this context. It is a parable, which means that it is a type of illustration which explains another point. It is not a manual for making or maintaining vineyards. So, just what is this parable illustrating?
We need to identify the characters. The first is who is the narrator of this parable represented by the pronoun “my.” Is Isaiah the narrator calling Yahweh “my beloved?” This is grammatically possible, but there is another possibility. The Holy Spirit speaks through the prophets God’s word. Is Yahweh the narrator? If this is the case, who is the well-beloved? It cannot be either Israel because the parable says that Israel is the vineyard. Neither is it Judah who is called the plant. But when we look from the Christian perspective, it becomes immediately apparent who the well-beloved. We remember the words of the Father from heaven to Jesus: “This is my Son, the Beloved. Obey Him!” Jesus in Matthew 21:33-41 applies this very passage to Himself. This conclusively shows who this well-beloved is in Isaiah 5.
This beloved had an especially favored location for His vineyard. We can see this because it is said that he built a tower in it. Being on a hill, others could see how choice the vineyard, from a distance, so much so that the owner felt he needed to protect it. He built a watchtower and a wall. He removed the stones from the soil, something which would be necessary as the land of Israel was full of loose rock. These rocks were often used to make terraces which made planting on an incline possible. He chose the best vines to plant there which indicated that he spared no expense. He did all the necessary vine dressing and cultivation. He did everything possible to produce good grapes. But the shock of this parable is that when harvest time came, the grapes were wild and sour. they were good for nothing.
Naturally, the well-beloved vineyard owner was puzzled. Cultivated grape vines could only produce good grapes after its kind, more or less, depending on the care they received. This caused total frustration on the part of the owner who plowed up everything and utterly destroyed the vineyard. Many of us have felt this kind of frustration.
As we have noted, this is a parable and not a story about a frustrated farmer. When we look at the interpretation of this we realize that he is talking about the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Before they were divided under Rehoboam, they were one people. Yahweh had protected Israel from her enemies and watched over it. He had provided everything she needed to flourish and glorify Him with the fruit. He sent prophets like Elijah and Elisha to warn the kingdom. He sent drought and then rain. But they had gone astray from the very beginning. When the Kingdom of Israel broke away, her king, Jeroboam, had set up calf idols in Beersheba and Dan and said that this was the god who had taken them out of Egypt to this land. The result of it was that the LORD was frustrated with them beyond repair. He was about to send the Assyrians to wreck the kingdom and take the inhabitants captive. Their cultivated land would become wild and barren.
The Kingdom of Judah, in comparison, was not as evil as Israel. But as we have noted, this does not mean that it was perfect. Far from it. Jerusalem and Judah is called the plant (vine) in this vineyard. The city of Jerusalem stood on a hill and displayed its glory for all to see. But it was the LORD’s glory that mattered. He protected the place where He symbolically presided. He provided everything spiritual and material for her to thrive. But it was producing bitter fruit. The LORD sent prophets like Isaiah and later Jeremiah to warn Judah. There were some attempts to reform, but in the end, her sins would send her into exile in Babylon. Jerusalem and the Temple would be burnt to the ground. the remnant of Israel and Judah would learn the bitter lesson that they could not take the LORD fro granted. If they did right, they would have produced good fruit which was well-pleasing to the LORD. But Israel was warned all the way back to Moses in the book of Deuteronomy that they would be vomited out of the land if they played the Canaanite. The possession of the land of Israel was not unconditional. They would have possessed the land in perpetuity if they remained faithful to the covenant. The same it true even to this day. Any nation, including present-day Israel, will thrive in their land which has been granted by the LORD of all the earth, who sets up and casts down every nation, which does evil shall suffer the devastating judgment of the LORD. In fact, the judgment upon those who claim to be His people, including the so-called “Christian nations” are even more culpable in that they have blasphemed the name of the LORD. Jesus said that to whom much is given, much more is expected.
When Jesus alludes to this parable in Matthew 21, He is addressing this parable to the Israel of His day when He was on earth. He is the well-beloved Son, the one the Father had given the vineyard to. He went among His own people (Jews). The situation in Israel had become utterly corrupt. they had been restored from exile once and were in grave danger of being exiled again, something which would happen a generation later in 70 AD as Jesus prophesied. He brought good news of forgiveness and a greater Kingdom to those in Israel who would believe. He also brought bad news for those who did not receive Him. Jesus mentions that tenant farmers were hired to dress the vineyard. These were the most competent vine dressers. Israel had the hedge of the Law which God dictated through Moses. They were to be the most moral people there were. Their Temple, which had been completely renovated by Herod the Great and his descendants was one of the wonders of the world, even though Herod the Great was not even a Jew.
Jesus was not impressed with the marble, silver, and gold of the Temple. In His last visit, He noticed that the rich were putting a lot into the offering box as compared to the widow who only had two mites to contribute. One could hear the ring of the many silver and gold coins as they rang in the box, much louder than the dull thud of the widow’s offering. She gave everything she had and was going home to die. No one noticed but Jesus. How much better it would have been for one of them to have given this poor sister one of the gold and silver coins put into the treasury, much of which was to support the placing of even more gold and silver objects to adorn the Temple as well as to support the corrupt priesthood. The sentence Jesus brought was severe. The Temple and the cultus would be destroyed along with the wicked servants who were about to kill the beloved and seize the vineyard for themselves. Then the vineyard would be let out to other tenants, which is the Christian Church. Israel was the vineyard and the Church is Israel.
But there is a warning to be had for the Church. God’s expectations for the Church is that it produce good fruit and to render their rent to the owner of the vineyard. God is no respecter of persons. So long as we are productive servants, we will partake in the fruitfulness of the vineyard which is our wages. We might chafe to think that we are servants in the vineyard rather than the owner of it. But remember there is a watchtower in the midst as well as protective walls. The one who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. We flourish under such protection. It is better to be a servant in God’s vineyard than to wander freely in the wilderness of evil. But if we think we can write God off and take possession, we shall surely feel His wrath.
God has set us up as a city of light upon a hill for all too see. Some see the riches of the city and come to plunder. Others see this as a place of pilgrimage to come to. Isaiah tells us that the Gentiles would come to this light, and kings to the brightness of his rising. So let us be on watch against the wiles of the former and welcoming to those who would come up to the New Jerusalem.
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