ISAIAH: “the Holy One of Israel” “But the LORD of hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God proves himself holy in righteousness” May 22, 2005--Isaiah 5:1-30
Introduction
With our chosen subtitle, “the Holy One of Israel,” we acknowledge with Isaiah that above all other descriptions, God is Holy. In the Lord’s Prayer we pray “hallowed” or “holy be your name.” We praise his holiness in our hymns, singing, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,” and exalt his holy character in our praise choruses, “He is holy, yeah!” In our study, we are seeking to hear Isaiah’s witness to the “Holy One,” that we might discover anew the meaning of the “holy” as unique to God and as applied to our national and personal lives.
How significant for the quality of our faith is our concept of God? How important to the quality of our living is our understanding of the holy?
As we move into the fifth chapter of Isaiah, “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4, appearing again in 5:19 and 24, now becomes in 5:16 revealed as
“But the LORD of hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God proves himself holy in righteousness”
In the chapter before us the issue of the holy focuses on a parable that functions as an oracle of judgment. The Parable Isaiah 5:1-7
This parable, famous for its poetic artistry, sets the stage for the rest of the chapter. This parable functions like the parable Nathan told about the poor man with his one little ewe lamb that Nathan told to David after his liaison with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12:1-7). As Nathan’s parable did to David, this parable sets up the hearers up to judge themselves, to condemn their own actions. Let us hear the parable:
vv. 1-2 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.
vv. 3-4 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?
vv. 5-6 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 briars and thorns;
I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
v. 7 For the vineyard of the LORD 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.
Harvest of Wild Grapes (5:1-30)
As this chapter brings the introductory oracles to a close, Isaiah’s attention is on the present situation of his people. His prophetic utterances have moved from the enormous conflict between what Israel was called to be and what she in fact was (2:1—4:6), to the hard realities of her spiritual condition in Isaiah’s day (5:1-30).
The setting for the prophecy is that of a giant funeral. Being mourned is a tragic event. With the “song of the vineyard” a new stage is initiated in God’s dealing with Jerusalem as the prophet speaks to what he now sees in the land.
I. The Song of the Vineyard (5:1-7)
The first speaker’s complaint on behalf of his beloved (vv. 1-2) is understandable. The farmer has planted a vineyard and cared for it with much patience and strenuous labor. It takes two years from planting to the first harvest. As he waits in anticipation he strengthens the wall around it and builds a watchtower with the stones with back-breaking effort he has cleared from the field. He hews two wine vats out of the hillside, one above the other, and connected by a shallow trough. The upper vat is used for pressing the grapes and the lower vat for the juice that runs down the trough from the press. Emphasized by the prophet is the farmer’s prior commitment, his investment of many months of just plain hard work. He has every right to expect a crop of good grapes. But the grapes turned out to be worthless, the yield is only rotton “grapes.” All his labor has been to no purpose; all his hopes have been in vain..
Now the speaker unexpectedly becomes the farmer himself who is in fact Yahweh, the God of Israel (vv. 3-4), for he speaks to “the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the people of Judah.” As he draws his net he demands a judgment between himself and his vineyard, asking, “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?”
The verdict is frightening (vv. 5-6), divine judgement is simply divine neglect. The protective “hedge” and “wall” are no longer kept up, the animals and strangers can trample over it as if it never existed, all cultivation ceases, “briars and thorns” take over, and even the rain refuses to come. The picture is that of a neglected ruin in the desert, a familiar sight in the Southwest.
The meaning is clear (v. 7): “The vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting.” But the fruit of his labor is not the “justice” and “righteousness” he had diligently nurtured them for over the centuries, but the violence of “bloodshed” and the “cry” of distress. Therefore God’s judgment is his hands off: “God gave them up” as the apostle Paul described the revelation of “the wrath of God” in the world of his day. Finally and inexorably, God lets his people have what they have insistently chosen!
Is “divine neglect,” the withdrawal of God’s protection and gracious influence, a helpful or adequate way of thinking about the biblical understanding of God’s judgment?
Does the God of grace have a right to expect a return on his investment in a people, in a nation? Or is Hosea seemingly more on target when he has God declare “I am God, . . . the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath” (11:9)?
For Israel, declares the prophet later, there will be a new vineyard in the future:
On that day: A pleasant vineyard, sing about it! I, the LORD, am its keeper: every moment I water it. I guard it night and day so that no one can harm it; I have no wrath. . . . . In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots, and fill the whole world with fruit (27:2-3, 6).
But we left out verses four and five:
If it give me thorns and briers, I will march to battle against it. I will burn it up. Or else let it cling to me for protection, let it make peace with me, let it make peace with me.
We should not leave the biblical figure of the vineyard in Isaiah without calling attention to Jesus’ use of the same parabolic figure. In Matthew 21:33-41 with similar wording he tells a parable about a vineyard with its wicked tenants who finally kill the owner’s son rather than give the owner the fruit due him. In John 15:1-11 Jesus develops the figure to remind his disciples of the true source of their fruit:
I am the true vine, and my father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes it to make it bear more fruit. . . . Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing (15:1-2, 4-5).
II. Woe to the Wild Grapes (5:8-25)
These verses consist of six prophetic oracles introduced by “Ah” (NRSV) or more traditionally “Woe.” These woe oracles signal the funeral setting and each oracle functions both as a lament over Israel’s condition and a threat.of judgment.
Why should we listen to such in this day of the gospel of grace and love? Let us listen to Isaiah’s characterization of the stinking “grapes.” But as we do Isaiah would have us reflect on to what extent his mourning over Israel’s condition should inform our mourning over the condition of our own society, over our own history as an American people—The grace of compunction!
Greed and indulgence (5:8-17)
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! (8).
The wealthy landed class had depopulated the land: May we translate, “Woe to those who join corporation to corporation until hundreds if not thousands lose their jobs”?
A letter in the Newsweek (April 4, 2005) responds to an article on General Electric’s ex-CEO Jack Welch and his book on leadership written by him and his new wife in an illuminating way:
JACK WELCH’S VIEWS ON “WINNING” epitomize the pathology of American culture: addiction to power, status and money at the expense of the family. He states that a good leader makes “your job so exciting that your personal life beomes a less compelling draw>’ That’s fine for a workaholic; just don’t have kids.
As I read our history as a nation “greed” has been an essential ingredient of our path to our “greatness” in the eyes of the world of nations, yet we have proven ourselves to be the world’s most generous people—the paradox that is America--that is you and me?
Vv. 9-10 pronounce the judgment—Economic desolation! “houses shall be desolate, . . . beautiful houses without inhabitant.”
The second woe oracle begins,
Ah, you who rise early in the morning in pursuit of strong drink, who linger in the evening to be inflamed by wine (11).
Isaiah mourns now over the self-indulgence of a wealthy class.
The judgment is “exile” visualized as “Sheol,” with sheep and goats left to graze where once great houses once stood (13-17). In the midst of this judgment shines forth our great text:
“But the LORD of hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God proves himself holy in righteousness”
As Oswalt comments here, the Hebrews had discovered that “what makes God truly God, what sets him off as divine, is neither his overwhelming power nor his mysteriors numinousness, . . . [but] his essential justice and righteousness. . . . what was truly unique . . . was his moral nature.” This our contemporary pop spirituality apparently has not discovered. But for Isaiah and for the people of the Bible, “God’s holiness is best attested to in the self-denying choice of a just and upright life.” Is this a pertinent word even for the church in our consumer-oriented society? Have you seen the Church sign, “Try our Sundays, they are better than Baskin-Robbins”?
Cynicism and perversion (5:18-25)
The third woe oracle addresses those who are so heavy with their own sins that they consciously and almost by necessity choose evil:
Ah, you who drag iniquity along with cords of falsehood, who drag sin along as with cart ropes (18),
Who add to their arrogance, cynicism:
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 fufillment, that we may know it (19).
They doubt that God is active in the world, so they taunt him with Isaiah’s title, “the Holy One of Israel,” to hurry up his work: Get with it God! They are convinced that they are better able to determine what is right and wrong than God is.
The fourth woe oracle addresses those who pervert moral values:
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 (20).
Oswalt comments aptly here that “Sin can only be satisfied when righteousness is destroyed. If the ethical imperative is dependent upon human reason alone, that reason is no match for rampant self-interest.”
The fifth woe oracle reinforces the fourth:
Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes, and shrewd in your own sight! (21)
The final woe oracle is climactic:
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! (22-23)
The divine judgment on their injustice, after vivid nature metaphors, accuses them of despising “the word of the Holy One of Israel” (24) and ends with the declaration of “the anger of the LORD . . . kindled against his people . . . [which] has not turned away [for] his hand is stretched out still” (25).
So inevitable is
III. Coming Destruction (5:26-30)
“He will raise a signal for a nation far away” (26). God will summon a hostile Assyrian nation who will respond with the most efficient desolation, ravaging the land and its people, for in the prophet’s mind the nations are but an instrument in the Lord’s hands.
How do we apply this Isaianic theme to the history of the last century, to the history now taking place before our eyes?
The coming rapid and remorseless onslaught of the enemy army is pictured like a pack of roaring lions, a tsunami-like roaring of the sea, and if “one look to the land—only darkness and distress; and the light grows dark with clouds” (30).
How much longer will the greatness of our people, our superiority as a nation among the world of nations, endure?
Conclusion
Who is the God of Isaiah? He is “the Holy One of Israel,”
A God not to be taunted or mocked (19)!
A God whose word is not to be despised or ignored (24)!
Who is our God? You complete the description!
A God . . . ?
A God . . . ? Isaiah 1:4; 5:19, 24. Isaiah 5:16, Childs, Isaiah,39. Contents of Isaiah from Oswalt, Isaiah 1-39, 60-64, Isaiah 40-66, 16-19: Introduction to the Prophecy: The Present and Future of God’s People (1:1—5:30) A. God’s Denunciation, Appeal, and Promise (1:1-31) The Problem: What Israel Is versus What She Will Be (2:1—4:6) A Harvest of Wild Grapes (5:1-30) The Song of the Vineyard (5:1-7) Woe to the Wild Grapes (5:8-25) Coming Destruction (5:26-30) The Call to Servanthood (6:1-8) Whom Shall We Trust? Basis for Servanthood (7:1—39:8) The Vocation of Servanthood (40:1—55:13) The Marks of Servanthood (56:1—66:24) Line in a praise chorus sung 5/1/05 in Church. In many ways the more contemporary hymn from last Sunday (5/15/05) sums it up: Holiness, . . . faithfulness, . . .righteousness is what I long for, . . what I need, . . . what you want from me.” Words and music by Scott Underwood. Questions in bold are for the listener to answer. Childs, Isaiah, 39. The NRSV of 5:16 reads, “But the LORD of hosts is exalted by justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy by righteousness.” These verses combine “the predominately wisdom components of a parable and the prophetic features of a judgment oracle.” Childs, Isaiah, 44. Watts, Isaiah 1-33, 53: “The very creative form is unique and has defied analysis which all accept.” Literally, “a song of my beloved,” that is, a song belonging to a beloved one about his vineyard that is sung by another. Or “waited for,” or “hoped for.” “Wild grapes” derives from a word meaning stinking or rotten. Play on like-sounding words here in Hebrew: justice (misspat) . . . bloodshed (mispach)—“righteousness (sedaqah) . . . cry (seaqah). Watts, Isaiah 1-33, 51, 60. This paragraph is dependent on Oswalt, Isaiah 1-39, 153. Romans 1:24, 26, 28. See 2 Corinthians 5:10 where Paul describes divine judgment as receiving precisely ”what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.” The English translations add something like ”recompense for” as in NRSV and thus miss the sharper force of the Greek text. Romans 1:18. Vv. 8, 11, 18, 20, 21, 22 See 5:8-10. See the story of Naboth’s vineyard in 1 Kings 21. Since according to the Torah all the land belonged to God, and while he allowed families to possess parcels of it, the land was never theirs to dispose of as they wished. Although landgrabbing was legal in that culture, it was not morally defensible. He was given a controversial retirement package. Mark Logan, Santa Barbara, CA, Newsweek (April 18, 2005), 16. See 5:11-17. Oswalt, Isaiah 1-39, 162, comments: “The frenetic energy spent in acquiring and enjoying, all at the expense of justice and righteousness, are replaced by the quiet cropping of the flocks. So it will always be. God’s peace will prevail, either by design or default.” Childs, Isaiah, 39. Oswalt, Isaiah 1-39, 162. Ibid., see Micah 6:6-8. Ibid, 165. See 5:22-25.
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Frank G. Carver