Isaiah 5: The Song of the Vineyard

"Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: and he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes" (5:1–2).

"And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" (vv. 3–4). The listeners are drawn into judging; then the trap closes: "For the vineyard of the LORD 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" (v. 7).

"Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!" (v. 8). Woe to those who rise early for strong drink and have harps and wine at their feasts "but they regard not the work of the LORD" (vv. 11–12). "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness" (v. 20). Woe to those "which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!" (v. 23).

"For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still" (v. 25). "And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly… Their roaring shall be like a lion" (vv. 26–29). The unnamed nation is Assyria.

Vineyards and towers

Iron Age vineyards in the Judean hills were terraced, cleared of stones, enclosed by walls or hedges, and guarded from small stone towers; wine was trodden in rock-cut presses (yekev) with collecting vats. Archaeological surveys around Jerusalem and the Hebron hills have found many such terraces, towers and winepresses. Jesus' parable of the wicked tenants (Mark 12:1; Matthew 21:33) begins with nearly the same description, drawing on Isaiah 5.

Land and inheritance

In Israel's ideal, land was a family inheritance from God that could not be permanently sold (Leviticus 25:23; Naboth's refusal in 1 Kings 21:3). Isaiah 5:8 attacks the concentration of land in the hands of the wealthy, which produced landless poor and debt slavery. Archaeology shows growing differences in house size within Judean towns in the 8th century, consistent with growing inequality (debated in detail).

5:7: wordplay in the Hebrew and the scroll

The Masoretic Text plays mishpat (justice) against mispach (bloodshed or oppression; a rare word) and tsedaqah (righteousness) against tse'aqah (outcry, the cry of the oppressed, as in Exodus 3:7). The Great Isaiah Scroll reads lemishpach ("for bloodshed") with a prefix, a minor spelling difference. The library's Greek ("lawlessness… cries"), Vulgate (iniquitas… clamor) and KJV ("oppression… a cry") all lose the sound-play, which no translation can reproduce. The passage page sets them out.

Jesus' vineyard parable

Mark 12:1–12, Matthew 21:33–46 and Luke 20:9–19 tell of a man who planted a vineyard, set a hedge, dug a winepress and built a tower (Mark 12:1 follows the Greek of Isaiah 5:2 closely), let it to tenants, and sent servants and finally his son. The parable reuses Isaiah's vineyard with a new focus: the tenants (the leaders) rather than the vineyard. Each Gospel tells it differently; the site does not blend them.