A Vineyard

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:

And 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.

Isaiah 5:1-2 KJV

‘Ah, another song’ you say, after having just read the beautiful Song of Songs.

Perhaps the beautiful bride comes to mind and what she might say in a wedding toast of her beloved bridegroom, her husband. Yet this lyric is more than that – much more.

The preceding book of the Bible paints a seductive and loving picture of a woman seeking the love of Solomon.

 Song of Songs

1:2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

4:10 How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!

5:1 I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.

How the loving wife desires her husband. How the fruit of the wedding becomes the celebration of the bride and of the bridegroom!

But what has happened here in Isaiah, first of the books of the Prophets?

Hear first, a young virgin bride praising her husband.

Isaiah 5 ESV

Let me sing for my beloved
my love song concerning his vineyard:

Yes, well ought the loving bride sing a love song of the anticipation of her beloved.

My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
2 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;

An idyllic photo of a bridegroom and husband-to-be. He has prepared a place for the woman of his love, the woman of his betrothal. He will live in this place with his a bride-to-be forever (‘until we are parted by death,’ say our solemn vows before witnesses).

The bridegroom planted a vineyard in the fertile place, digging it out for the day the grapes could be pressed into choice wine. It would take some time, but the bridegroom has done this for his bride. The bridegroom has set a watchtower over what he has claimed for his bride-to-be.

On the side of a hill where grapevines grow a  wine vat hewn from stone  testifies to the groom preparing a place of permanence for his bride.

Then (as so often happens in familiar romances) the song of love takes a tragic turn. The perspective of the groom – the bridegroom who has prepared all this for his beloved now laments over the unfaithfulness of his bride.

and he looked for it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes.

The vineyard is the Lord’s! He has planted it. Jerusalem and Judah and the earth are His – He has planted it.

Listen now to the Groom:

3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem
and men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more was there to do for my vineyard,
that I have not done in it?
When I looked for it to yield grapes,
why did it yield wild grapes?

Isaiah continues (later) to tell of the rule of the Lord over the end of the earth.

I ask you, dear brother, dear sister in the Lord – dear church, Bride of Christ Jesus – have you become a ‘wild grapevine’ in the garden of the Lord?

Isaiah 24:

Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate,
and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants…

7 The wine mourns,
the vine languishes,
all the merry-hearted sigh.
8 The mirth of the tambourines is stilled,
the noise of the jubilant has ceased,
the mirth of the lyre is stilled.
9 No more do they drink wine with singing;
strong drink is bitter to those who drink it.
10 The wasted city is broken down;
every house is shut up so that none can enter.
11 There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine;
all joy has grown dark;
the gladness of the earth is banished.
12 Desolation is left in the city;
the gates are battered into ruins.

13 For thus it shall be in the midst of the earth
among the nations,
as when an olive tree is beaten,
as at the gleaning when the grape harvest is done.

Was the righteous olive tree, Christ Jesus, not beaten for your sins?

Will the Lord of all the earth not give the Son of Righteousness reign and judgement over all the earth?

Does the Song of the Vineyard of Isaiah, Prophet who so accurately foresaw the life of Christ Jesus as God Incarnate, not seem somewhat familiar from a parable of Jesus?

Mark 12: And he began to speak to them in parables.

“A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed.

6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’

8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.

O, beloved Bride of Christ:

Have we thrown the beloved Son out of the vineyard?

What will the Owner surely do?

Did our Lord not warn us (wild vines worshiping whatever we would)?

John 15 KJV

1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

O beloved Bride, vineyard of the Bridegroom, betrothed of the King of Righteousness:

Do you abide in the life of Christ Jesus?

Surely He will return to the vineyard. Will the Bridegroom not expect grapes, and not wild grapes? Will the One who has prepared a place for his Bride not throw into the fire the one who would not wait for the Bridegroom’s on the clouds?

Will the Lord not take with Him only the faithful Bride?