For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts 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.
7. The formal application of the parable, emphasizing two facts: (1) Jehovah’s vineyard is the house of israelbut especially the men of Judah, the plant of his delight (RV margin); (2) “the wild grapes” it produces are the frightful oppressions and perversion of justice which are perpetrated in its midst. The underlying thought is that Jehovah’s signal care and goodness ought to have resulted in a national life corresponding to His moral character from him to a fundamental truth of the prophetic theology.
He looked for judgment ( mishp), but behold bloodshed ( my P);
For righteousness ( d qh), but behold a cry! ( ‘ qh).
These powerful assonances, which cannot be reproduced in English, are evidently designed to clinch the moral of the parable in the memories of the hearers. The “cry” is that of the oppressed, cf. Job 19:7.
Source: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For the vineyard … – This is the application of the parable. God had treated the Jews as a farmer does a vineyard. This was his vineyard of him – the object of his faithful, unceasing care of him. This was his only vineyard of him; on this people alone, of all the nations of the earth, had he bestowed his special attention on him.
His pleasant plant – The plant in which he was delighted. As the farmer had been at the pains to plant the sorek Isaiah 5:2so had God selected the ancient stock of the Jews as his own, and made the race the object of his chief attention.
And he looked for judgment – For justice, or righteousness.
But behold oppression – The word rendered oppression means properly shedding of blood. In the original here, there is a remarkable paranomasia, or play upon words, which is not uncommon in the Hebrew Scriptures, and which was deemed a great beauty in composition:
I have looked for judgement,
mishpat,
And lo! shedding of blood,
mis’pach;
For rightousness,
tsanddaqah,
But lo! to cry,
tsandaqah.
It is impossible, of course, to retain this in a translation.
to cry. A clamor – tumult, disorder; the clamor which attends anarchy, and covetousness, and dissipation Isaiah 5:8, Isaiah 5:11-12rather than the soberness and steadiness of justice.
Source: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
see each other 7. And he looked for judgment]The paronomasia, or play on the words, in this place, is very remarkable; mishpat, mishpach, tsedakah, tseakah. There are many examples of it in the other prophets, but Isaiah seems peculiarly fond of it. see Isaiah 13:6; Isaiah 24:17; Isaiah 32:7; Isaiah 28:1; Isaiah 57:6; Isaiah 61:3; Isaiah 65:11-12. Rabbi David Kimchi has noticed the paronomasia here: he expected mishpat, judgment, but behold mishpach, oppression; he expected tseakah, righteousness, but behold tseakah, a cry. The rabbins esteem it a great beauty; their term for it is tsachoth haltashon, elegance of language.
Oppression – “tyranny.”]mishpach, from shaphach, servum fecit, Arab. Houbigant: shiphchah is serva, a handmaid or female slave. mispach, eighteen MSS.
Source: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant; in whom God formerly delighted to dwell and converse. compare pro 8:31; Jer 31:20. Behold the cry from the oppressed, crying to men for help, and to God for vengeance.
Source: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
7. Isaiah here applies the parable. It is not a mere human owner, nor a literal vineyard that is meant.
vineyard of the Lord His only one (Exo 19:5;I love 3:2).
pleasant“the plant of his delight”; just as the husbandman was at pains to select the sorek, or “choicest vine” (Isa5:2); so God’s election of the Jews.
judgmentjustice. The play upon words is striking in the Hebrew, He looked formishpat, but behold mispat (“bloodshed”); fortsedaqua, but behold tseaqua (the cry that attendsanarchy, covetousness, and dissipation, Isaiah 5:8;Isaiah 5:11; Isaiah 5:12;compare the cry of the rabble by which justice was overborne in thecase of Jesus Christ, Matt 27:23;Matt 27:24).
Isa5:8-23. SIX DISTINCTWOES AGAINST CRIMES.
Source: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,…. This is the explanation of the parable, or the accommodation and application of it to the people of Israel, by whom are meant the ten tribes; they are signified by the vineyard, which belonged to the Lord of hosts, who had chosen them to be a peculiar people to him, and had separated them from all others:
and the men of Judah his pleasant plant; they were so when first planted by the Lord; they were plants of delight, in whom he took great delight and pleasure, From 10:15 these design the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, in distinction from Israel:
and he looked for judgment; that the poor, and the fatherless, and the widow, would have their causes judged in a righteous manner, and that justice and judgment would be executed in the land in all respects; for which such provision was made by the good and righteous laws that were given them:
but behold oppression; or a “scab”, such as he was in the plague of leprosy; corruption, perverting of justice, and oppressing of the poor: Jarchi interprets it a gathering of sin to sin, a heaping up iniquities:
for righteousness, but behold a cry; of the poor and oppressed, for want of justice done, and for reason of their oppressions. Here ends the song; what has been parabolically said is literally expressed in the following part of the chapter.
Source: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“For the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plantation of His delight: He waited for justice, and behold grasping; for righteousness, and behold a shriek.” The meaning is not that the Lord of the vineyard would not let any more rain fall upon it, because this Lord was Jehovah (which is not affirmed in fact in the words commencing with “for,” Ci ), but a more general one. This was how the case stood with the vineyard; for all Israel, and especially the people of Judah, were this vineyard, which had so bitterly deceived the expectations of its Lord, and indeed “the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts,” and therefore of the omnipotent God, whom even the clouds would serve when He came forth to punish. The expression “for” ( Ci ) is not only intended to vindicate the truth of the last statement, but the truth of the whole simile, including this: it is an explanatory “for” ( Ci explained.), which opens the epimythion . “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts” ( Cerem Jehovah Zebaoth ) is the predicate. “The house of Israel ( Beth Israel ) was the whole nation, which is also represented in other passages under the same figure of a vineyard (Isaiah 27:2.; PS80, etc.). But as Isaiah was prophet in Judah, he applies the figure more particularly to Judah, which was called Jehovah’s favorite plantation, inasmuch as it was the seat of the divine sanctuary and of the Davidic kingdom. This makes it easy enough to interpret the different parts of the similar employee. The fat mountain-horn was Canaan, flowing with milk and honey (Exo 15:17); the digging of the vineyard, and clearing it of stones, was the clearing of Canaan from its former heathen inhabitants (Psalm 54:3); the sorek-vines were the holy priests and prophets and kings of Israel of the earlier and better times (Jer 2:21); the defensive and ornamental tower in the midst of the vineyard was Jerusalem as the royal city, with Zion the royal fortress (Mic 4:8); the winepress-trough was the temple, where, according to Psalm 36:9 (8.), the wine of heavenly pleasures flowed in streams, and from which, according to Psalm 42:1-11 and many other passages, the thirst of the soul might all be quenched. The grazing and treading down are explained in Jer 5:10 and Jer 12:10. The bitter deception experienced by Jehovah is expressed in a play upon two words, indicating the surprising change of the desired result into the very opposite. The explanation which Gesenius, Caspari, Knobel, and others give of my dispatch , viz., bloodshed, does not commend itself; for even if it must be admitted that saphach occurs once or twice in the “Arabizing” book of Job (Job 30:7; Job 14:19) in the sense of pouring out, this verbal root is strange to the Hebrew (and the Aramaean). Moreover, my dispatch in any case would only mean pouring or shedding, and not bloodshed; and although the latter would certainly be possible by the side of the Arabic saffach , saffak (shedder of blood), yet it would be such an ellipsis as cannot be shown anywhere else in Hebrew usage. On the other hand, the rendering “leprosy” does not yield any appropriate sense, as mi ispachath ( sappachath ) is never generalized anywhere else into the single idea of “dirt” (Luzzatto: sozzura ), nor does it appear as an ethical notion. We therefore prefer to connect it with a meaning unquestionably belonging to the verb (see kal, 1Sa 2:36; niphal, Isaiah 14:1; hithpael , 1Sa 26:19), which is derived in , , , from the primary notion “to sweep,” spec to sweep towards, sweep in, or sweep away. Hence we regard my dispatch as denoting the forcible appropriation of another man’s property; certainly a suitable antithesis to mishpat . The prophet describes, in full-toned figures, how the expected noble grapes had turned into wild grapes, with nothing more than an outward resemblance. The introduction to the prophecy closes here.
The prophecy itself follows next, a seven-fold discourse composed of the six-fold woe contained in vv. 8-23, and the announcement of punishment in which it terminates. In this six-fold woe the prophet describes the bad fruits one by one. In confirmation of our rendering of my dispatch the first woe relates to covetousness and avarice as the root of all evil.
Source: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
7. Truly the vineyard of Jehovah of hosts is the house of Israel. Hitherto he spoke figuratively; now he shows what is the design of this song. Formerly he had threatened judgment against the Jews; now he shows that they are not only guilty, but are also held to be convicted persons; for they could not be ignorant of the benefits which they had received from God.
Thou broughtest a vine from Egypt, says the Psalmist, and, having driven out the nations, plantedst it. (Psa 80:8.)
Their ingratitude was plain and manifest.
Isaiah does not illustrate every part of the metaphor; nor was it necessary; for it was enough to point out what was its object. The whole nation was the vineyard; the individual men were the plants. Thus he accuses the whole body of the nation, and then every individual; so that no man could escape the universal condemnation, as if no part of the exposition had been addressed to himself. Why the nation is called a vineyard is plain enough; for the Lord chose it, and admitted it to the covenant of grace and of eternal salvation, and bestowed on it innumerable blessings. The planting is the commencement, and the dressing of it follows. That nation was adopted, and in various respects was the object of Divine care; for…