Isaiah 8

Chapter 8. The Parable of the VineyardI will sing for the one I lovea song about his vineyard.(Isaiah 5:1)The fifth chapter of Isaiah is a sort of parable in poetry and song very similar to one of the parables of our Lord, as recorded in the 21st chapter of Matthew. This parable was followed by a series of woes addressed by Christ to the Scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23:13-29), just as Isaiah’s parable of the vineyard is followed by a similar series of woes (Isaiah 5:8-22). Section I—The VineyardHe describes the selection of the site on a very fruitful hill. Later, in the seventh verse, he tells us that the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel. The fruitful hill, where He planted this vineyard, was Mount Zion. “He fenced it” (Isaiah 5:2). This, no doubt refers to His separation of Israel from the nations, the restrictions and safeguards He placed around them through the law and ordinances which He gave to them and the peculiar isolation of the land and the people from all other peoples. He “planted it with the choicest vines” (Isaiah 5:2). This refers to the oracles of God, the Word of revelation which He gave to them and all the covenant privileges and blessings which He committed to them. The tower and the winepress which follow are part of the picture of the vineyard and still further refer to God’s provision for the spiritual culture of the chosen people and the blessed fruit which He expected to come from the love and grace invested among them. This is no new figure, but a very familiar one in the Old Testament. “You brought a vine out of Egypt” (Psalms 80:8), says the Psalmist, you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. It sent out its boughs to the Sea, its shoots as far as the River. Why have you broken down its walls so that all who pass by pick its grapes? Boars from the forest ravage it and the creatures of the field feed on it. (Psalms 80:8-13) So Jesus uses the same figure of His own people, “I am the vine, you are the branches” (John 15:5). The richest and most valuable of all the products of nature is used to represent the richest of God’s graces to His people. But just as the devil has perverted the vine of the earth to the basest and most destructive purposes, so the vine of the Lord’s planting has been assailed by the adversary and turned aside from its divine purposes through the unfaithfulness of men. Section II—The Wild GrapesAnd so the prophet quickly turns from the beautiful vision of the divine Husbandman and His care for His vineyard, to the failure of the vineyard. “Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit” (Isaiah 5:2). The peculiarity of the wild grape is that it is purely natural, an ungrafted fruit. Therefore it represents most fittingly the quality of all mere natural and human goodness. Human nature can only produce wild grapes; luxuriant and beautiful the vine may seem, but the fruit is worthless. So are all the fruits and graces that grow upon the stalk of humanity. It is only when it is cut back and Christ is grafted into the stalk of our old human nature that there is any good in us. All the failures of the Old Testament were intended to demonstrate this fact. Yet, still men are looking for the development of goodness through education and Christian endeavor, instead of through fellowship with the cross of Jesus Christ and entering into His death and resurrection life. The prophet then proceeds to describe these wild grapes by a series of woes which differentiate and distinguish the various forms of sin in a picture which is as true today as it was in the days of Isaiah. The Sin of Greed

1. The first of these is greed. Each of these specifications begins with a woe. “Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land” (Isaiah 5:8). The spirit of monopoly had begun in Isaiah’s time, and the men of great wealth were buying up the whole land and laying it out in vast estates, so that the common people were crowded out of house and home, and the soil that the Creator gave for the support of the people was being used for the luxury of the proud. Isaiah was not a socialist, but the whole spirit of divine legislation is against selfishness, greed and monopoly. It is no sin to be wealthy, but it is a fearful sin to absorb wealth in the spirit of greed and spend it in selfish luxury. A true citizen will always regard his wealth as a trust for society and his fellowmen. There is nothing more alarming in the spirit of our times than the colossal fortunes that are built up and the selfish and godless use that is being made of them by so many. The Apostle James tells us that these are the signs of the last days. “You have hoarded wealth in the last days” (James 5:3). The Sins of Sensuality
2. Next there is selfish and sensual pleasure and unreasonable and unseasonable indulgence in appetite and sensual enjoyment. “Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine. They have harps and lyres at their banquets, tambourines and flutes and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord, no respect for the work of his hands” (Isaiah 5:11-12). It is not so much the sin of drunkenness that is here condemned as the sin of pleasure seeking, of which drinking is a part. These devotees of self-indulgence give up the whole day as well as the whole night to feasting. The effect of this voluptuous life is the deadening of conscience and all spiritual life. “They have no regard for the deeds of the Lord, no respect for the work of his hands.” It was the same condition of brutal sensuality which the prophet Amos denounced in the Northern Kingdom, You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves. You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments. You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph. (Amos 6:4-6) A life of self-indulgence deadens every high and holy feeling of the heart and makes men selfish and indifferent to God and the claims of their fellow-men. They rest in their delicious dream of security, until suddenly the sky darkens, the crash comes and the fearful picture of Isaiah is fulfilled. “Therefore the grave enlarges its appetite and opens its mouth without limit; into it will descend their nobles and masses with all their brawlers and revelers” (Isaiah 5:14). The Sin of Presumption
3. Then there is the sin of presumption. “Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes, to those who say, ‘Let God hurry, let him hasten his work so we may see it. Let it approach, the plan of the Holy One of Israel come, so we may know it’” (Isaiah 5:18-19). These are the scoffers who the Apostle Peter says shall come in the last days saying, “where is this ‘coming’ he promised?” (2 Peter 3:4). They were abroad in Isaiah’s time. They made light of the prophet’s message and the prophet’s word. They put aside all finer fears and feelings and drew iniquity with cords of vanity and sin with cart rope. They hardened their hearts in brutal atheism and laughed at the idea of God, righteousness and judgment to come. They saw no sign of the coming tempest, and in their fool’s paradise they went on in reckless defiance of God and man. So still, men sometimes harden their necks against the warnings of heaven. God sits in the heavens and laughs, for He sees that their day is coming. It does not often happen that these reckless men are permitted to repent. Like Korah, Dathan and Abiram in the days of Moses, they are permitted to work out to the full judgment of heaven. False Teaching and Perverted Moral Ideas
4. Next we see false teaching and perverted moral ideas. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20). This is another class of moral evils. It is a very subtle form of sin and a very serious one. It is the false philosophy, poetry and religion that come as angels of light and aim at the perversion of the human conscience and the obliteration of all true convictions of right and wrong. It insidiously seeks to undermine virtue by painting in the poetry of passion the charms of license and the delights of sin. It makes the beautiful, rather than the true, the aim of life and subverts the stern authority of God’s Holy Word and makes it all a myth and allegory. It is abroad today in the poetry of passion, in the popular novel, in the meretricious theater, in the suggestiveness of fashion, in the easy manners of society, in the mixed conditions of the church itself, in the false teachings of Romanism cloaking over sin through ecclesiastical indulgence, in the gauzy sophistries of Christian Science, which do away with all real moral principles; and still more, it is present in the unholy mysteries of Theosophy, Spiritualism and occult science that are pouring over us from the Orient with its filthy tide. Our modern literature, our modern plays, our modern society are full of it. The word sin is being eliminated from the popular ethics of our day, and compromise, expediency and sentimentalism are taking the place of God’s eternal law and the claims of conscience and righteousness. God says to all these things, “Woe to them that call evil good,… who put darkness for light… who put bitter for sweet.” Self-Conceit and Pride of Intellect
5. There are the sins of self-conceit and pride of intellect. “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight” (Isaiah 5:21). These are the men that had no need of the counsel of Isaiah or the Word of God. They were a law to themselves. The generation is not yet extinct. Pride of intellect, self-sufficiency, all human culture: these form the greatest obstacle to the reception of the Word of God, and it is forever true that “If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a ‘fool’ so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness.’ (1 Corinthians 3:18-19). How very sad that very much of the culture of even the present age is arrayed against Christianity. It is because man hates to acknowledge his own ignorance and nothingness and take his place at the feet of Jesus and learn of Him. Therefore the mysterious words of Jesus Christ are always true of the followers of the kingdom of heaven, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure” (Matthew 11:25-26). The Sin of Drunkenness
6. The sin of drunkenness is discussed. “Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks” (Isaiah 5:22). It is not so much the vice of becoming drunk that is here denounced as the power to drink like a beast and not get drunk. It is the sensual animalism that can load itself with liquor and lead others into stupid, beastly insensibility, and yet glory in its own self-control and ability to drink without limitation. This is downright beastliness, and yet the picture is not hard to find in our Christian lands, which, above all other lands, are blighted and disgraced with the curse of drunkenness. The woe that Isaiah here pronounces is one that reverberates through all the centuries of the corridors of time, all the vaults of hell. It is the saddest wail ever extorted from human sin and sorrow. It is indeed the devil’s most dreadful curse upon lost humanity, and fearful indeed will be the punishment of every man and woman that has any part in spreading it among his fellowmen. The Sin of Unrighteous Judgment
7. Finally, there is the sin of unrighteous judgment. There is one more class here described, although they are included in the last woe. “Who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent” (Isaiah 5:23). Perverted judgment for the sake of gain, to wrong the innocent and to whitewash the vile: these were the characteristics of men in high places in Isaiah’s time; and God denounces their wickedness in the most severe and unmeasured terms. When the fountains of justice are corrupted and the very courts of law become market places for bribery, violence and oppression, then the very life of a nation is in peril. Section III—The HarvestTherefore, the prophet can no longer keep back the vials of God’s wrath, and the most vivid metaphors are used to describe the coming judgment. It will be like the devouring fire as it sweeps over the prairie stubble. “Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 5:24). It will be like the terrific earthquake as it rends the mountains. “Therefore the Lord’s anger burns against his people; his hand is raised and he strikes them down. The mountains shake, and the dead bodies are like refuse in the streets. Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised” (Isaiah 5:25). It will be like the invasion of a desolating army as it sweeps like a whirlwind over the plains. He lifts up a banner for the distant nations, he whistles for those at the ends of the earth. Here they come, swiftly and speedily! Not one of them grows tired or stumbles, not one slumbers or sleeps; not a belt is loosened at the waist, not a sandal thong is broken. Their arrows are sharp, all their bows are strung; their horses’ hoofs seem like flint, their chariot wheels like a whirlwind. (Isaiah 5:26-28) It will be like the roaring of a pack of lions as they leap upon their prey. “Their roar is like that of the lion, they roar like young lions; they growl as they seize their prey and carry it off with no one to rescue” (Isaiah 5:29). It will be like the raging tide as it sweeps away the barriers and breaks over the land in desolation, “In that day they will roar over it like the roaring of the sea” (Isaiah 5:30). And it will be like a land over which the darkness of Egypt has fallen. The heavens are black with anger and sorrow and terror hangs like a pall of impenetrable gloom, “And if one looks at the land, he will see darkness and distress; even the light will be darkened by the clouds” (Isaiah 5:30). All this came to Judah in a little while. All this has been coming from age to age to nations and races that have brought upon themselves these woes by their corresponding sins and crimes. All this came upon Assyria and Babylon in their turn when they at length went down under the storm of judgment. All this came to Jerusalem when she perished under the cruel talons of the Roman eagle, and all this is coming to the civilized nations of today when their sin shall have grown ripe for the winepress of the wrath of God. And just as certainly will it come into the life of the individual, for “Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap” (Ecclesiastes 11:4). Even in the present age to a great extent it is literally true. “There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile” (Romans 2:9). The evil grapes must find their place in the winepress of God. “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life” (Galatians 6:7-8).