The big picture
Isaiah, God's prophet, sings about a carefully planted vineyard that yields bad fruit. The vineyard represents Israel, God's people, with Judah as the southern kingdom addressed. Jerusalem is its capital. God has sought fair dealing and found oppression instead. The song becomes a series of charges against greed, drunken neglect, and twisted judgement. A distant army then comes into view. The threatened ruin answers the people's conduct, though the chapter leaves the sound of approaching danger hanging over the land.
In this chapter
- Careful Planting Produces Bitter Fruit Isaiah 5:1-7
The prophet sings of a beloved owner who gives his vineyard every care.
- Greed Leaves Large Houses Empty Isaiah 5:8-10
God condemns those who keep joining house to house and field to field.
- Feasting People Ignore the Work of God Isaiah 5:11-17
The prophet condemns people who begin drinking early and continue deep into the night.
- Defiant People Reverse Good and Evil Isaiah 5:18-25
Some people drag their sin behind them as though hauling a loaded cart.
- A Distant Army Comes Without Delay Isaiah 5:26-30
God raises a banner and calls a nation from far away.
Central truth
God's vineyard yields oppression instead of justice, and the people's greed and defiance bring the threat of devastating invasion.
Scripture beside the summary
Isaiah · King James Version · 30Isaiah 5:1-7
Careful Planting Produces Bitter Fruit
The prophet sings of a beloved owner who gives his vineyard every care. He clears stones, plants good vines, builds a tower, and prepares a winepress. Yet the crop is worthless. He asks the people to judge what more he should have done. Then he announces the removal of its protection and care. Thorns will grow where vines once stood, and rain will cease. God identifies the vineyard as his own people. He expected justice and upright dealings. Instead, oppression and cries of distress have grown there.
In everyday life
A fruit-tree keeper cuts open the harvest from trees she has watered, pruned, and guarded for years. Every basket holds spoiled fruit. She sets aside her tools and removes the fence after deciding to abandon the plot. Isaiah's failed crop represents human wrongdoing, which actual trees do not choose.
Notice
Isaiah 5:7 The vineyard is identified after the listeners hear its owner's case. The expected fruit is fair treatment of people, so the crop exposes a moral failure.
Isaiah 5:1-7
King James Version1Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:
2And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.
3And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.
4What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?
5And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:
6And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
7For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is 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.
Isaiah 5:8-10
Greed Leaves Large Houses Empty
God condemns those who keep joining house to house and field to field. Their growing estates leave no room for other people. The prophet hears that many fine houses will stand empty. Land gathered for a vast return will produce almost nothing. A large stretch of vines yields a tiny amount of wine. Seed measured by the larger container produces only a tenth of that measure at harvest. The drive to possess everything ends with empty rooms and fields unable to support the owners' proud plans.
In everyday life
A land buyer walks through adjoining cottages he bought and emptied to enlarge his private grounds. Now the rooms stand damp, and the fields he expected to fund the project yield little. More space has not brought the life he planned. Isaiah declares God's judgement on greed, not an ordinary investment loss.
Notice
Isaiah 5:8 The charge links expanding property with leaving others no place. The issue is not the mere existence of a large house but gain that crowds neighbours out.
Isaiah 5:8-10
King James Version8Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!
9In mine ears said the LORD of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.
10Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.
Isaiah 5:11-17
Feasting People Ignore the Work of God
The prophet condemns people who begin drinking early and continue deep into the night. Music and wine fill their feasts, while they pay no attention to God's deeds. Captivity, hunger, and thirst will replace their plenty. Death is pictured as an open mouth swallowing the noisy crowd and its splendour. People of high and low standing alike are brought down. God is shown holy through fair judgement. Lambs will graze where wealth once gathered, and strangers will feed among the abandoned places of the rich.
In everyday life
A banquet host keeps ordering drinks while urgent notices about his failing business pile up beside the kitchen door. Months later, a caretaker walks through the empty dining room and stacks the unused chairs. The warnings outlast the noise. Isaiah announces national captivity and death, far more than a ruined business.
Notice
Isaiah 5:12 Music and drink are named beside a refusal to notice God's work. The charge concerns absorbed neglect, not a claim that every feast is itself wrong.
Isaiah 5:11-17
King James Version11Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!
12And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the LORD, neither consider the operation of his hands.
13Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.
14Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.
15And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled:
16But the LORD of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness.
17Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat.
Isaiah 5:18-25
Defiant People Reverse Good and Evil
Some people drag their sin behind them as though hauling a loaded cart. They demand that God hurry his plans so they can see proof. Others exchange the names of good and evil, light and darkness, sweetness and bitterness. They trust their own wisdom and boast of drinking strength. Bribes lead them to clear the guilty and strip the innocent of their rights. God compares their fate to dry growth consumed by fire. They have rejected his instruction. His anger brings shaking ground and bodies in the streets, and the warning is not yet over.
In everyday life
A licensing examiner reads a report in which an unsafe workshop is praised and the careful inspector is blamed. Receipts show that the owner paid for the verdict. She places the false report beside the evidence it reverses. Isaiah's answer includes lethal divine judgement, which this review does not enact.
Notice
Isaiah 5:23 A bribe changes the verdict for both sides. The guilty gain freedom while the upright lose their rights, so corruption harms more than one case's paperwork.
Isaiah 5:18-25
King James Version18Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:
19That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!
20Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
21Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
22Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
23Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!
24Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
Isaiah 5:26-30
A Distant Army Comes Without Delay
God raises a banner and calls a nation from far away. Its army comes swiftly, with no one tired or stumbling. Clothing and footwear stay ready for movement. Arrows, bows, horses, and chariot wheels give the force an image of unbroken strength. The troops roar like lions carrying prey beyond rescue. Another sound follows, like the sea in turmoil. Looking across the land brings no relief. Darkness and distress fill the view, and even the light above seems covered by clouds as invasion draws near.
In everyday life
A border-town dispatcher watches reports arrive from each road as a threatening force advances. Every route shows the same steady approach. She moves families towards shelter and finds no reassuring gap in the updates. Isaiah identifies God as the one summoning the invaders, which the dispatcher cannot claim about her crisis.
Notice
Isaiah 5:27 No one in the army tires or stumbles. The details remove the small failures that normally slow a force, making its approach seem relentless and unavoidable.
Isaiah 5:26-30
King James Version26And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly:
27None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken:
28Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent, their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind:
29Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it.
30And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof.
Details worth noticing
The opening image
Isaiah 5:1 begins with “Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:”
Where the chapter turns
Isaiah 5:14 forms a natural hinge: “Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth…”
The final note
Isaiah 5:30 leaves the reader with “And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is…”
A word trail through the chapter
The words vineyard, LORD, grapes, hosts, darkness, drink help reveal the chapter’s repeated concerns.
KJV words made clear
- bath
- A liquid measure of about twenty-two litres, or six US gallons.
- ephah
- A dry measure of about twenty-two litres, a tenth of a homer.
- homer
- A large dry measure equal to ten ephahs.
Music and video connected to the passage
Related media appears when its Scripture reference overlaps this study. Music and video can illuminate a theme while the biblical text remains the foundation.
