The Parable of the Vineyard.
v. 1–7. Now will I sing, &c.
I. The privileges conferred on the Jewish nation (ver. 2, 3). It would be vain and useless to attempt, as some have done, to find in the privileges of the Jews an exact counterpart to the various items here specified concerning this “vineyard.” For example, Jerome regards the fencing of the vineyard as symbolical of the protection of the Jews by the angels; the gathering out of the stones, the removal of the idols; the tower, the temple erected in Jerusalem; the wine-press, the altar.[1] To seek thus for minute analogies is at once to destroy the oratorical force and the simplicity of the parable. Rather let us lay hold of its leading truths. The prophet desired to remind the Jews that they had received extraordinary privileges from God; consequently he employed figures calculated to impress his hearers with that truth; and he does not fail to specify every particular which those acquainted with a vineyard would expect, if it were one from which a copious supply of choice fruit might be reasonably expected. 1. The choice which God made of the Jews as a nation was the first and fundamental privilege which He conferred upon them. 2. Having chosen them, God revealed Himself to them as clearly as was then possible through the symbolism of the Mosaic Law. Through its statutes and ceremonies were shadowed forth the great truths of His holiness, His mercy, His sanctifying grace, and the Sacrifice which in the fulness of time was to be offered for the sin of the world (Rom. iii. 1, 2). 3. In addition to the Law, God gave to His people the inestimable help of Prophetical Teaching, to assist them to understand its meaning, and to stimulate them to keep it with full purpose of heart.
II. The consequent obligations under which the Jews were laid. From the vineyard, for which the great Husbandman has done so much, He naturally looked for fruit. The fruits which the prophet specifies as being required by God from the Jews correspond precisely with their privileges (ver. 7). He had given them a code of laws by which their actions were to be guided, and had impressed upon them the duty of doing to others as they would be done to. Now He looked for the fruits of justice and righteousness. It was a reasonable demand, the lowest that could have been made. Yet even this demand was not met.
III. The judgment which God designed to bring upon them (ver. 6, 7). As we objected to the attempt to find exact counterparts between the various privileges of the Jews and the labours which had been bestowed upon the vineyard, so we set aside as needless all attempts to discover parallels between the various items of the threatening against the vineyard and the judgments by which the Jews were visited. All that the prophet means to say is this, that the privileges which the Jews enjoyed pre-eminently above all the other nations God would take from them, and they should be reduced to the level of their neighbours. The removal of these privileges was itself the heaviest judgment that could have befallen them.
Practical Lesson.—Where there is privilege there is obligation. 1. You who are Christians are responsible for your privileges. Consider how great they are: a knowledge of the will of God; the example of Christ; a throne of grace ever accessible; the counsel and help of the Holy Spirit. If God looked for the fruits of justice and righteousness from the Jews, what manner of fruit may He reasonably expect from you? 2. Even those of you who are not Christians, but are still living in sin, have privileges; a preached Gospel; the offer of a free, full, and present salvation; the strivings with you of the Holy Ghost. Despise them not, or you will perish.—Thomas Neave.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “The house of Israel” (beth Yisrâel) was the whole nation, which is also represented in other passages under the same figure of a vineyard (ch. xxvii. 2, sqq.; Ps. lxxx., &c). But as Isaiah was prophet in Judah, he applies the figure more particularly to Judah, which was called Jehovah’s favourite plantation, inasmuch as it was the seat of the Divine sanctuary and of the Davidic kingdom. This makes it easy enough to interpret the different parts of the simile employed. The fat mountain horn was Canaan, flowing with milk and honey (Exod. xv. 17); the digging of the vineyard, and clearing it of stones, was the clearing of Canaan from its former heathen inhabitants (Ps. xliv. 3); the sorek-vines were the holy priests and prophets and kings of Israel of the earlier and better times (Jer. ii. 21); the defensive and ornamental tower in the midst of the vineyard was Jerusalem as the royal city, with Zion the royal fortress (Micah iv. 8); the winepress-trough was the temple, where, according to Ps. xxxvi. 8, the wine of heavenly pleasures flowed in streams, and from which, according to Ps. xlii. and many other passages, the thirst of the soul might all be quenched. The grazing and treading down are explained in Jer. v. 10 and xii. 10.—Delitsch.
I believe that in a poetical allegory there is always more or less an allusion to the details of that which is allegorised; but it is only allusion,—to be realised by the imagination, rather than by the understanding, of the reader, as well as the poet. The several images are parts of a picture, which must be contemplated as a picture, and its meaning is to enter into the mind through the imagination. Still, a matter-of-fact commentator, like Vitrings, deeply imbued with the spirit of his author, will sometimes greatly help his reader’s imagination by his minute analysis; and I think this is the case in his explanation of the details of this description of the vineyard. “A vineyard” consists of vines planted for the sake of their fruit: the Hebrew nation with its tribes, its families, and its persons, was such a vineyard, appointed to bring forth the fruits of personal and social religion and virtue,—holiness, righteousness, and love to God and man: this nation was established in a land flowing with milk and honey, endowed with all natural advantages, all circumstances which could favour inward life by outward prosperity; and the grace and favour of Jehovah, and the influence of His Spirit, always symbolised by oil, were continually causing it to be fruitful. “And He fenced it,”—the arm of the Lord of hosts, employing kings and heroes, was its defence against all enemies; its institutions were fitted to preserve internal order, and to prevent the admixture of evil from without, with the chosen and separated nation; and its territory was marked out and protected by natural boundaries in a noticeable manner. “Gathered out the stones,”—the heathen nations, and the stocks and stones they worshipped. “And planted it with the choicest vine,”—a nation of the noble stock of the patriarchs, and chosen and cultivated by the Lord of the vineyard, with especial care, for His own use. “And built a tower in it,”—namely, Jerusalem—for the protection and superintendence of the vineyard, as well as to be its farmhouse, so to speak. “And also made a wine-press therein,”—where the wine-press seems to point to the same idea as the sending the servants to receive the fruit, in our Lord’s modification of this parable: lawgivers, kings, and judges, the temple with its priesthood and ordinances, and the schools of the prophets, were the appointed means for pressing out and receiving the wine—the spiritual virtues and graces of the vineyard. And the end is, that “He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.”—Strachy, pp. 62, 63.