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The Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard

Let me sing for my beloved

my love-song concerning his vineyard:

My beloved had a vineyard

on a very fertile hill.

He dug it and cleared it of stones,

and planted it with choice vines;

he built a watchtower in the midst of it,

and hewed out a wine vat in it;

he expected it to yield grapes,

but it yielded wild grapes.

And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem

and people of Judah,

judge between me

and my vineyard.

What more was there to do for my vineyard

that I have not done in it?

When I expected it to yield grapes,

why did it yield wild grapes?

And now I will tell you

what I will do to my vineyard.

I will remove its hedge,

and it shall be devoured;

I will break down its wall,

and it shall be trampled down.

I will make it a waste;

it shall not be pruned or hoed,

and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;

I will also command the clouds

that they rain no rain upon it.

For the vineyard of the L ord of hosts

is the house of Israel,

and the people of Judah

are his pleasant planting;

he expected justice,

but saw bloodshed;

righteousness,

but heard a cry!

Social Injustice Denounced

Ah, you who join house to house,

who add field to field,

until there is room for no one but you,

and you are left to live alone

in the midst of the land!

The L ord of hosts has sworn in my hearing:

Surely many houses shall be desolate,

large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.

For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath,

and a homer of seed shall yield a mere ephah.

Ah, you who rise early in the morning

in pursuit of strong drink,

who linger in the evening

to be inflamed by wine,

whose feasts consist of lyre and harp,

tambourine and flute and wine,

but who do not regard the deeds of the L ord,

or see the work of his hands!

Therefore my people go into exile without knowledge;

their nobles are dying of hunger,

and their multitude is parched with thirst.

Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite

and opened its mouth beyond measure;

the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitude go down,

her throng and all who exult in her.

People are bowed down, everyone is brought low,

and the eyes of the haughty are humbled.

But the L ord of hosts is exalted by justice,

and the Holy God shows himself holy by righteousness.

Then the lambs shall graze as in their pasture,

fatlings and kids shall feed among the ruins.

Ah, you who drag iniquity along with cords of falsehood,

who drag sin along as with cart ropes,

who say, “Let him make haste,

let him speed his work

that we may see it;

let the plan of the Holy One of Israel hasten to fulfillment,

that we may know it!”

Ah, you 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!

Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes,

and shrewd in your own sight!

Ah, you who are heroes in drinking wine

and valiant at mixing drink,

who acquit the guilty for a bribe,

and deprive the innocent of their rights!

Foreign Invasion Predicted

Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble,

and as dry grass sinks down in the flame,

so their root will become rotten,

and their blossom go up like dust;

for they have rejected the instruction of the L ord of hosts,

and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Therefore the anger of the L ord was kindled against his people,

and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them;

the mountains quaked,

and their corpses were like refuse

in the streets.

For all this his anger has not turned away,

and his hand is stretched out still.

He will raise a signal for a nation far away,

and whistle for a people at the ends of the earth;

Here they come, swiftly, speedily!

None of them is weary, none stumbles,

none slumbers or sleeps,

not a loincloth is loose,

not a sandal-thong broken;

their arrows are sharp,

all their bows bent,

their horses’ hoofs seem like flint,

and their wheels like the whirlwind.

Their roaring is like a lion,

like young lions they roar;

they growl and seize their prey,

they carry it off, and no one can rescue.

They will roar over it on that day,

like the roaring of the sea.

And if one look to the land—

only darkness and distress;

and the light grows dark with clouds.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

9. This is in the ears of Jehovah of hosts. Here something must be supplied; for he means that the Lord sits as judge, and as taking cognizance of those things. When covetous men seize and heap up their wealth, they are blinded by their desire of gain, and do not understand that they will one day render an account. Never, certainly, were men so utterly stupid as not to ascribe some judgment to God; but they flatter themselves so far as to imagine that God does not observe them. In general, therefore, they acknowledge the judgment of God: when they come to particular cases, they take liberties, and suppose that they are not bound to proceed to that extent.

If many houses be not laid desolate. Having warned them that none of these things escape the eyes of God, lest they should imagine that it is a knowledge which does not lead to action, he immediately adds, that vengeance is close at hand. He likewise makes use of an oath; for the expression If not is a form of swearing that frequently occurs in the Scriptures. ⁸⁰⁸⁰ The following is a striking instance: To whom I sware in my wrath, If they shall enter into my rest; that is, they shall not enter into my rest. (Psalm 95:11.), — Ed. In order to strike them with greater terror he breaks off the sentence with studied abruptness. ⁸¹⁸¹ The classical reader may be reminded of a fine instance of ἀποσιώπησις, by which the effect of a speech is prodigiously heightened:
Quos ego — sed motos praestat componere fluctus. — Virg. AEn. 1:135. He might indeed have brought out this threatening with full expression, but the incomplete form is better fitted to keep the hearer in doubt and suspense, and is therefore more alarming. Besides, by this instance of reserve the Lord intended to train us to modesty, that we may not be too free in the use of oaths.

But what does he threaten? Many houses will be laid desolate. This is a just punishment, by which the Lord chastises the covetousness and ambition of men, who did not consider their own meanness, that they might be satisfied with a moderate portion. In a similar manner the poet ridicules the mad ambition of Alexander the Great, who having learned from the philosophy of Anacharsis that there were many worlds, sighed to think, that after having worn himself out by so many toils, he had not yet made himself master of one world. “One globe does not satisfy the Macedonian youth. He writhes in misery on account of the narrow limits of the world, as if he were confined to the rocks of Gyaros, or to the puny Seriphos. But when he shall enter the city framed by potters, he will be content with a tomb. Death alone acknowledges how small are the dimensions of the bodies of men.” ⁸²⁸²
Unus Pellaeo juveni non sufficit orbis:
AEstuat infelix angusto limite mundi,
Ut Gyari clausus scopulis parvaque Seripho:
Quum tamen a figulis munitam intraverit urbem,
Sarcophago contentus erit. Mors sola fatetur,
Quantula sint hominum corpuscula.
Juven. Sat. 10:168-173.

Instances of the same kind occur every day, yet we do not observe them; for the Lord exhibits to us, as in a mirror, the absurd vanity of men, who spend a vast amount of money in building palaces that are afterwards to become the receptacles of owls and bats and other animals. These things are plainly before our eyes, and yet we do not apply our mind to the consideration of them. So sudden and various are the changes that happen, so many houses are laid desolate, so many cities are overthrown and destroyed, and, in short, there are so many other evident proofs of the judgment of God; and yet men cannot be persuaded to lay aside this mad ambition. The Lord threatens by the Prophet Amos:

“You have built houses of hewn stones,
but you shall not dwell in them.” (Amos 5:11.)

And again,

“He will smite the great house with breaches,
and the little house with clefts.” (Amos 6:11.)

These things happen daily, and yet the lawless passions of men are not abated.

⁸⁰ The following is a striking instance: To whom I sware in my wrath, If they shall enter into my rest; that is, they shall not enter into my rest. (Psalm 95:11.), — Ed.

⁸¹ The classical reader may be reminded of a fine instance of ἀποσιώπησις, by which the effect of a speech is prodigiously heightened: Quos ego — sed motos praestat componere fluctus. — Virg. AEn. 1:135.

⁸² Unus Pellaeo juveni non sufficit orbis: AEstuat infelix angusto limite mundi, Ut Gyari clausus scopulis parvaque Seripho: Quum tamen a figulis munitam intraverit urbem, Sarcophago contentus erit. Mors sola fatetur, Quantula sint hominum corpuscula. Juven. Sat. 10:168-173.