Yesaya 5:1-2

A Love Song Gone Sour

5:1 I ¹  will sing to my love –

a song to my lover about his vineyard. ² 

My love had a vineyard

on a fertile hill. ³ 

5:2 He built a hedge around it, ⁴  removed its stones,

and planted a vine.

He built a tower in the middle of it,

and constructed a winepress.

He waited for it to produce edible grapes,

but it produced sour ones instead. ⁵ 

Yeremia 2:21

2:21 I planted you in the land

like a special vine of the very best stock.

Why in the world have you turned into something like a wild vine

that produces rotten, foul-smelling grapes? ⁶ 

Matius 21:33-41

The Parable of the Tenants

21:33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner ⁷  who planted a vineyard. ⁸  He put a fence around it, dug a pit for its winepress, and built a watchtower. Then ⁹  he leased it to tenant farmers ¹⁰  and went on a journey. 21:34 When the harvest time was near, he sent his slaves ¹¹  to the tenants to collect his portion of the crop. ¹²  21:35 But the tenants seized his slaves, beat one, ¹³  killed another, and stoned another. 21:36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them the same way. 21:37 Finally he sent his son to them, ¹⁴  saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 21:38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and get his inheritance!’ 21:39 So ¹⁵  they seized him, ¹⁶  threw him out of the vineyard, ¹⁷  and killed him. 21:40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 21:41 They said to him, “He will utterly destroy those evil men! Then he will lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his portion at the harvest.”

[5:1]  ¹ tn It is uncertain who is speaking here. Possibly the prophet, taking the role of best man, composes a love song for his friend on the occasion of his wedding. If so, יָדִיד (yadid) should be translated “my friend.” The present translation assumes that Israel is singing to the Lord. The word דוֹד (dod, “lover”) used in the second line is frequently used by the woman in the Song of Solomon to describe her lover.

[5:1]  ² sn Israel, viewing herself as the Lord’s lover, refers to herself as his vineyard. The metaphor has sexual connotations, for it pictures her capacity to satisfy his appetite and to produce children. See Song 8:12.

[5:1]  ³ tn Heb “on a horn, a son of oil.” Apparently קֶרֶן (qeren, “horn”) here refers to the horn-shaped peak of a hill (BDB 902 s.v.) or to a mountain spur, i.e., a ridge that extends laterally from a mountain (HALOT 1145 s.v. קֶרֶן; H. Wildberger, Isaiah, 1:180). The expression “son of oil” pictures this hill as one capable of producing olive trees. Isaiah’s choice of קֶרֶן, a rare word for hill, may have been driven by paronomastic concerns, i.e., because קֶרֶן sounds like כֶּרֶם (kerem, “vineyard”).

[5:2]  ⁴ tn Or, “dug it up” (so NIV); KJV “fenced it.’ See HALOT 810 s.v. עזק.

[5:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “wild grapes,” i.e., sour ones (also in v. 4).

[5:2]  sn At this point the love song turns sour as the Lord himself breaks in and completes the story (see vv. 3-6). In the final line of v. 2 the love song presented to the Lord becomes a judgment speech by the Lord.

[2:21]  ⁶ tc Heb “I planted you as a choice vine, all of it true seed. How then have you turned into a putrid thing to me, a strange [or wild] vine.” The question expresses surprise and consternation. The translation is based on a redivision of the Hebrew words סוּרֵי הַגֶּפֶן (sure haggefen) into סוֹרִיָּה גֶּפֶן (soriyyah gefen) and the recognition of a hapax legomenon סוֹרִיָּה (soriyyah) meaning “putrid, stinking thing.” See HALOT 707 s.v. סוֹרִי.

[21:33]  ⁷ tn The term here refers to the owner and manager of a household.

[21:33]  ⁸ sn The vineyard is a figure for Israel in the OT (Isa 5:1-7). The nation and its leaders are the tenants, so the vineyard here may well refer to the promise that resides within the nation. The imagery is like that in Rom 11:11-24.

[21:33]  ⁹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[21:33]  ¹⁰ sn The leasing of land to tenant farmers was common in this period.

[21:34]  ¹¹ tn See the note on the word “slave” in 8:9.

[21:34]  sn These slaves represent the prophets God sent to the nation, who were mistreated and rejected.

[21:34]  ¹² tn Grk “to collect his fruits.”

[21:35]  ¹³ sn The image of the tenants mistreating the owner’s slaves pictures the nation’s rejection of the prophets and their message.

[21:37]  ¹⁴ sn The owner’s decision to send his son represents God sending Jesus.

[21:39]  ¹⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the tenants’ decision to kill the son in v. 38.

[21:39]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “seizing him.” The participle λαβόντες (labontes) has been translated as attendant circumstance.

[21:39]  ¹⁷ sn Throwing the heir out of the vineyard pictures Jesus’ death outside of Jerusalem.