Isaiah 5 explained: A Love Song That Turns Sour

The vineyard song (vv. 1-2)

Isaiah sings for someone he loves about that friend's vineyard, which got every care: stones cleared, the best vines planted, a watchtower built and a winepress cut into the rock. Yet it produced only wild, foul grapes, the opposite of what all that work deserved.

The owner asks for a verdict (vv. 3-6)

The people of Jerusalem and Judah are asked to judge, and the obvious answer will turn out to be about themselves. The owner will tear down the hedge and wall so the vineyard is trampled, and when he commands the clouds not to rain, it becomes clear the owner is God.

What the song means (v. 7)

The vineyard is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are its vines. In Hebrew there is a sharp pun: God looked for justice and righteousness but found sound-alike words meaning violence or oppression (translations differ) and a cry of distress.

Woes on greed and partying (vv. 8-17)

The first warnings target the wealthy who buy up house after house and field after field until no one else has room, and those who drink from morning to night with no thought for what God is doing. Isaiah says their mansions will stand empty, their fields will yield almost nothing, and high and low alike will face exile and death, with sheep grazing on the ruins of the rich.

More woes (vv. 18-23)

These target people who haul their wrongdoing behind them like a cart, who mockingly dare God to hurry up and act, who call evil good, and who trust only their own cleverness. The last woe falls on those who boast of their drinking and take bribes to free the guilty and deny justice to the innocent, which many interpreters take as aimed at officials or judges.

Fire and an unstoppable army (vv. 24-30)

Because they rejected God's teaching, the nation will burn like dry grass, and Isaiah describes the mountains shaking and bodies lying in the streets, with a refrain about God's raised hand that returns later in the book. God then whistles for a distant nation whose tireless soldiers roar like lions, widely understood as Assyria, though the passage does not name it.

Key verse: Isaiah 5:7

Something to think about

What do you think makes it possible for a whole society to slowly start calling wrong things right?