Isaiah 5

 

1 Now I will sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard. My well beloved has a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: 2 And dug all around it, and removed its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the middle of it, and carved out a winepress in it: and he expected it produce grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

 

  • The field is the world.
  • The vineyard is God’s word planted in the hearts.
  • He meant it to bring forth justice and from that, prosperity, love and joy.
  • “a very fruitful hill” is translated literally from the Hebrew language, ‘the horn  of the son  of oil.’
  • Oil is the symbol of the Holy Spirit in scripture.
  • The Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary to father Jesus Christ (Luke 1:35).
  • Christ’s death enabled the Father to pour out the Holy Spirit on all who believe to make them fruitful in obedience, justice, love, and joy to God.
  • Zephaniah 3:17 The LORD your God in the midst of you is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over you with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over you with singing.

 

3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, Please judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I expected it to produce grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes? 5 So now; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up; and break down its wall, and it will be trampled down: 6 I will lay it waste: it will not be pruned, or dug; but briers and thorns will come up: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.


  • Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

 

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah a plant of his pleasures: and he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but (heard) a cry of distress. 8 So cries of grief (will be) to those that join house to house, that lay field to field, until there be no space left, that you may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! 9 In my ears the LORD of hosts (has sworn), Surely many great and beautiful houses will be desolate, without inhabitant. 10 Yes, ten acres of vineyard will yield one bath, and a homer of seed will yield only an ephah of grain. 11 Cries of grief to them that rise up early in the morning, that they may pursue strong drink; that continue until night, until wine inflames them! 12 They banquet with the harp, the strings, the tambourine, and the flute, and wine: but they do not regard the work of the LORD or consider the operation of his hands. 13 Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honorable men starve, and their multitude is parched with thirst. 14 Therefore hell has enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoices, will descend into it. 15 And the common man will be humbled, and the mighty man will be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty will be humbled:

 

  • These people looked to music, wine, and strong drink to bring them joy and dull the pain of their lives empty without God.
  • But God’s love is better than wine (Song of Solomon 1:2).

 

The Lord will be exalted in judgment, sanctified in righteousness

 

16 But the LORD of hosts will be exalted in judgment, and the holy God will be sanctified in righteousness. 17 Then the lambs will graze in their pasture, and foreigners will eat the wasted places of the wealthy. 18 Cries of grief to those that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin with a cart rope: 19 That say, Let him hurry and speed up his work, that we may see it: and let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it! 20 Woe to them that call evil good, and good evil; that substitute darkness for light, and light for darkness; that substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

 

  • Good that omits God and what He says is not good. It is evil.
  • The devil’s plan parallels God’s plan, paradise on earth. But it leaves out our Maker.
  • The world is full of the devil’s plan and God’s people don’t see it because they don’t know His word.
  • His word gives light; it enables us to see truth.

 

21 Cries of grief to them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! 22 Cries of grief to them that are heroes in drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink: 23 Who justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! 24 Therefore the fire devours the stubble, and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root will be rottenness, and their blossom will blow away as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. 25 The anger of the LORD is kindled against his people for this, and he has stretched out his hand against them, and has struck them: and the hills trembled, and their carcasses were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out.

 

  • Matthew3:11-12 I baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he will baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: 12 Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the granary; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

 

26 And he will lift up a standard to the distant nation and will whistle to them from the ends of the earth: and, behold, they will come with swift speed: 27 None is weary or stumbles; none slumbers or sleeps; the belt of their waist is not loose nor the strap of their sandals broken: 28 Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent, their horses' hoofs are like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind: 29 Their roaring is like a lion, they roar like young lions: yes, they roar, and grab the prey, and will carry it away safely, and none will deliver it. 30 And in that day they will roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one looks to the land, they see darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens.

 

  • This sounds harsh until we look around us at the suffering in our own lives and the lives of others on this planet. Evil has done this.
  • But evil only operates through the choices of people.
  • God’s people are to go and teach the world of the Savior who loved them enough to die for them.
  • They are to teach them to walk in God’s ways.
  • But teaching people to be ‘good’ doesn’t make them acceptable to live with God forever.

 

                                               Isaiah 6

 

God, our King, is high, holy, and exquisite

 

1 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. 2 Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one cried to another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is filled with His glory.

 

  • The One who made and sustains all things is not like us.
  • He is infinite, eternal genius. He knows all things.
  • He is infinite and eternal power. He has all power.
  • He is infinite and eternal righteousness. He is always infinitely and eternally right.
  • He is infinite and eternal love.
  • The creatures that dwell throughout the universe are not the horrible monsters of TV and movies, but beautiful winged creatures called angels, cherubs, and seraphim.
  • ‘The whole earth is full of His glory’ is correctly translated from Hebrew ‘His glory is the fullness of the whole earth.’
  • It is the answer to the emptiness inside man.
  • Ezekiel 1:26-28 And above the expanse that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, like a sapphire stone: and on the throne was the appearance of a man above upon it. And I saw as the color of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins upward, and from the appearance of his loins downward, I fire, with brightness around it. 28.As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the glory of the LORD.

 

4 And the posts of the thresholds shook at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 Then said I, Woe is me! I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: 7 And he laid it on my mouth, and said, Look, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.

 

  • The word Lord means controller.
  • All creatures exercise their freewill within the boundaries that God allows.
  • Daniel 5:21 the most high God rules in the kingdom of men, and that he appoints over it whom ever he will.
  • Hebrews 1:3 (Jesus) being the brightness of his glory, and the exact image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

 

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Who can I send, who will go for us? Then I said, Behold me; send me. 9 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear without ceasing but do not understand; see without ceasing but do not perceive. 10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. 11 Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities are wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land is utterly desolate, 12 And the LORD has removed men far away, and there is a great forsaking in the midst of the land.

 

  • In Deuteronomy 28 God spoke the blessing that would follow obedience and the disasters that would follow disobedience.
  • Being removed from the great land God had given them was one of the results of disobedience.
  • Deuteronomy 30 states the purpose and the result of being removed from the land. It brought their hearts back to God.

 

13 Yet a tenth will remain in it that will return, and will be burned: as an elm tree or an oak, whose stump remains when it is cut down: so the holy seed will be the stump.

 

  • 2Kings 19:30 And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah will yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.  31 For out of Jerusalem will go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
  • 2Timothy 2:13 If we do not believe, yet he remains faithful: he cannot deny himself.

 

                                               Isaiah 7

 

Do not fear; none can prevail against God

 

1 And in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went to war against Jerusalem, but could not prevail against it. 2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is allied with Ephraim. And his heart and the heart of his people was moved, like the trees of the woods are moved with the wind. 3 Then the LORD said to Isaiah, Go now to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shearjashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field; 4 And say to him, Listen, and be quiet; Do not fear, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. 5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have plotted evil against you, saying, 6 Let us go up against Judah, and terrorize it, and let make for ourselves a break in its walls, and set up Tabeel as king in the midst of it: 7 This is what the self-existent Lord says, It will not stand, neither will it come to pass. 8 For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within 65 years Ephraim will be broken, that it be not a people. 9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If you will not believe, surely you will not be established.

 

  • The Lord controls history. That’s what the title LORD means.
  • God establishes us by faith. Only faith pleases him (Hebrews 11:6, 1 Peter 1:7).
  • Man fell by disregarding God’s word. He is saved, and re-established by believing what God says to us.
  • Shearjashub means the remnant will return.
  • Romans 8:31-32 What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He that did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?
  • Psalm 91:7 A thousand will fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it will not come near you.

 

10 The LORD spoke to Ahaz again, saying, 11 Ask a sign of the LORD your God; make it as deep as hell or as high as heaven. 12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, nor will I tempt the LORD! 13 And he said, Hear you now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will also you weary my God? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign; Behold, a virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and will call his name Immanuel.

 

  • The correct Hebrew translation is ‘the virgin’ not a virgin.
  • The human form that Christ indwelt was formed in the womb of the virgin.
  • This made her the human mother of the humanity of Jesus Christ, not the mother of the eternal God.
  • She was only a virgin until after the birth of Jesus. She then had four more sons and at least 2 daughters (Matthew 13:55, 56).
  • People worship her all over the world and pray to her rather than to God. But she did not create anything. She did not make us in her image. She performed no miracles and did not rise from the dead. Those who worship her instead of God are going to hell forever.
  • Matthew 1:23 Behold, the virgin will be with child, and will bring forth a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which is translated, God with us.

 

15 He will eat butter and honey that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. 16 For before the child knows to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that you abhor will be forsaken of both her kings. 17 The LORD will bring on you, and on your people, and on your father's house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.

 

God moves nations and people; He knows best

 

18 And it will come to pass in that day that the LORD will whistle for the fly that is in the remotest part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. 19 They will come, and all of them will rest in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and on all thorns, and in all pastures. 20 In that same day the Lord will shave with a razor hired from regions beyond the Euphrates (the king of Assyria), the head, and the hair of the feet: and also consume the beard.

 

  • Israel’s kings often led the nation into idolatry and thus kept them from lives of God’s blessing and abundance. God warned them of destruction for many years before He brought it to pass. Deuteronomy 30 explains God’s good purpose in it.
  • 2 Chronicles 18:18-22 I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing on his right hand and on his left. And the LORD said, Who will entice Ahab king of Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? … 20 Then a spirit came out and stood before the LORD, and said, I will entice him. And the LORD said to him, How? And he said, I will go out, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.

 

21 And it will come to pass in that day, that a man will nourish a young cow, and two sheep. 22  And for the abundance of milk that they will give he will eat butter: everyone that is left in the land will eat butter and honey. 23 And in that day, in every place where there were a thousand vines at a thousand pieces of silver, it will be for briers and thorns. 24 Men will come there with arrows and with bows; because all the land will become briers and thorns. 25  And on all mountains that were hoed with the hoe, no one will come there the fear of briers and thorns: but it will be for the sending out the oxen, and for the treading of sheep.

 

  • The Lord provided food for those left in the land (verse 22).
  • Psalm 45:6 Your throne, O God, is forever and ever: the scepter of you kingdom is a right scepter.
  • Psalm 11:4 The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD's throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.

 

 

 

 

SUMMARY: Isaiah 5-7

 

  • The Lord will be exalted in judgment, sanctified in righteousness
  • God, our King, is high, holy, and exquisite
  • Do not fear; none can prevail against God
  • God moves nations and people; He knows best