Community Bible Study -- Isaiah
Text of Presentation, Lesson 3, Isa 5:1-30
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A Harvest of Wild Grapes
"A Song of Injustice"
Tonight's focal passage is Isaiah 5 . . . but we
also read Isaiah 3-4. And since Messianic prophesy - ie, prophesy
of Jesus the Messiah - interests me, we'll at least mention most
such examples . . . and that includes one in chapter 4.
Isaiah is just as brutal condemning his people for their sins in
chapter 3 as he was in chapters 1 & 2; and chapter 4 opens
with a poignant image in of 7 women pleading with one available
man to marry them to "take away (their)
"disgrace"; surely a great disaster has happened. Then
Isaiah suddenly talks again about the Messiah . . . about
abundance in place of desolation and cleansing in place of blood
and filth:
In that day the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel. Those who are left in Zion, who remain in Jerusalem, will be called holy, all who are recorded among the living in Jerusalem. (4:2-3)
"The Branch of the LORD" refers to the
Messiah, as we'll discuss in detail in chapter 11. Hence the term
"in that day" in 4:2 refers to the Messianic Era. Again
Isaiah makes clear the promised good things will follow God's
judgment. The "survivors" (4:2) are the remnant left
after the "fire" of judgment (4:4) has done its work;
only then will the people be "holy" . . . cleansed of
the "filth" and "bloodstains" of their
accumulated sins (4:4). Only then will they again experience the
presence of God as blessing rather than as judgment (4:5). The
"cloud . . . by day" and "fire by night" are
reminiscent of God's presence during the Exodus (cf Ex 40:38);
after God's people are "refined" by fire, the Messiah
will bring about what the Exodus was meant to produce, and God's
presence will again provide security for His people. This
reflects the Messiah's principle purpose: to restore man's
relationship to God, which man messed up.
Here again, Isaiah emphasizes that God can take us through the
consequences of our sins and bring us out cleansed . . . not
destroyed. The only question is whether we allow God's judgment
to do its cleansing work.
In contrast to the "name-it-and-claim-it" theology
popular among many Christians today, Isaiah warns of God's
judgment if we pursue comfort, pleasure, or security more than
Him. But when difficulties come, we can be sure God hasn't
abandoned us; He may be testing us . . . lovingly trying to make
our character more like His, so He can live in us.
In chapter 5, Isaiah brings his introduction to a close,
preparatory to the story of his call and the beginning of his
ministry in chapter 6. The prophet reiterates his basic theme:
apart from a radical change of behavior, the Jews are destined to
be refined by fire. Isaiah sums up everything he has said thus
far with his image of an unfruitful vineyard.
The chapter divides into three sections. First a graphic
illustration of a vineyard which produces only bitter grapes,
despite the farmer's careful work (5:1-6). Next the explanation:
Isaiah declares Israel is the vineyard, God the farmer, and the
bitter grapes are Israel's sinful behavior (5:7-24). Then the
conclusion (5:25-30): enemy nations are being called in to
destroy Israel, just as wild animals destroy the useless
vineyard.
The image of a vineyard has special meaning for Isaiah's
audience: grapes grow well in Judah, but grapes demand a great
deal of preparation and care. The land must first be cleared of
other plants and the abundant rocks (5:2). This takes a year!
Then the vines are carefully set out . . . and for the second
year the cleared rocks are built into fences and watchtowers to
keep out thieves and wild animals. Only in the third year does
this labor produce any fruit. The farmer in Isaiah's story has
spared no effort or expense in developing his vineyard - but it
produces only bitter grapes. The Judean farmers understand this
image . . . but what does it mean?
A friend who is an OT professor says Isaiah is tricking the Jews
into self-condemnation, just as Nathan the prophet did with King
David after he took Bathsheba, another man's wife (cf 2 Sam 12).
The key is 5:1 and 5:3. It's nonsense to ask to "judge"
between a man and his vineyard (5:3) . . . the "men of
Judah" know the prophet means something else. So when Isaiah
refers to the vineyard of "the one I love" (5:1), the
Jews assume he is talking about his wife, since Solomon's wife
refers to herself as Solomon's "vineyard" (cf Song
8:11-12). We can imagine the Jews are in sync with Isaiah as long
as they think he's talking about an unfruitful wife; they cheer
him on when he announces he's going to tear down the wall and let
the wild animals destroy the vineyard (5:5-6)! But then Isaiah
springs the trap: they are the vineyard! A vineyard is also a
metaphor for the nation of Israel! The Jews realize Isaiah has
tricked them, just as Nathan tricked David!
Isaiah then explains that the bitter grapes are sins detailed in
5:8-24, each introduced with the word "woe." These sins
include greed (5:8-10), self-indulgence (5:11-17), cynicism
(5:18-19), moral perversion (5:20, 21), and social injustice
(5:22-24). Isaiah says the Jews are being foolish if they think
they can escape the consequences of these sins because they are
God's people; just as the vineyard of bitter grapes will be
destroyed because of it's fruit, so will Israel.
Isaiah's example of greed is for land (5:8). The rich man buys
more and more land and dispossesses its owners one by one . . .
until he lives on a vast estate, with the former owners his
serfs. This was forbidden in God's covenant with the Israelites.
Land was a grant from God, to be retained by the same family for
all time . . . and if sold for any reason, returned to the
original owners every 50th year (cf Lev 25). We know the economic
strength of modern western democracies comes from a strong middle
class - but the strong middle class was part of God's plan over
3000 years ago! But the Jews of Isaiah's day apparently ignored
this command . . . just as they ignored God's command to give the
land a "Sabbath rest" by letting it lie fallow one year
out of seven.
In 5:9-10 God announces a punishment that fits the crime. Isaiah
prophesies the rich man who has dispossessed others will himself
be dispossessed . . . in the exile to Babylon, around 600 BC. In
5:10 - and also 5:17 - Isaiah prophesies that after the exile,
the land will receive its long-overdue "Sabbath rests"
- as was confirmed in 2 Chr 36:21.
The next "bitter grape" is self-indulgence: drunkenness
and gluttony (5:11-17). Isaiah is not condemning good food and
good wine . . . it's an issue of priorities. By focusing on
physical pleasures rather than God and his "work" (5:
12), the Jews are pursuing transitory things rather than eternal
things.
Again the punishment fits the crime. These wealthy and noble
people will die of hunger when the exile comes (5:13). They will
no longer open their mouths for more food; instead, death will
open its mouth wider still and suck them down. As in 2:6-22,
Isaiah speaks of humiliation of the arrogant, so the greatness
and holiness of God may be manifested in justice and
righteousness (5:15-16).
Isaiah next condemns cynicism (5:18-19). The guilty delight in
sinning. They challenge God, insisting if what they are doing is
bad, the great "Holy One of Israel" will take action
against it. And since He hasn't . . . they intend to keep right
on doing it!
The fourth woe (5:20-21) condemns people who reject God outright
and make up their own morality . . . claiming what God declared
wrong is really right and what God declared right is really
wrong. This attitude is a revolt against any moral authority . .
. it's contraversion of right and wrong.
The final woe (5:22-24) condemns those who are great in small
things like mixing drinks, yet small in great things like
justice. In a sense, this sin links everything together: when the
goal of one's life is pleasure and self-fulfillment, the concept
of justice for the less fortunate just isn't a factor; why should
we be surprised if justice is perverted?
The bottom line is the people have rejected the covenant of their
all-powerful Creator-God (5:24b). But the only permanence humans
have is in relation to God, so it's logical that if humans reject
Him, they'll be swept away like dry grass in a brush fire
(5:24a).
Isaiah closes chapter 5 by bringing everything together and
directly prophesying the exile in 5:25-30. The vineyard that is
Israel has produced bitter grapes of sinfulness; the only option
left is destroy it. But destruction is not coming because Assyria
and Babylon are so great; they too will pass away. It's the
coming to punish the Jews for their sin.
Isaiah underlines this point with a refrain he will repeat
several times in 9:8-10:4: "For all this, his anger is not
turned away, his hand is still upraised" (5:25b). Assyria
and Babylon are merely God's instruments to punish the Jews; they
come like obedient dogs in response to his "whistle"
(5:26).
In 5:27-29 Isaiah uses terse couplets to create a sense of
urgency and impulsion. A great army comes on with unstoppable
speed - the best trained and equipped of their time - ready to
attack God's people . . . who have become God's enemies (1:24).
They claimed the right to say what was light and what was
darkness; but they will find the folly of such claims when
genuine light becomes genuine darkness.
Isaiah's fundamental point is that we do not belong to ourselves.
We were created by someone else, who had a purpose in mind when
He made us. If in fact there is a God who created mankind, He has
the right to expect us to live in accord with His purposes and
character, revealed in a mutual covenant . . . and if not, He has
the right to do whatever he chooses with his creation (cf Rom
9:20-21).
The Jews agreed with this officially, but in practice many of
them acted otherwise. The sins identified in chapter 5 all
reflect a failure to admit there is someone outside ourselves
with the right to establish the parameters of our existence, and
Isaiah is trying to explain the untenable position this creates.
Another truth Isaiah underlines in this passage - a theme that
runs especially through Isaiah 1-39 - is that we humans have
difficulty recognizing a cause-and-effect relationship. We want
the relationship to be ironclad when it works in our favor . . .
but we think it unfair when it works against us. If we are
obedient, we expect to be blessed, but if we are disobedient, we
expect to be excused.
Isaiah goes to great effort to disabuse the Israelites of this
idea. We can't break the laws of physics and avoid the
consequences . . . and we can't avoid the consequences of
breaking God's moral laws. There is mercy upon repentance . . .
but if a person consistently repeats the same sins, has he
genuinely repented? The Israelites expected to live lives of
continual disobedience, then perform certain rituals and receive
mercy. Isaiah says that is not the way it works!
The final truth in this passage is God's lordship of history. The
Assyrians and Babylonians worshiped pagan gods . . . but Isaiah
and God's prophets asserted the one true God was already the Lord
of those empires, because God was using them to discipline His
people. This was important, because when the predicted
destruction came, true believers survived with their faith
intact, knowing God was not defeated, but was in fact the force
behind their calamity.
Our world today faces a crisis of major proportions . . . the
same one faced by the people of Isaiah's time: "Is there
meaning to life outside myself?" Our culture says
"No"! Our society is filled with greed,
self-indulgence, cynicism, moral perversion, and social
injustice. The Christian ethic that once dominated America is
gone. For hundreds of years Americans obeyed the laws even when
no one was looking because we owed allegiance to something
outside ourselves. But as we have lost the belief there is a God
to whom we owe obedience, we have become increasingly lawless -
obeying only those laws that benefit us and those we are forced
to obey . . . yet there is not enough force in the world to make
a nation of people obey if they do not want to. John Adams once
said the US Constitution could not function except with citizens
bound by Christian ethics . . . and we're testing that idea now.
We fail to see we are enjoy the benefits of our ancestors'
choices, and our choices are destroying those very benefits. We
think we can gain more comfort, pleasure, and security by serving
ourselves, when in fact the comfort, pleasure, and security we
now enjoy are the result of persons who voluntarily limited their
self-interests in the interest of others, in obedience to God.
5:20, 23 really speak to me about the problem with the world
today:
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. . . . "Woe to those . . . acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent.
The United Nations Oil-for-Food program in Iraq
is a classic example of what passes for world morality today. UN
officials and European leaders accepted huge bribes from Saddam
Hussein, and allowed him to keep most of the proceeds of his oil
sales, rather than use it to feed hungry Iraquis. And these same
UN officials and European leaders are the ones who called
"evil good and good evil" in the run-up to war.
The Christian church must witness to the world about good and
evil . . . who else can do it? Yet at the same time, the
Christian church faces our own crisis, because this kind of
secular thinking is creeping in among us. Rather than
transforming society, we allow society to transform us. Christian
teenagers are almost as likely to cheat as are non-Christians . .
. and more than half of them reject the idea of absolute moral
standards. Christian divorces exceed the national norm.
The church as we know it locked in a do-or-die struggle. We are
not the witnesses to the world we should be, because we are
losing the idea of the authority of the Bible. The only reason
the church exists is to "show and tell" the world about
God's law and the authority of the Bible. And the only moral
authority for claiming greed, self-indulgence, cynicism, moral
perversion, and social injustice are sins is God's law in the
bible. If we reject the authority of the bible, we lose our
foundation for right and wrong.
Without an authority beyond ourselves for moral behavior, wrong
will become right in our society, and right will become wrong -
just as it was at the time of Isaiah. The church must reaffirm
and strengthen our commitment to the authority of the bible. If
we compromise on this issue, we will have lost our reason to
exist; the salt will have lost its saltiness (Matt. 5: 13), and
we will deserve to be thrown out, as Jesus declared. God's church
will survive . . . the question is whether our church will
survive!
Lastly, we must be careful not to fall into the trap of the
people quoted in 5:18-19, who claimed there must be no
consequences to sin, if no one was being punished. The
consequences to sin are administered in God's time, not ours.
Although the exile of Israel occurred within Isaiah's lifetime,
the exile of Judah did not occur for another 120 years. Thus, we
must not only surrender our needs to God as we choose to live
within his will, we must also surrender the outcomes to God,
secure in the knowledge that although those outcomes are certain,
they will be in His time.