God’s care for the church is evident in the Bible. It is the primary way to do His work in our time. The church proclaims the gospel, baptizes those who believe, and helps believers to grow. The gospel spreads, and new churches are established to multiply disciples for Christ. Isaiah delivers a message from God to his people, using the image of a vineyard that failed to produce good grapes despite the care and attention of its owner. The vineyard represents Israel, and the bad grapes symbolize their sins and rebellion against God. Isaiah then pronounces six woes or judgments on the people for their various transgressions, such as greed, drunkenness, pride, injustice, and idolatry. This is a poem that describes God’s care for the church of Israel. This poem expresses divine pain at the people’s failure to live out their relationship with their God. God’s intention was to tear the vineyard down and let it go wild, to let his people see what it’s like to live without his protection. The poem expresses the divine heartbreak in song. In verse 7, Isaiah said that the good, juicy grapes Yahweh wanted were justice and righteousness, but instead what God discovered was the exact opposite.
“The Song of the Vineyard”
It reads in Isaiah 5:1-7 NIV> I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it. When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.” The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.