Commentaria in Isaiam
Chapter 5. Synopsis of the Chapter
He complains of the Synagogue as of a vineyard, which, though duly cultivated, gave wild grapes instead of grapes, namely avarice, gluttony, injustice and other vices, which he enumerates from verse 8 to 24. Hence, in verse 24, he threatens it with destruction by the Romans, whose strength and might he describes. Moreover he here uses a song and a mournful rhythm, both to praise God more fittingly, and to flow more sweetly into the mind of the people, move it more effectively, and convict it of ingratitude toward God.
1. I will sing to my beloved the canticle of my cousin concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a hill, in a fruitful place. 2. And he fenced it in, and picked the stones out of it, and planted it with the choicest vines, and built a tower in the midst thereof, and set up a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. 3. And now, O ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and ye men of Juda, judge between me and my vineyard. 4. What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? Was it that I looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it hath brought forth wild grapes? 5. And now I will shew you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted; I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down. 6. And I will make it desolate: it shall not be pruned, and it shall not be digged: but briers and thorns shall come up: and I will command the clouds to rain no rain upon it. 7. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the man of Juda his pleasant bud: and I looked that he should do judgment, and behold iniquity: and justice, and behold a cry. 8. Woe to you that join house to house, and lay field to field, even to the end of the place: shall you alone dwell in the midst of the earth? 9. These things are in the ears of the Lord of hosts: Unless many great and fair houses shall become desolate, without inhabitant. 10. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one little bottle, and thirty bushels of seed shall yield three bushels. 11. Woe to you that rise up early in the morning to follow drunkenness, and to drink till the evening, to be inflamed with wine. 12. The harp, and the lyre, and the timbrel, and the pipe, and wine are in your feasts: and the work of the Lord you regard not, nor consider the works of his hands. 13. Therefore is my people led away captive, because they had not knowledge, and their nobles have perished with famine, and their multitude were dried up with thirst. 14. Therefore hath hell enlarged her soul, and opened her mouth without any bounds, and their strong ones, and their people, and their high and glorious ones shall go down into it. 15. And man shall be bowed down, and man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be brought low. 16. And the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and the holy God shall be sanctified in justice.
17. … the lambs shall feed according to their order, and the waste places turned into plenty strangers shall eat. 18. Woe to you that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as the rope of a cart: 19. That 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 near, and come, that we may know it. 20. Woe to you 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. 21. Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes, and prudent in your own conceits. 22. Woe to you that are mighty to drink wine, and stout men at mingling drunkenness. 23. Who justify the wicked for gifts, and take away the justice of the just from him. 24. Therefore as the tongue of the fire devoureth the stubble, and as the heat of the flame consumeth it: so shall their root be as ashes, and their bud shall go up as dust. For they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One of Israel. 25. Therefore is the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched out his hand upon them, and struck them: and the mountains were moved, and their carcasses were become as dung in the midst of the streets. For all this his wrath is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 26. And he will lift up a sign to the nations afar off, and will whistle to them from the ends of the earth: and behold they shall come with speed swiftly. 27. There is none that fainteth, nor that laboureth among them, they shall not slumber nor sleep, neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken. 28. Their arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. The hoofs of their horses like the flint, and their wheels like the whirlwind. 29. Their roaring like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: and shall make a noise, and hold the prey, and shall carry it away, and there shall be none to escape it. 30. And in that day they shall make a noise against them, like the roaring of the sea: we shall look unto the land, and behold darkness of tribulation, and the light is darkened in the dimness thereof.
I will sing before, I will go before as teacher and precentor; so Forerius. To my beloved the canticle of my cousin concerning his vineyard.—By “cousin,” or, as Vatablus has it, “uncle,” Forerius understands the uncle of Isaias, namely King Amasias, or his brother, who often had this saying in his mouth, so that when he wished to signify that someone had lost his oil and labour in some matter, he would say: My friend had a vineyard in a fertile place, and so on; he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes; as if Isaias were to say: I will sing to my beloved this song about his vineyard, which my uncle is wont to sing of his friend’s vineyard, and which has now passed into a proverb.
But this sense seems cold and Jewish: hence St. Jerome and others commonly take “cousin” of Christ. On which note first that “cousin” and “beloved” are the same. Hence Vatablus translated, I will sing to my beloved, my uncle, a song of his vineyard; for “beloved” in Hebrew is yedid; whence Solomon was called by God Jedidiah, that is beloved of the Lord, or lovable to the Lord, 2 Kings 12:25. For “cousin,” or, as Vatablus translated, “uncle,” the Hebrew is dod. The same, then, as it were, both of these names, and from the same root. Hence the Septuagint here, and St. Jerome in the Canticle of Canticles, often translate dod “beloved”; here, however, Jerome following Aquila translates “cousin,” and that is more apt: for Isaias calls Christ his cousin or kinsman, because he was to be born of the same nation with him, namely the Jewish. Third, dod can be rendered “lover.” Hence H. Pintus translates, I will sing to my beloved a song, to my lover, I say. Fourth, dod signifies love and charity; fifth, breasts. Hence that saying of Canticles 1: “Thy breasts are better than wine,” may be rendered, thy loves are better than wine. Hence gather that Christ is beloved by just men, and is their lover, and is love and charity itself, according to 1 John 4: “God is charity; and he that abideth in charity abideth in God, and God in him.” Note, second: In the Hebrew manner the antecedent is here put in place of the relative. For Christ, whom he called beloved, he soon calls cousin; he says, then, “I will sing to my beloved the canticle of my cousin”; where we would say: I will sing to my beloved the canticle of the same, namely of my beloved, who is also my cousin. The sense, therefore, is, as if to say: It pleases me to sing, indeed to sing before, to the beloved himself and cousin, or kinsman, whom I love above all, namely Christ, the song of Christ himself, which he himself will sing to his vineyard, that is to the Jewish people, saying, Matthew 21: “There was a man, a householder, who planted a vineyard, and made a hedge round about it.”
A vineyard was made to my beloved in a horn, the son of oil. Note: the Synagogue and Judea are called a horn, first because a horn is a symbol of power and strength, and consequently of royal power and magnificence, which God had given to David, Solomon and the Jews; second, because Judea is situated on a horn, that is, on a high place: hence Pagninus, for “in a horn,” translates on a hill. St. Basil notes that there is a most ancient tradition that Adam, shut out of the most pleasant paradise, in order to soften his grief, occupied Judea, of all lands. Note, second: for a horn is a lofty and mountainous place; because a horn is sharp, and holds the highest part of the animal, namely the head. So Vatablus, Arias and Sanchez. For vineyards ought to be planted on a mountain turned to the south, and shut off from the north; for “Bacchus loves hills, and the north and the cold of the woods,” and so on; third, because the situation of Judea has the shape of a horn, says Forerius, as the situation of Belgium has the shape of a lion: hence it is called the Belgic lion. Hence the Syriac version has, A vineyard was to my beloved in a corner of the place, or region; or, as the Arabic, at the extremity of the earth.