7 For the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah the plant of his delight: and he looked for justice, and behold, blood-shedding; for righteousness, and behold, a cry.
Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt; thou didst cast out the nations, and plant it: Thou preparedst space before it, and it took deep root, and filled the land; The mountains were covered with its shadow, and the branches thereof were [like] cedars of ùGod; It sent out its boughs unto the sea, and its shoots unto the river.
therefore the Lord will make bald the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and Jehovah will lay bare their secret parts.
Children, let no man lead you astray; he that practises righteousness is righteous, even as *he* is righteous. He that practises sin is of the devil; for from [the] beginning the devil sins. To this end the Son of God has been manifested, that he might undo the works of the devil.
Behold, the wages of your labourers, who have harvested your fields, wrongfully kept back by you, cry, and the cries of those that have reaped are entered into the ears of [the] Lord of sabaoth.
But *ye* do wrong, and defraud, and this [your] brethren. Do ye not know that unrighteous [persons] shall not inherit [the] kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who make women of themselves, nor who abuse themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor abusive persons, nor [the] rapacious, shall inherit [the] kingdom of God. And these things were some of you; but ye have been washed, but ye have been sanctified, but ye have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
And shall not God at all avenge his elect, who cry to him day and night, and he bears long as to them?
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye pay tithes of mint and anise and cummin, and ye have left aside the weightier matters of the law, judgment and mercy and faith: these ye ought to have done and not have left those aside.
Produce therefore fruit worthy of repentance. And do not think to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for [our] father; for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. And already the axe is applied to the root of the trees; every tree therefore not producing good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire.
Thus speaketh Jehovah of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew loving-kindness and mercies one to another, and oppress not the widow and the fatherless, the stranger and the afflicted; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. But they refused to hearken, and turned a rebellious shoulder, and made their ears heavy, that they should not hear. And they made their heart [as] an adamant, that they should not hear the law, and the words that Jehovah of hosts sent by his Spirit by the hand of the former prophets: therefore was there great wrath from Jehovah of hosts. And it came to pass, like as he called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear, saith Jehovah of hosts; and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not, and the land was desolate after them, so that no one passed through nor returned; and they laid the pleasant land desolate.
Jehovah thy God is in thy midst, a mighty one that will save: he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love; he will exult over thee with singing.
Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness:
For [as] a young man marrieth a virgin, shall thy sons marry thee; and with the joy of the bridegroom over the bride, shall thy God rejoice over thee.
Is not this the fast which I have chosen: to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, and to send forth free the crushed, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring to thy house the needy wanderers; when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the dawn, and thy health shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee, the glory of Jehovah shall be thy rearguard.
And he dug it, 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 out a winepress therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes.
And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.
From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in him; wounds, and weals, and open sores: they have not been dressed, nor bound up, nor mollified with oil.
How fair and how pleasant art thou, [my] love, in delights!
For Jehovah taketh pleasure in his people; he beautifieth the meek with salvation.
Jehovah taketh pleasure in those that fear him, in those that hope in his loving-kindness.
So that they cause the cry of the poor to come unto him, and he heareth the cry of the afflicted.
If my land cry out against me, and its furrows weep together; If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, and have tormented to death the souls of its owners:
And there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren the Jews. And there were that said, We, our sons and our daughters, are many, and we must procure corn that we may eat and live. And there were that said, We have had to pledge our fields, and our vineyards, and our houses, that we might procure corn in the dearth. And there were that said, We have borrowed money for the king's tribute upon our fields and vineyards; yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children; and behold, we must bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought into bondage [already]; neither is it in the power of our hand [to redeem them], for other men have our fields and our vineyards.
Beware that there be not a wicked thought in thy heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry against thee to Jehovah, and it be sin in thee.
Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him; for ye have been strangers in the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If thou afflict him in any way, if he cry at all unto me, I will certainly hear his cry; and my anger shall burn, and I will slay you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless. -- If thou lend money to my people, the poor with thee,thou shalt not be to him as a usurer: ye shall charge him no interest. -- If thou at all take thy neighbour's garment in pledge, thou shalt return it to him before the sun goes down; for that is his only covering, his garment for his skin: on what shall he lie down? And it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I am gracious.
And it came to pass during those many days, that the king of Egypt died. And the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and cried; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage; and God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 5
Commentary on Isaiah 5 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 5
In this chapter the prophet, in God's name, shows the people of God their transgressions, even the house of Jacob their sins, and the judgments which were likely to be brought upon them for their sins,
Isa 5:1-7
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 (ch. 1:18); now let us put your case into a poem, inscribed to the honour 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 (Lu. 19:41), and had reference to it in the parable of the vineyard (Mt. 21:33, etc.), only here the fault was in the vines, there in the husbandmen. Here we have,
Isa 5:8-17
The world and the flesh are the two great enemies that we are in danger of being overpowered by; yet we are in no danger if we do not ourselves yield to them. Eagerness of the world, and indulgence of the flesh, are the two sins against which the prophet, in God's name, here denounces woes. These were sins which then abounded among the men of Judah, some of the wild grapes they brought forth (v. 4), and for which God threatens to bring ruin upon them. They are sins which we have all need to stand upon our guard against and dread the consequences of.
Isa 5:18-30
Here are,