The chapter had begun with the song about a vineyard. We discover in verse 7 that the vineyard represents Old Covenant Israel and the owner/investor in the vineyard is the LORD. After all the costly investment of grace God looked for a return but instead of a harvest of sweet grapes the vineyard yielded what the Hebrew text literally calls “stink fruit.” This does not argue for the continuance and maintenance of the vineyard. And we read in verses 5-7 about God’s announced judgment. The remainder of the chapter gives details of the lifestyles within Israel that were inviting divine judgment. If the first word picture (vv. 8-10) deals with the unscrupulous accumulation of property or greed which is idolatry. The 2nd word picture (vv. 11-12) deals with the incessant pursuit of pleasure as the meaning and end of life. The point of these word pictures is not to give us a history lesson. Stink fruit back then is stink fruit today. What invited judgment back then still does. Those whose lives are governed by greed or by hedonism or both are still the opponents of God just as they were 2,700 years ago when Isaiah 5 was written. Those who live habitually in the ways described in Isaiah 5 will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Isaiah 5 is not given to the human race for our information; it is given to profit our never dying souls. The point is that we all be made to see the holiness of God, the sinfulness of sin, the tragedy of idolatry, the reality of divine judgment and the need for the gospel. Old Covenant Israel under divine judgment preaches to all of us Gentiles too-both inside and outside the church. So let us give ear to the Word of the holy and living God.
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