Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 5:8
Woe unto them that join house to house, [that] lay field to field, till [there be] no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!
8. that they may be earth ] Render with R.V., and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land; i.e. so that only the few have residential rights.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
8 10. The first woe, against the absorption of small properties by the wealthy landowners. Cruel evictions, by which the smaller peasant proprietors lost not only their homes but the rights of citizenship, were common in the age of Isaiah, both in Judah and Israel. Cf. Mic 2:2; Mic 2:9; Amo 2:6 f. “The old Israelite state was so entirely based on the participation of every freeman in the common soil, and so little recognised the mere possession of capital, that men were in danger of losing civil rights along with house and fields, and becoming mere hirelings or even slaves” (Duhm). An instance of the tenacity with which the Hebrew yeoman clung to his land may be seen in 1 Kings 21. For legal checks to this evil, see Lev 25:8 ff.; Num. 27:1 11, 36; Deu 27:17.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
8 24. Denunciation of the Social Evils which call down God’s Judgment on the Nation
The indictment contains six counts, each introduced by the word “Woe,” and is addressed exclusively to the upper classes, although the punishment of their sin falls on the nation as a whole. The prophet sets before us a vivid picture of a debased aristocracy, in whom public virtue has been eaten out by avarice and sensuality; and he traces with remarkable insight the effect of these sins in the religious insensibility and perversion of the moral sentiments which characterised the nobles of Judah at this time.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Wo unto them … – The prophet now proceeds to specify some of the crimes to which he had referred in the parable of the vineyard, of which the Jews had been guilty. The first is avarice.
That join house to house – That seek to possess many houses; or perhaps that seek to live in large and magnificent palaces. A similar denunciation of this sin is recorded in Mic 2:2; Neh 5:1-8. This, together with what follows, was contrary to the law of Moses. He provided that when the children of Israel should enter the land of Canaan, the land should be equitably divided; and in order to prevent avarice, he ordained the jubilee, occurring once in fifty years, by which every man and every family should be restored to their former possession; Lev. 25. Perhaps there could have been no law so well framed to prevent the existence, and avoid the evils of covetousness. Yet, in defiance of the obvious requirements and spirit of that law, the people in the time of Isaiah had beome generally covetous.
That lay field to field – That purchase one farm after another. The words that lay, mean to cause to approach; that is, they join on one farm after another.
Till there be no place – Until they reach the outer limit of the land; until they possess all.
That they may be placed alone – That they may displace all others; that they may drive off from their lands all others, and take possession of them themselves.
In the midst of the earth – Or rather, in the midst of the land. They seek to obtain the whole of it, and to expel all the present owners. Never was there a more correct description of avarice. It is satisfied with no present possessions, and would be satisfied only if all the earth were in its possession. Nor would the covetous man be satisfied then. He would sit down and weep that there was nothing more which he could desire. How different this from that contentment which is produced by religion, and the love of the happiness of others!
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 5:8-10
Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field
The selfish landowner
Selfishness, or the making self the centre to which all things are to tend, is the great sin in all ages and peoples.
As soon as national institutions have awakened the sense of personality and the feeling of self-respect, the desire of accumulating wealth grows with them. And in no form is it more liable to abuse than in connection with the possession of land. Men desire, by an almost universal instinct, to possess property in land, with its healthy occupations and interests, so varied and multiplied by the living powers of nature, and with its important political and social rights which grow up with the duties which are specially connected with it; for this kind of property demands the fulfilment of more, and more obvious duties than any other, while it confers corresponding rights and powers by bringing a man into more complete personal relationship with his neighbours than is possible in the crowd of cities and the whirl of city trades. Yet, since the land cannot be increased in quantity, its possession by one man is the exclusion of another, and the Hebrew laws endeavoured to meet this difficulty by special provisions, the breach or evasion of which the prophet now denounces in his first woe on the selfish landowner. He who can join house to house and lay field to field when he knows, and long has known, face to face, the very man, wife and child whom he has dispossessed, and can drive out by his own simple act his fellow men to be desolate in their poverty, in order that he may be alone in his riches, may expect a punishment proportioned to his crime. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
Nemesis
The prophet heard, ringing in his ears, the declaration of Jehovah, the King of the land, that the great and fair palaces should become as desolate as the peasants and yeomens cottages which had made place for them–the vineyard of ten acres yield but eight gallons of wine, and the cornfield shall give back but a tenth part of the seed sown in it. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
The Mosaic legislation
Moses directed as equal a division of the land as possible, in the first instance, among the 600,000 families who originally formed the nation; and provided against the permanent alienation of any estate by giving a right of repurchase to the seller and his relations, and of repossession without purchase at the Jubilee. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)
Land laws
In the Channel Islands the acreage to be owned by one individual is limited. In Norway the law provides that the heirs of anyone who has parted with his property may buy that property back at sale price within a term of five years. (F. Sessions.)
Hebrew land laws
The Hebrew legislation further prevented the exhaustion of the soil and the fruit trees, by enforcing fallow and rest during every seventh year. The offerings of first fruits really constituted a kind of land tax, payable to Jehovah as Over-Lord, and tending to prevent the conversion of folk land into thanes land, or kings land. The legislation placed Jehovahs tenants under a poor law, which compelled cultivators to leave the gleanings of the crops, and all that the fallows of the seventh year Sabbaths produced spontaneously in those prolific fields, for the support of the needy. By the limitations of the right of private ownership,–a right that was not denied, and was frequently exercised,–every man was taught his responsibilities to his fellows. The theory was, as someone has written: Brotherhood in the enjoyment of a Fathers bounty. (F. Sessions.)
Land grabbing
Land grabbingand evictions may be new terms, but they are century-old sins. (F. Sessions.)
The land question
The land question is as old as history. The Hebrews were hardly out of the wilderness before laws were enacted to prevent the strong from getting more land than anyone ought to possess. The land laws of Moses occupy a large place in his legislation. The prevention of monopoly in land was clearly in the mind of the Hebrew lawgiver. In Isaiahs time the nation had recovered from poverty and grown rich, and the wealthy and ruling classes had begun to grasp the earth. They would have tried to fence in the air and pack the sunlight in barrels, if they could have done so. The spirit that would monopolise land would monopolise light if it could. Against this awful wrong the voice of the Lord rings its condemnation. Four things belong to man as man, and anyone who tries to prevent their being used for the service of humanity is a sinner against the universe and against God. Those four things are: the earth, the air, the water, and the light. Every man has a right to live, and no one can live as he ought without free access to earth, air, water, and light. Isaiah brought the people to this one point–this land belongs to God, and you are using it as if it were yours to do with as you please. And that is all that need be said today. The land, like the air, belongs to God; and if to God, then to humanity; and it is our business to find out, as all easily can if they will, how the great Owner of all the earth would have men use that which must be the home of all His creatures. Of one thing, however, we may be sure. He never intended that a few big lions should get possession of all the forests, so that there should be no comfortable places left for the rabbits, the sheep, and the cattle, except in holes in the ground; and He never intended that a few strong men should get possession of all the fertile, healthful, and beautiful ]portions of earth, so that the rest of humanity–the artists, the artisans, the literary men, and those who work with their hands–should be obliged to live in cellars and attics and hardly know what is meant by that great and dear word home. (Amory H. Bradford, D. D.)
A woe on monopolists
I. THE SIN. Their fault is–
1. That they are inordinate in their desires to enrich themselves, and make it their whole care and business to raise an estate, as if they had nothing to mind, nothing to seek, nothing to do in this world but that. They never know when they have enough, but the more they have the more they would have. They cannot enjoy what they have, nor do good with it, for contriving and studying to make it more. They must have variety of houses, a winter house and a summer house; and if another mans house or field lie convenient to theirs, as Naboths vineyard to Ahabs, they must have that too, or they cannot be easy.
2. They are herein careless of others; nay, and injurious to them. They would live so as to let nobody live but themselves. They would swell so big as to fill all space and yet are still unsatisfied (Ecc 5:10).
II. THE PUNISHMENT. That which is threatened as the punishment of this sin is–
1. That the houses they were so fond of should be untenanted, should stand long empty, and so should yield them no rent, and go out of repair. Mens projects are often frustrated, and what they frame answers not the intention.
2. That the fields they were so fond of should be unfruitful. (M. Henry.)
Unpatriotic monopolies
In 1650, while Cromwell was prosecuting his campaign against Charles II in Scotland, he wrote the Speaker of the Parliament, urging the reformation of many abuses and added, If there be anyone that makes many poor to make a few rich, that suits not a commonwealth. (C. Knights England.)
Greed pauperises the soul
A farmer said he should like to have all the land that joined his own. Bonaparte, who had the same appetite, endeavoured to make the Mediterranean a French lake. Czar Alexander was more expansive, and wished to call the Pacific my ocean; and the Americans were obliged to resist his attempts to make it a close sea. But if he had the earth for his pasture, and the sea for his pond, he would be a pauper still. He only is rich who owns the day. (R. W. Emerson.)
Covetous persons are
Covetous persons are like sponges, which greedily drink in water, but return very little, until they are squeezed. A covetous person wants what he has, as well as what he has not, because he is never satisfied with it. (G. S. Bowes.)
Folly of covetousness
If you should see a man that had a large pond of water yet living in continual thirst, not suffering himself to drink half a draught for fear of lessening his pond; if you should see him wasting his time and strength in fetching more water to his pond, always thirsty, yet always carrying a bucket of water in his hand, watching early and late to catch the drops of rain, gaping after every cloud, and running greedily into every mire and mud in hopes of water, and always studying how to make every ditch empty itself into the pond; if you should see him grow grey in these anxious labours, and at last end a careful thirsty life by falling into his own pond, would you not say that such a one was not only the author of his own disquiet, but was foolish enough to be reckoned among madmen? But foolish and absurd as this character is, it does not represent half the follies and absurd disquiets of the covetous man. (Laws Serious Call.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 8. Wo unto them that – lay field to field – “You who lay field unto field” ] Read takribu, in the second person; to answer to the verb following. So Vulgate.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
That join house to house, that lay field to field; that add new purchases of houses and lands to their former possessions; not that this was in itself unlawful, but because they did this from an inordinate and insatiable desire of riches, and with the injury of their brethren, as is manifest from the foregoing and following words.
That they may be alone; that they alone may be the lords and owners, all others only their tenants and servants.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. (Lev 25:13;Mic 2:2). The jubilee restorationof possessions was intended as a guard against avarice.
till there be no placeleftfor any one else.
that they may berather,and ye be.
the earththe land.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Woe unto them that join house to house,…. Or “O ye that join”, c. for, as Aben Ezra observes, it signifies calling, as in
Isa 55:1 though Jarchi takes it to be expressive of crying and groaning, on account of future punishments; and he observes, that as there are twenty two blessings pronounced in the book of Psalms, on those that keep the law, so there are twenty two woes pronounced by Isaiah upon the wicked:
[that] lay field to field; the sin of covetousness is exposed and condemned in these words; not that it is unlawful in itself for a man that has a house or field of his own to purchase another that is next unto it; but when he is insatiable, and not content with his houses and lands, but is always coveting more, this is his sin, and especially if he seeks to get them by fraud or force:
till [there] be no place; for others to dwell in and possess; and so the Targum,
“and say, until we possess every place;”
or “unto the end of the place” x, city, or field; till they have got all the houses in the town or city, and all the pieces of ground in the field, in their own possession:
that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth, or land; that is, of Judea; wholly inhabit it themselves, and have the sole power and jurisdiction over it. It is in the Hebrew text y “that ye may be placed”, c. the Targum is,
“and they think they shall dwell alone in the midst of the land.”
x “usque ad terminum loci”, V. L. y “constituamini”, Vatablus, Forerius, Montanus; “colloeemini”, Calvin.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“Woe unto them that join house to house, who lay field to field, till there is no more room, and ye alone are dwelling in the midst of the land.” The participle is continued in the finite verb, as in Isa 5:23; Isa 10:1; the regular syntactic construction is cases of this kind (Ges. 134, Anm. 2). The preterites after “till” (there are to such preterites, for ‘ephes is an intensified enclosing the verbal idea) correspond to future perfects: “They, the insatiable, would not rest till, after every smaller piece of landed property had been swallowed by them, the whole land had come into their possession, and no one beside themselves was settled in the land” (Job 22:8). Such covetousness was all the more reprehensible, because the law of Israel and provided so very stringently and carefully, that as far as possible there should be an equal distribution of the soil, and that hereditary family property should be inalienable. All landed property that had been alienated reverted to the family every fiftieth year, or year of jubilee; so that alienation simply had reference to the usufruct of the land till that time. It was only in the case of houses in towns that the right of redemption was restricted to one year, at least according to a later statute. How badly the law of the year of jubilee had been observed, may be gathered from Jer 34, where we learn that the law as to the manumission of Hebrew slaves in the sabbatical year had fallen entirely into neglect. Isaiah’s contemporary, Micah, makes just the same complaint as Isaiah himself (vid., Mic 2:2).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Worldly-Mindedness Reproved; The Punishment of the Sensual. | B. C. 758. |
8 Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! 9 In mine ears said the LORD of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant. 10 Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of a homer shall yield an ephah. 11 Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them! 12 And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the LORD, neither consider the operation of his hands. 13 Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. 14 Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it. 15 And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled: 16 But the LORD of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness. 17 Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat.
The world and the flesh are the two great enemies that we are in danger of being overpowered by; yet we are in no danger if we do not ourselves yield to them. Eagerness of the world, and indulgence of the flesh, are the two sins against which the prophet, in God’s name, here denounces woes. These were sins which then abounded among the men of Judah, some of the wild grapes they brought forth (v. 4), and for which God threatens to bring ruin upon them. They are sins which we have all need to stand upon our guard against and dread the consequences of.
I. Here is a woe to those who set their hearts upon the wealth of the world, and place their happiness in that, and increase it to themselves by indirect and unlawful means (v. 8), who join house to house and lay field to field, till there be no place, no room for anybody to live by them. If they could succeed, they would be placed alone in the midst of the earth, would monopolize possessions and preferments, and engross all profits and employments to themselves. Not that it is a sin for those who have a house and a field, of they have wherewithal, to purchase another; but
1. Their fault is, (1.) That they are inordinate in their desires to enrich themselves, and make it their whole care and business to raise an estate, as if they had nothing to mind, nothing to seek, nothing to do, in this world, but that. They never know when they have enough, but the more they have the more they would have; and, like the daughters of the horseleech, they cry, Give, give. They cannot enjoy what they have, nor do good with it, but are constantly contriving and studying to make it more. They must have variety of houses, a winter-house, and a summer-house, and if another man’s house or field lie convenient to theirs, as Naboth’s vineyard to Ahab’s, they must have that too, or they cannot be easy. (2.) That they are herein careless of others, nay, and injurious to them. They would live so as to let nobody live but themselves. So that their insatiable covetings may be gratified, they care not what becomes of all about them, what encroachments they make upon their neighbours’ rights, what hardships they put upon those that they have power over or advantage against, nor what base and wicked arts they use to heap up treasure to themselves. They would swell so big as to fill all space, and yet are still unsatisfied (Eccl. v. 10), as Alexander, who, when he fancied he had conquered the world, wept because he had not another world to conquer. Deficiente terr, non impletur avaritia–If the whole earth were monopolized, avarice would thirst for more. What! will you be placed alone in the midst of the earth? (so some read it); will you be so foolish as to desire it, when we have so much need of the service of others and so much comfort in their society? Will you be so foolish as to expect that the earth shall be forsaken for us (Job xviii. 4), when it is by multitudes that the earth is to be replenished? An propter vos solos tanta terra creata est?–Was the wide world created merely for you? Lyra.
2. That which is threatened as the punishment of this sin is that neither the houses nor the fields they were thus greedy of should turn to any account, Isa 5:9; Isa 5:10. God whispered it to the prophet in his ear, as he speaks in a like case (ch. xxii. 14): It was revealed in my ears by the Lord of hosts (as God told Samuel a thing in his ear, 1 Sam. ix. 15); he thought he heard it still sounding in his ears; but he proclaimed it, as he ought, upon the house-tops, Matt. x. 27. (1.) That the houses they were so fond of should be untenanted, should stand long empty, and should yield them no rent, and go out of repair: Many houses shall be desolate, the people that should dwell in them, being cut off by sword, famine, or pestilence, or carried into captivity; or trade being dead, and poverty coming upon the country like an armed man, those that had been housekeepers were forced to become lodgers, or shift for themselves elsewhere. Even great and fair houses, that would invite tenants, and (there being a scarcity of tenants) might be taken at low rates, shall stand empty without inhabitants. God created not the earth in vain; he formed it to be inhabited, ch. xlv. 18. But men’s projects are often frustrated, and what they frame answers not the intention. We have a saying, That fools build houses for wise men to live in; but sometimes, as the event proves, they are built for no man to live in. God has many ways to empty the most populous cities. (2.) That the fields they were so fond of should be unfruitful (v. 10): Ten acres of vineyard shall yield only such a quantity of grapes as will make but one bath of wine (which was about eight gallons), and the seed of a homer, a bushel’s sowing of ground, shall yield but an ephah, which was the tenth part of a homer; so that through the barrenness of the ground, or the unreasonableness of the weather, they should not have more than a tenth part of their seed again. Note, Those that set their hearts upon the world will justly be disappointed in their expectations from it.
II. Here is a woe to those that dote upon the pleasures and delights of sense, Isa 5:11; Isa 5:12. Sensuality ruins men as certainly as worldliness and oppression. As Christ pronounces a woe against those that are rich, so also against those that laugh now and are full (Luk 6:24; Luk 6:25), and fare sumptuously, Luke xvi. 19. Observe,
1. Who the sinners are against whom this woe is denounced. (1.) They are such as are given to drink; they make their drinking their business, have their hearts upon it, and overcharge themselves with it. They rise early to follow strong drink, as husbandmen and tradesmen do to follow their employments; as if they were afraid of losing time from that which is the greatest misspending of time. Whereas commonly those that are drunken are drunken in the night, when they have despatched the business of the day, these neglect business, abandon it, and give up themselves to the service of the flesh; for they sit at their cups all day, and continue till night, till wine inflame them–inflame their lusts (chambering and wantonness follow upon rioting and drunkenness)–inflame their passions; for who but such have contentions and wounds without cause? Prov. xxiii. 29-35. They make a perfect trade of drinking; nor do they seek the shelter of the night for this work of darkness, as men ashamed of it, but count it a pleasure to riot in the day-time. See 2 Pet. ii. 13. (2.) They are such as are given to mirth. They have their feasts, and they are so merrily disposed that they cannot dine or sup without music, musical instruments of all sorts, like David (Amos vi. 5), like Solomon (Eccl. ii. 8); the harp and the viol, the tabret and pipe, must accompany the wine, that every sense may be gratified to a nicety; they take the timbrel and harp, Job xxi. 12. The use of music is lawful in itself; but when it is excessive, when we set our hearts upon it, misspend time in it, so that it crowds our spiritual and divine pleasures and draws away the heart from God, then it turns into sin for us. (3.) They are such as never give their mind to any thing that is serious: They regard not the work of the Lord; they observe not his power, wisdom, and goodness, in those creatures which they abuse and subject to vanity, nor the bounty of his providence in giving them those good things which they make the food and fuel of their lusts. God’s judgments have already seized them, and they are under the tokens of his displeasure, but they regard not; they consider not the hand of God in all these things; his hand is lifted up, but they will not see, because they will not disturb themselves in their pleasures nor think what God is doing with them.
2. What the judgments are which are denounced against them, and in part executed. It is here foretold, (1.) that they should be dislodged; the land should spue out these drunkards (v. 13): My people (so they call themselves, and were proud of it) have therefore gone into captivity, are as sure to go as if they were gone already, because they have no knowledge; how should they have knowledge when by their excessive drinking they make sots and fools of themselves? They set up for wits; but because they regard not God’s controversy with them, nor take any care to make their peace with him, they may truly be said to have no knowledge; and the reason is because they will have none; they are inconsiderate and wilful, and are therefore destroyed for lack of knowledge. (2.) That they should be impoverished, and come to want that which they had wasted and abused to excess: Even their glory are men of famine, subject to it and slain by it; and their multitude are dried up with thirst. Both the great men and the common people are ready to perish for want of bread and water. This is the effect of the failure of the corn (v. 10), for the king himself is served of the field, Eccl. v. 9. And when the vintage fails the drunkards are called upon to weep, because the new wine is cut off from their mouth (Joel i. 5), and not so much because now they want it as because when they had it they abused it. It is just with God to make men want that for necessity which they have abused to excess. (3.) What multitudes should be cut off by famine and sword (v. 14): Therefore hell has enlarged herself. Tophet, the common burying-place, proves too little; so many are there to be buried that they shall be forced to enlarge it. The grave has opened her mouth without measure, never saying, It is enough,Pro 30:15; Pro 30:16. It may be understood of the place of the damned; luxury and sensuality fill these regions of darkness and horror; there those are tormented who made a god of their belly, Luk 16:25; Phi 3:19. (4.) That they should be humbled and abased, and all their honours laid in the dust. This will be done effectually by death and the grave: Their glory shall descend, not only to the earth, but into it; it shall not descend after them (Ps. xlix. 17), to stand them in any stead on the other side death, but it shall die and be buried with them–poor glory, which will thus wither! Did they glory in their numbers? Their multitude shall go down to the pit, Eze 31:18; Eze 32:32. Did they glory in the figure they made? Their pomp shall be at an end; their shouts with which they triumphed, and were attended. Did they glory in their mirth? Death will turn it into mourning; he that rejoices and revels, and never knows what it is to be serious, shall go thither where there are weeping and wailing. Thus the mean man and the mighty man meet together in the grave and under mortifying judgments. Let a man be ever so high, death will bring him low–ever so mean, death will bring him lower, in the prospect of which the eyes of the lofty should now be humbled, v. 15. It becomes those to look low that must shortly be laid low.
3. What the fruit of these judgments shall be.
(1.) God shall be glorified, v. 16. He that is the Lord of hosts, and the holy God, shall be exalted and sanctified in the judgment and righteousness of these dispensations. His justice must be owned in bringing those low what exalted themselves; and herein he is glorified, [1.] As a God is irresistible power. He will herein be exalted as the Lord of hosts, that is able to break the strongest, humble the proudest, and tame the most unruly. Power is not exalted but in judgment. It is the honour of God that, though he has a mighty arm, yet judgment and justice are always the habitation of his throne,Psa 89:13; Psa 89:14. [2.] As a God of unspotted purity. He that is holy, infinitely holy, shall be sanctified (that is, shall be owned and declared to be holy) in the righteous punishment of proud men. Note, When proud men are humbled the great God is honoured, and ought to be honoured by us.
(2.) Good people shall be relieved and succoured (v. 17): Then shall the lambs feed after their manner; the meek ones of the earth, who followed the Lamb, who were persecuted, and put into fear by those proud oppressors, shall feed quietly, feed in the green pastures, and there shall be none to make them afraid. See Ezek. xxxiv. 14. When the enemies of the church are cut off then have the churches rest. They shall feed at their pleasure; so some read it. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, and delight themselves in abundant peace. They shall feed according to their order or capacity (so others read it), as they are able to hear the word, that bread of life.
(3.) The country shall be laid waste, and become a prey to the neighbours: The waste places of the fats ones, the possessions of those rich men that lived at their ease, shall be eaten by strangers that were nothing akin to them. In the captivity the poor of the land were left for vine-dressers and husbandmen (2 Kings xxv. 12); these were the lambs that fed in the pastures of the fats ones, which were laid in common for strangers to eat. When the church of the Jews, those fat ones, was laid waste, their privileges were transferred to the Gentiles, who had been long strangers, and the lambs of Christ’s flock were welcome to them.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
WOES PRONOUNCED UPON THE FAITHLESS, (5:8-30)
Verse 8-10:
1. Here is a selfish, unlawful and immoral grasping after property – to the hurt of others, (Verse 18; Jer 22:13-17; Mic 2:2; Heb 2:9-12).
2. But, what is one profited if he acquires the whole world at the loss of his own soul? (Verse 9; Isa 22:14; Jer 6:13; Eze 33:31; Luk 12:15; Heb 13:5; Mat 16:26).
3. Divine punishment will lead to the destruction (emptying) of their houses (Isa 6:11-12; Mat 23:37-38), and the barrenness of their fields; their harvest will be only one tenth of that which was sown, (Isa Lev 26:23-26; Isa 7:23; Hag 1:6; Hag 2:16).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
8. Woe to them that join house to house and field to field. He now reproves their insatiable avarice and covetousness, from which the acts of cheating, injustice, and violence are wont to arise. For it cannot be condemned as a thing in itself wrong, if a man add field to field and house to house; but he looked at the disposition of mind, which cannot at all be satisfied, when it is once inflamed by the desire of gain. Accordingly, he describes the feelings of those who never have enough, and whom no wealth can satisfy. So great is the keenness of covetous men that they desire to have everything possessed by themselves alone, and reckon everything that is obtained by others to be something which they want, and which has been taken from them. Hence the beautiful observation of Chrysostom, that “covetous men, if they could, would willingly take the sun from the poor,” for they envy their brethren the common elements, and would gladly swallow them up; not that they might enjoy them, but because such is the madness to which their greed carries them. All the while they do not consider that they need the assistance of others, and that a man left alone can do nothing: all their care is to scrape together as much as they can, and thus they swallow up everything by their covetousness.
He therefore accuses covetous and ambitious men of such folly that they would wish to have other men removed from the earth, that they might possess it alone; and consequently they set no limit to their desire of gain. For what madness is it to wish to have those driven away from the earth whom God has placed in it along with us, and to whom, as well as to ourselves, he has assigned it as their abode! Certainly nothing more ruinous could happen to them than to obtain their wish. Were they alone, they could not plough, or reap, or perform other offices indispensable to their subsistence, or supply themselves with the necessaries of life. For God has linked men so closely together, that they need the assistance and labor of each other; and none but a madman would disdain other men as hurtful or useless to him. Ambitious men cannot enjoy their renown but amidst a multitude. How blind are they, therefore, when they wish to drive and chase away others, that they may reign alone!
As to the size of houses, the same remark which we formerly made about fields will apply; for he points out the ambition of those who are desirous to inhabit spacious and magnificent houses. If a man who has a large family makes use of a large house, he cannot be blamed for it; but when men, swollen with ambition, make superfluous additions to their houses, only that they may live in greater luxury, and when one person alone occupies a building which might serve for the habitation of many families, this undoubtedly is empty ambition, and ought justly to be blamed. Such persons act as if they had a right to drive out other men, and to be the only persons that enjoyed a house or a roof, and as if other men ought to live in the open air, or must go somewhere else to find an abode.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
COVETOUSNESS
Isa. 5:8-10. Woe unto them that join house to house, &c.
Covetousness isI. Ruinous to the individual [601] II. Mischievous to society. III. Offensive to God. IV. Certain to be punished.
1. Here, by disappointment and loss (Pro. 3:33) [604]
2. Hereafter, by exclusion from heaven (1Co. 6:10; Eph. 5:5) [607]J. Lyth, D.D.
[601] The love of money can never keep good quarter with honesty; there is a mint of fraud in the worldly breast, and it can coin lies as fast as utterance.Adams, 1653.
[604] As Moses only saw the land of Canaan, but for his sin was not permitted to have any share or portion in it, so misers have, for their miserable covetousness, this punishment by God inflicted on them, that they shall only see their goods with eyes, but never enjoy them for their comfort; and that they shall toil and moil for their successor, oftentimes not knowing who he shall be, and receive no manner of benefit by their own labour. But as pipes keep none of the water to themselves that runs through them, but convey it all to their cisterns, so they are not able to retain any of the goods which they possess, for their own benefit and comfort, but only serve as overseers to convey them to their heirs.Downame, 1642.
[607] If a man, sick on his bed, burning of a fever, fetching his breath with straitness and shortness, looking like earth, says he is well in health, we do not believe him: so if we see men swelling with pride, flaming with lust, looking earthy with covetousness, and yet flattering themselves with hope of salvation, we cannot credit them, all the world cannot save them.Adams, 1654.
The covetous is like a camel, with a great hunch on his back; heaven-gate must be made higher and broader, or he will hardly get in.Adams, 1653.
The avaricious man is like a pig, which seeks its food in the mud, without caring where it comes from.Vianney.
GODS CURSE ON THE COVETOUS
Isa. 5:8. Woe unto them that join house to house, &c.
Gods curse is in the habitation of the wicked.
1. Sometimes the curse enters into their hearts, and prevents them from enjoying comfort in their estates, and perplexes them with fears and cares about their possessions [610]
2. At other times it wastes and consumes them like a moth, or suddenly devours them by fire and sword.
3. In some existences they are suddenly and unexpectedly snatched away from their enjoyments by death [613]Macculloch, Lectures on Isaiah, i. 275.
[610] The covetous man pines in plenty, like Tantalus, up to the chin.Adams, 1693.
[613] What can be more miserable, than for a man to toil and labour his whole life, and to have no power to enjoy any fruit of his labours? to bear like an ass a golden burden all the day, and, without any further use of it, at night to have it taken away, reserving nothing to himself but a galled conscience?Downame, 1644.
I doubt not many covetous men take a great deal of pleasure in ruminating upon their wealth, and in recounting what they have; but they have a great deal of tormenting care and fear about it; and if they had not, it is very hard to understand where the reasonable pleasure and happiness lies of having things to no end. It is, at the best, like that of some foolish birds, which, they say, take pleasure in stealing money, that they may hide it; as if it were worth the while for men to take pains to dig silver out of the earth, for no other purpose but to melt it down and stamp it, and bury it there again.Tillotson, 16301694.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
WILD GRAPES
Isa. 5:8-23. Woe unto them that join house to house, &c.
It is important to remember that this whole chapter constitutes one prophecy. Much of the power of its teaching will be lost, if this fact be overlooked. In Isa. 5:1-7, we have the astonishing declaration that in the vineyard of the Lord of hosts He has discovered, not the excellent fruit He had a right to expect, but wild grapes. In Isa. 5:8-23; some of these wild grapes are specified and denounced. Surveying His vineyard the Husbandman beheld
I. Not the gracious fruit of generosity, but the evil fruits of GREED and PRIDE. He saw men, not content with the possessions which Providence had conferred upon them, nor those which honest industry would enable them to secure, but coveting their neighbours possessions, and hesitating at no means that would enable them to gratify their desires (Mic. 2:1-2); beating down their equals, that they themselves might dwell in solitary grandeur (Isa. 5:8). Note, 1, that the aggregation of landed property here denounced was directly contrary to most explicit Divine ordinances (Num. 36:7; Lev. 25:23-24) [592]
2. The conduct here denounced has its counterparts to-dayin the matter of land, great landowners buying up all the little farms adjoining their estates, and turning fruitful valleys into deer-runs; in trade, great capitalists subjecting their less wealthy rivals to ruinous competition, &c., &c., [595]
3. That it is not merely particular manifestations of the spirit of greed and pride, but the spirit itself, that provokes the indignation of the bountiful Giver of all good. Covetousness and arrogance are not confined to any particular class. The tenth commandment exists for the poor as well as for the rich.
[592] Political philosophy has much to say in favour of laws and institutions, at certain periods of a nations growth, for encouraging, or at least permitting, the disposition of its members to found families, to be maintained by hereditary possessions in land. Yet, if this disposition be not kept within bounds, those who are influenced by it will join house to house, and field to field, till there be no place; till the race of small landholders, yeomen, and partly independent tenants, is swallowed up by a few rich despots. To prevent this evil among the Hebrews, Moses directed as equal a division of the land as possible in the first instance, among the 600,000 families who originally formed the nation; and provided against the permanent alienation of any estate, by giving a right of repurchase to the seller and his relations, and of repossession without purchase at the Jubilee. The story of Naboth illustrates the effect of these laws in forming an order of sturdy, independent yeomen; but it must also be taken as an instance of the habitual breach of the same laws by the rich and powerful (cf. Micah 2; Neh. 5:1-13; 2Ch. 36:21); as they in like manner disobeyed that respecting the liberation of slaves at the Jubilee (Jer. 34:8-16). In England, where the Norman conquest accumulated all the land in the hands of a few nobles, the like accumulation has been opposedhowever imperfectlyby laws in their form exactly opposite to those of Moses; by the permission to cut off old entails, and the prohibition to make new ones except for one generation, and by allowing land to be bought and sold like other commodities.Strachey, pp. 65, 66.
[595] The covetous man is like a spider. As in this, that he does nothing but lay his nets to catch every fly, gaping only for a booty of gain. So yet more, in that while he makes nets for these flies, he consumes his own bowels; so that which is his life is his death. If there be any creature miserable, it is he; and yet he is least to be pitied, because he makes himself miserable. Such as he is I will account him; and will therefore sweep down his webs, and hate his poison.Hall, 15741656.
Covetous worldlings will hardly spare the poor some of their fire to warm them, some of their water to drink, some of their ground to lodge on, though it were no more hurt to them than the lighting of a candle at their torch.Adams, 1653.
II. Not the excellent fruit of temperance, but the evil fruit of SENSUAL INDULGENCE (Isa. 5:11-12). He saw men living for mere pleasure, without any recognition of the work which He had wrought for them as a nation, without any acknowledgment of His goodness to them as individuals, without any remembrance of the purpose of their being [598]
[598] Let us remember that it will be to small purpose to enjoy these worldly pleasures of sin for a season, and in the end plunge ourselves into everlasting death;that the worlds music is but the syrens song, which allures us to make shipwreck of our souls on the rocks of sin, and while it tickles the ear it wounds us to the very heart;that though the cup which it offers be of gold, and the drink sweet in taste, yet it is deadly poison in operation; for they that drink thereof are so lulled asleep in pleasures and security, that they never awaken out of their spiritual lethargy; or if they do, yet like Sampson, without strength to resist the spiritual Philistines, after the world (like Delilah) has lulled them awhile in her lap of carnal pleasures.Downame, 1642.
III. Not the excellent fruit of reverence for Gods Word, but the evil fruit of SCOFFING. The messengers whom He sent to recall them to duty, they scorned; the warnings which He mercifully sent to them of the judgments impending over them, they turned into merriment. Instead of forsaking their sins, they yoked themselves to them with renewed determination (Isa. 5:18-19).
IV. Not the noble fruit of a recognition of the truth, but the evil fruit of INFIDELITYthat intellectual scepticism which seeks to destroy the very foundations of morality, and which prepares men for vice of all kinds, and hardens them therein, by confounding vice with virtue, and denying mans moral accountability.
V. Not the befitting fruit of humility and desire for Divine guidance, but the evil fruit of SELF-SUFFICIENCY (Isa. 5:21). Clever and successful men of the world, they resented the idea of their needing counsel and help as an insult. They were their own gods. Trusting in themselves with unfaltering confidence, they excluded from their minds all thought of Him in whom they lived and moved and had their being. Conceiving that they owed all their prosperity to their own wisdom and prudence, how could they give Him thanks? Confident that they would be equal to every emergency of life, how could they lift up to Him one real prayer?
VI. Not the indispensable fruit of righteousness in those who are called to rule, but that evil fruit which always excites His hottest indignation, DENIAL OF JUSTICE TO THE POOR. He saw the judges taking their seats on the judicial bench, not with clear intellects and the love of righteousness enthroned in their hearts, but besotted and brutalised by strong drink; not dispensing justice, but selling their verdict to those who could furnish them most amply with the means of gratifying their sensual lusts (Isa. 5:22-23). Than the denial of justice there is no more cruel wrong.
These were the wild grapes which God saw when He looked down upon His ancient vineyard. Was it any vonder that He brake down the wall thereof, and gave it over to destruction? These are the wild grapes which He sees brought forth only too abundantly when He looks down upon this land. Is it not a wonder that He spares the nation to which we belong?
1. Let us beseech Him still to spare as, for the sake of the ten righteous who dwell among us.
2. Let us recognise that the most urgent duty to which we are called as patriots is the abatement of those iniquities which justly kindle Gods indignation against us.
3. Let us as individuals search and see what fruits are being brought forth in the vineyard of our own souls, lest while we are deploring the iniquities of our land and time, and, it may be, are labouring to lessen them, there grow up within us wild grapes which will bring down upon us the Divine condemnation.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
2.
THE WOES OF APPLICATION
TEXT: Isa. 5:8-23
8
Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land !
9
In mine ears saith Jehovah of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.
10
For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah.
11
Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that tarry late into the night, till wine inflame them!
12
And the harp and the lute, the tabret and the pipe, and wine, are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of Jehovah, neither have they considered the operation of his hands.
13
Therefore my people are gone into captivity for lack of knowledge; and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude are parched with thirst.
14
Therefore Sheol hath enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth among them, descend into it.
15
And the mean man is bowed down, and the great man is humbled, and the eyes of the lofty are humbled:
16
but Jehovah of hosts is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness.
17
Then shall the lambs feed as in their pasture, and the waste places of the fat ones shall wanderers eat.
18
Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and sin as it were with a cart rope;
19
that say, Let him make speed, let him hasten his work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!
20
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
21
Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
22
Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink;
23
that justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!
QUERIES
a.
What is wrong with acquiring houses and fields?
b.
What is drawing iniquity with cords of falsehood?
c.
Who would call evil good, and good evil?
PARAPHRASE
Woe to you who acquire property so others have no place to live. Your homes are built on great estates so you can be alone in the midst of great expanses of land! But the Lord of Hosts has sworn your awful fatewith my own ears I heard Him say, Many a beautiful home will lie deserted, their owners killed or gone. Ten acres of vineyard will produce less than ten gallons of wine, and ten bushels of seed will produce less than one bushel of grain. Woe to you who get up very early in the morning to debauch and debase yourselves with endless carousing and drinking of strong drink. Your addiction is insatiable and you drink yourselves into a stupor. By the riotous merriment of your festivities accompanied by the loud, pagan music, you have very effectively turned your attention away from the work of the Lord and have made yourself insensible to His ways. Sin has so darkened your spiritual understanding you are as good as banished from the Lords presence into captivitythere is no alternative left to Him but to punish the leaders and the people of this nation with the consequences of their rebellions. There will be both spiritual and physical starvation. Death and the grave are waiting with mouths wide open to devour the multitudes that will die. Those who revel in injustice, drunkenness, and pompousness will be swallowed up in Gods punishment. In that day the haughty shall be brought down to the dust; the proud shall be humbled; and the Lord of Hosts will be exalted above all, for He alone is holy, just and good. The devastation of what was once the vineyard of the Lord will be so complete as to turn the glorious land into pastures for wandering flocks of sheep and goats. Woe to those who are so enslaved to their sins that they drag them along with them everywhere they go like dumb oxen pulling carts. The ropes which bind them to their sins are the lying vanities with which they have deceived themselves. They are so brazen as to mock the Holy One of Israel and dare the Lord to punish them. Hurry up and punish us, O Lord, they say, We want to see what You can do! Woe to them that turn all values upside down and say that what is right is wrong and what is wrong is right; that black is white and white is black; bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter. Woe to those who are wise and shrewd in their own estimation! Woe to those who are heroes when it comes to getting drunk, and boast about the wine they can hold. Woe to those who pervert justice by taking bribes, letting the guilty go free and putting innocent men in prison.
COMMENTS
After the general warning conveyed to Judah by the song or parable of the vineyard, six sins are pointed out as those which have especially provoked God to give the warning. He now pronounces woes of application against each of these sins.
Isa. 5:8-10 WOE AGAINST MONOPOLY AND GREED: Selfishness greed for possession of land and houses. Many rich people are notorious for this sin. They are not satisfied to own a small business, however well paying; they must monopolize. It gives them a sense of security and power. God never intended for a few to control the wealth of the world. These men of Isaiahs day were land-grabbers to the extent that there was no room left for the poor man who must either live on the property of the landowners as slaves or immigrate to another territory. This violated the Mosaic law which had apportioned a parcel of land to each family head. This land was to remain in the family. If it should have to be sold, it was to be returned to the original family in the year of Jubilee, Gods judgment is spoken directly into the ear of Isaiah. There can be no mistakeGod will judge! Desolate houses; barren and unfruitful land. Ten acres of vineyard normally should produce 4,000 gallons of wine instead of 8 gallons. The land would produce but l/10th the seed sown.
Isa. 5:11-17 WOE AGAINST DISSIPATION: Misuse of Gods beneficence. They rise early, not to work and live constructively, but to revel and play in riotous music, feasting and dancing. A greedy, grasping, monopolizing people. Luxury loving, drinking, feasting and reveling. Consuming the landwhile the rest of the people lived like slaves. The only liberty they care for is a selfish libertylicense to do as they please. There is no room in their drink-weakened, pleasure-loving brains for serious thought of sober government. Their only thought is how to enjoy this moment, this day; and they squeeze every day dry and fling it to one side after it is finished.
Captivity is the inevitable consequence of such dissipation. Moral, intellectual, political and spiritual enslavement surely follows such decadence. Loss of personal worth, personal identity and death await such actions. In this instance, the people, their wealth, and their haughtiness will come to an end. Both high and low will meet the same endcaptivity.
The lambs and sheep of foreigners will feed in their land. The places formerly owned by the wealthy shall be occupied and used by strangers. Assyrians, Arabs, Samaritans and other nomadic tribes inhabited this land during their captivities.
Isa. 5:18-19 WOE AGAINST UNBELIEF: Not having faith in God they sin openly as those who draw or pull after them a load of sin with cords or ropes. They are so enslaved to their sins and to Satan, they are like harnessed oxen who pull heavy burdens; the difference being men voluntarily wish it to be so while animals have no choice. And we call animals, dumb! And far from being penitent, they are brazen. When told of Gods coming judgment, instead of fleeing to hide in the rocks, they scoff, What is God waiting fortell Him to come on. We would like to see Him come in judgment! The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Absence of the fear of the Lord leads to stupidity (Cf. II Tim. chapters 3 and 4).
Isa. 5:20 WOE AGAINST MORAL CONFUSION: Moral confusion always results from unbelief (Cf. Rom. 1:18-32). Where there is no faith in God there are no clear-cut moral distinctionsno clear conception of what is right and wrong. There can only be moral relativisma thing is right because we want it to bemoral anarchy. Dostoevski has his priest character say, in The Brothers Karamasov, If there is no God everything is permissible. Nietzsche, the insane German philosopher, insisted that what the world needed was a transvaluation of values. Nietzsche was simply carrying out his evolutionary atheism to its rational end. When unbelief takes over, all values are turned upside-down. What is good is said to be bad; what is bad is said to be good. The playboyism of our 20th century attempts to convince people that Christian ethics (especially in sex) are evil. Where this reversal of values occurs, cowardice becomes caution; recklessness becomes courage; stinginess becomes thrift; prodigality becomes generosity; sin becomes maladjustment! Right or wrong becomes a matter of custom. Cursing, drinking, promiscuous sexual activity, gambling are all justified on pragmatic bases. There appear as many ethical standards as there are individuals. People make up their own laws to suit their own purposes. Recognition of authority, except for oneself, disappears. Society soon resembles a chicken with its head cut offno coordination, no purpose, no control. Moral anarchy results in civil and social destruction and death.
Isa. 5:21 WOE AGAINST CONCEIT: Not only do they sin blatantlythey take pride in their adeptness in sinning. They are wise in their own eyes. The farther men drift from God in unbelief the more conceited they become (Cf. Rom. 1:18-32; 2Pe. 3:3-7; 2Co. 10:7-12). God becomes something to set on a table as a kind of ornament. Religion becomes a fetish, having no real place, no real function in life. The real issues and problems of society are made relative to selfish interests. Pride is the snare of the devil. Pride brought the judgment of God upon angels.
Isa. 5:22-23 WOE AGAINST PERVERSION OF JUSTICE: Selfishness is the first step into degradation. Selfishness means dethronement of God. As a result of such dethronement men turn to false securitiesfalse gods. Wine, sex, money all are sought as replacements for God. The leaders of Judah become sotsalcoholics. Drunkards administered the government! In America we have drunken legislators, drunken government executives, and drunken military leaders administering our government! Drunkenness, graft, bribery, injustice, corruption of all kinds were rampant in Judah at this time. The justification for such action was cynical unbelief. One important issue of such living is moral anarchy. The inevitable consequence of such a society is arrogant rulers and an oppressed populace. The leaders of the country boasted and prided themselves, not in how well they ruled, but in how well they mixed drinks and how drunken they were able to become.
QUIZ
1.
Name the sins for which the rulers are judged guilty in this section.
2.
Show how unbelief leads to social, political and intellectual enslavement.
3.
When have such sins been prevalent in men other than in Isaiahs day?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(8) Woe unto them that join house to house.The series of Woes which follows has no precedent in the teaching of earlier prophets. The form of Luk. 6:24-26 seems based upon it. The general indictment of Isaiah 1 is followed by special counts. That which leads off the list was the destruction of the old village life of Palestine. The original ideal of the nation had been that it should consist of small proprietors; and the Jubilee (Lev. 25:13; Lev. 27:24), and the law of the marriage of heiresses (Num. 27:1-11, Numbers 36, Num. 33:54) were intended as safeguards for the maintenance of that ideal. In practice it had broken down, and might had taken the place of right. Landmarks were removed (Deu. 19:14; Deu. 27:17; Pro. 22:28), the owners of small estates forcibly expelled (Mic. 2:2) or murdered as Naboth had been (1Ki. 21:16); the law of debt pressed against the impoverished debtor (Neh. 5:5), and the law of the Jubilee was practically set aside. In place of the small freeholders there rose up a class of large proprietors, often the novi homines of the state (e.g., Shebna in Isa. 22:16), while the original owners sank into slavery (Neh. 5:5) or became tenants at will, paying exorbitant rents in kind or money, and liable at any moment to be evicted. Isaiahs complaint recalls the agrarian laws by which first Licinius and then the Gracchi sought to restrain the extension of the latifundia of the Roman patricians, and Latimers bold protest against the enclosure of commons in the sixteenth century. The evil had been denounced before by Micah (Mic. 2:2), and in a psalm probably contemporary with Isaiah (Psa. 49:11). The fact that the last year of Uzziah coincided with the Jubilee may have given a special point to Isaiahs protest.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
First woe upon great land monopoly, Isa 5:8-10.
8. Join house to house field to field The building of long city blocks, and forming immense estates, by monopolizing landholders.
No place Between the vast landed estates the small farmer was crowded out, “no place” being left for him, and he was turned adrift or reduced to serfdom. Tendencies to such concentration of estates in the hands of great landlords arise in times of great prosperity both in England and America.
Alone earth Or, rather, land. The great feudal mansions would dot the whole of Judea, each in solitary grandeur. For a similar picture in the Roman empire consult our note on Jas 5:6. Mic 2:2 contemporaneously with Isaiah confirms his description. The woe on this landed aristocracy was decay and desolation.]
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The First Woe ( Isa 5:8-10 ).
Isa 5:8-10
‘Woe to those who join house to house,
Who lay field to field,
Until there is no room,
And you are made to dwell alone in the land.
In my ears, the ears of Yahweh of hosts,
Of a truth, many houses will be desolate,
Even great and fair, without inhabitant.
For ten acres of vineyard will yield one bath,
And a homer of seed will yield but an ephah.’
The picture here is of the man of influence and wealth taking over surrounding land by fair means or foul, and adding it to his own, and then turning his house into a Great House by adding buildings (compare Mic 2:2; Mic 2:4; Mic 2:9). As a result, instead of enjoying covenant fellowship with his close neighbours he dwells in solitary splendour, for all his one-time neighbours have been expelled. They would then have had to become servants or even bondmen. Their ‘glory’ has been taken away for ever (Mic 2:9).
This was directly contrary to what Israel was all about. When the land was originally allocated as God’s gift to His people (Lev 25:2) the intention was that each man should have his own piece of land in perpetuity. All were to be free men. And although the land may have to be mortgaged in hard times, always in the end it was to revert to its original owner. (See Lev 25:13; Lev 25:23-24; Num 27:1-11; Num 36:1-12; Rth 4:1-4). But now unreasonable influence, unfair means and dishonest pressure were being exerted by powerful men to acquire and permanently possess such land, and permanently subject their fellow Israelites to servitude. God’s covenant was being overturned, and His people degraded. And we need not doubt that the fifty year rule was being set aside. God’s will was being thwarted.
The gradual accumulation of wealth is never in itself condemned, unless it interferes with a man’s responsiveness to God. But doing so at the expense of others and especially when it was in direct disobedience to God’s will, is constantly condemned.
God’s concern about this is a reminder that God watches over all men’s business dealings, whether corrupt or just purely greedy, and will call men to account for them. It will be no good in that day saying, ‘it was business’. God will reply, ‘no, it was gross iniquity’.
‘In my ears, the ears of Yahweh of hosts, of a truth, many houses will be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.’ ‘In my ears’ may refer back to Isa 5:7 bringing out again that the cries of the oppressed reach His ears. Or it may refer to the very cry of the fields at the mistreatment of their owners (compare Gen 4:10) as reaching His ears. Either way the cries of distress reach His ears, and they are the ears of Yahweh of hosts. (The Hebrew is literally, ‘In my ears Yahweh of hosts’). Thus the great and fair houses that have resulted will assuredly be desolated, their inhabitants removed, their widespread fields yielding but a pittance. As they have done to others, so will be done to them.
‘For ten acres of vineyard will yield one bath, and a homer of seed will yield but an ephah.’ An ‘acre’ was literally ‘a yoke’, the amount that could be ploughed by a yoke of oxen in one day. Thus ten such large areas will produce only one bath (about twenty seven litres or six gallons). We are possibly to see in this that the expectation was that one acre would normally produce a bath. An ephah is a dry measure and is the tenth part of a homer (Exo 16:36). Thus again what is sown produces only one tenth. Thus all activity in the fields will only produce a small proportion of what should have been produced.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Six Woes of God ( Isa 5:8-30 ).
A series of woes are now declared on the people of Israel because of their various sins. The vineyard had produced smelly grapes, now woe must come on it. They are a warning that God sees the ways of all men, whether in business, in pleasure-seeking, in their thinking or in their attitudes, and will surely call them all to account. Woes in Scripture can be divided into two kinds, those which express God’s determination to act in judgment, and those which represent sad events for people in the course of history (e.g. Mat 24:19). These six woes are of the first kind.
The woes with their aftermath can be analysed as follows:
a The first woe is on those who have bought up or seized by force the fields of the people, so as to form for themselves large estates, actions which will finally bring desolation on them (Isa 5:8-10).
b The second woe is on the drunken behaviour and revelry of the people which will finally result in their humiliation (Isa 5:11-17).
c The third woe is on those who sin deeply, drawing sin with cart-ropes , and yet they cry out that they want to see God’s deliverance (Isa 5:18-19).
d The fourth woe is on those who have twisted truth for their own purposes, calling evil good, and good evil, darkness light, and light darkness, what is bitter, sweet, and what is sweet, bitter (Isa 5:20).
c The fifth woe is on those who are self-opiniated and self-conceited (Isa 5:21).
b The sixth woe is on those who are heavy drinkers, resulting in injustice and their despising the Instruction of Yahweh, and will result in lives which produce only rottenness (the wild grapes?) (Isa 5:22-24).
a The result of the woes is that Yahweh will bring judgment upon them, bringing darkness and distress and taking over the land (from those who had appropriated it for themselves in Isa 5:8-10) (Isa 5:25-30).
In ‘a’ the people who try to take possession of the land and exalt themselves will in the parallel be humbled, and their land will be filled with darkness and distress. In ‘b’ the heavy drinkers will be the same in the parallel, in both cases resulting in humiliation and desolation. Note how in both cases the words end with a reference to Yahweh of hosts and the Holy One of Israel. ‘C’ refers to those who ‘draw sin with cart-ropes’, but are blasphemous in their utterances, exulting in their sins, while in the parallel are those who are self-opinionated and self-conceited. In ‘d’ we have the centre of all sin, the turning of good into evil, and light into darkness.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
A Sixfold Woe upon the Jewish Transgressors
v. 8. Woe unto them that join house to house, v. 9. In mine ears said the Lord of hosts, v. 10. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one hath, v. 11. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning that they may follow, v. 12. And the harp, v. 13. Therefore My people, v. 14. Therefore hell, v. 15. And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, v. 16. but the Lord of hosts, v. 17. Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, v. 18. Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, v. 19. that say, Let Him make speed and hasten His work that we may see it, v. 20. Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, v. 21. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, v. 22. Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink, v. 23. which justify the wicked for reward, v. 24. Therefore, as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, v. 25. Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against His people, and He hath stretched forth His hand against them and hath smitten them, v. 26. And He, v. 27. None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep, neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, v. 28. whose arrows are sharp and all their bows bent, v. 29. their roaring shall be like a lion, v. 30. And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Isa 5:8. Woe unto them that join house to house The unfolding of the parable, after the general key in the preceding verse, comprehends two things, according to the argument of the parable: the crimes of these ungrateful people, and the punishment decreed to their crimes. The first crime condemned is avarice and rapacity; which is strongly described in this verse, and which prevailed remarkably among the Jews. Its punishment,even the desolation of those houses which they coveted, and the devastation of those fields which they obtained so rapaciously, is set forth in the 9th and 10th verses. In mine ears said the Lord, Isa 5:9 signifies, It was revealed in mine ears: see chap. Isa 22:14. Vitringa, and Lev 27:16.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Here is a solemn woe denounced against carnal pursuits; and yet who feels restrained by it? My soul, you need not look abroad into the world, for examples of the unprofitableness of sin: in thyself thou mayest but too often find the sad wild grapes, which grow upon this thorn hedge of a worldly planting. Alas! what disappointment and bitterness spring out every desire that is not formed in Jesus, and sanctified by him.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Sin and Judgment
Isa 5:8-22
We find similar maledictions pronounced by Jesus Christ in the sixth chapter of Luke. In the earlier prophecies there is no precedent or parallel to these pronouncements of woe. Where heaven is so angry there must be some reason for the anger; it is our business to endeavour to discover that reason, and inquire into our own relation towards it.
“Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!” ( Isa 5:8 ).
In order to understand this we must remember the conditions of life in Northern Palestine at the time when these woes were pronounced. It was village life: men had little freeholds of their own: it was a life marked by small proprietorships; almost every man had some little patch of vineyard. The disposition, however, was to do away with small proprietories, and for the greater men to grasp all the land, so that Palestine might have its great landlords; and so urgently did this spirit assert itself that even the little freeholders of Palestine were in many cases forced into a position of slavery, and made to toil as slaves on the lands which they once honestly owned and hopefully cultivated. This was seen by some one blessed be God! whoever he was, he was just and he cried: “Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!” the men who swallowed up all who were smaller than themselves, and who grasped at everything with an insatiable and inappeasable voracity. All things went down before that spirit of covetousness. That is, as some one has well termed it, the dry drunkenness; the appetite that drinks everything, and whose thirst is never quenched. The Lord had always been careful about the boundaries of little property. We have studied Deu 19:14 : “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it.” But at the time to which the prophecy of Isaiah refers landmarks went for nothing; the Titanic landlord was coming down to add field to field, perish who might in the gratification of his covetousness. There was a law of debt amongst the ancient people a very beautiful and gracious law. When Nehemiah went to inquire into the condition of the people at the time referred to in his Book, he found them in sad plight “Some also there were that said, We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn, because of the dearth” we have practically parted with the very last patch of land we had that we might simply keep the wolf from the door. “There were also that said, We have borrowed money for the king’s tribute, and that upon our lands and vineyards:” the taxes were so high that we could not pay them out of our earnings, and therefore we have had to borrow to pay the tax-gatherer. “Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards.” Now read the judgment in the light of these explanations. Consider the state of the land at the time; then hear this voice, and say whether it come from hell or heaven: “Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!” Whose voice is that? We need not ask questions regarding the inspiration of a book whose tone is thus so broadly moral, so loftily just, so minutely careful of the rights of little men little, hard-working, industrious, frugal freeholders. How strong is the Bible in its moral majesty! Why do not men begin at that point when they inquire into the merits of the Book? Why will they fix upon antiquities, chronologies, the distribution of the books in their relation to one another? Why do they not fasten upon the judgment spirit that is in the Book, and acquaint themselves with the moral purpose of the revelation, and then work their way to all outermost and incidental things?
Is God content with pronouncing these judgments? He says:
“In mine ears said the Lord of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah” (Isa 5:9 , Isa 5:10 .)
There is where the Lord has his hold upon these mighty people: they can get the land, but they cannot ensure the crops. After all, there is a mysterious Power that holds things in its great grip. The great landlords have added field to field, and house to house, and driven off the small proprietors, and now they are going to have everything their own way; and they sow their acres, and their acres will not bring forth fruit. The bath is about seven gallons and a half; the acre was ground that could be ploughed in a day by a yoke of oxen; a homer was about thirty-two pecks, and an ephah was about a tenth of that quantity. So, when men looked for a good amount of produce, behold, they had one-tenth of it! It is curious to observe the operation of a law. Success won as these men won it is like a bird with one wing it can only flap and flutter, but never fly. The Lord looked down from heaven, and saw the avaricious men taking the little vineyard from Naboth, removing the landmark, despoiling the small proprietors; he saw these “successful” men fattening themselves in their prosperity, and heard their infamous chuckle as they supposed themselves to have accomplished their malign purpose. What hold has God upon the land? He has all the hold at the end which we call the crop or the harvest; he will command the clouds that they rain not upon the illgotten land; he will make the land a burden to those who have too much of it, and who have got it unjustly. A man cannot have too much of anything if he gathers it justly as the fruit of industry, and well-expended mind, and care, and thought; but when all his gettings are but so many successes of injustice, the land that he boasts of shall become a burden to him, and he will cry one day, Who will take it off my hands? When the harvests are bad for ten years running men begin to think about causes, and though it may be possible for superstition to push the inquiry too far, and into obviously unjustifiable exaggerations, yet he is no foolish man who bethinks himself whether after all there may not lie behind the most material facts a moral mystery. Again we say, How great is the moral majesty of the Bible! When has judgment forsaken the earth? At what time has there been no sign of the divine Presence, or the divine care? All history testifies to God’s presence.
After all this grasping what happens?
“Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!” ( Isa 5:11 ).
After injustice comes luxury. Bad men, though they cannot calculate upon the next harvest with any certainty, will eat and drink as though they could. It is matter of history that oftentimes the morning revel was continued until the evening debauch. The whole land was given up to evil banqueting to eating and drinking damnation. “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink” the drink made out of honey and dates, the poisonous Egyptian beer, that inflamed men’s blood, and killed any spark of divinity that might be in them. Beginning the day with intoxication! That was an ancient habit; is there ought of the kind to-day? Have we not sometimes seen young men leaving the tavern so early as ten o’clock in the morning? Have we not seen women, who ought to be the saviours of the world, drying their lips on the tavern step ere well the sun be risen? The fascination of evil, how subtle, how mighty, how tremendous! The appetite that is within us, how often uncontrollable! how it takes no heed of decency! how it sinks into Sodomic shamelessness! An officer was commended to King Alphonso as a man who could drink much, and retain what he drank. Said the king, “That is an excellent quality in a sponge, but not in a man.” May we not learn from those who are philosophical observers of history, if we care not to consult the fanatical moralists and pietists who may be under the influence of superstition? Mahomet said, “In every grape there dwells a devil.” This is no hallucination of the modern mind, with its fine-spun ethics, and its new philanthropy, and its moral veneer and conventional appearance. If the devil has been a liar and a murderer from the beginning, so has strong drink; it has no good history; its whole record is a bad one. Mark the pampering of the animal life. The whole nature went down. Only one appetite was served and satisfied if that can be satisfied which grows by what it feeds on. Can a man cultivate his animal life and his spiritual life at the same time? All history says that such a course of conduct is simply impossible. It comes in the issue to one of two things: either the body must conquer, or the soul must conquer. Grieve not the Spirit: quench not the Spirit. It is possible to slay God within the soul.
The destruction of religion follows all this extinction of the finest aspirations of the human heart and mind. You cannot attack moral nobility at any point without involving the whole altar of worship and sacrifice and redemption. What is the consequence religiously? That is pointed out in the twelfth verse:
“And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands.” ( Isa 5:12 )
We cannot be both animal and spiritual, gross and refined, satisfying the appetites of the body and gratifying the aspirations of the soul. It is recorded of some that they were so afraid of the lightning and the thunder that they not only closed their eyes to hide themselves from the vision of the playful fire, but they brought out all their musical instruments, as drums and trumpets and tabrets, to quell the infinite reverberating of the thunder. But who can silence the artillery of the clouds? Yet men are every day trying to shut out the voice of judgment from the ear by making grievous noises of their own. The people did not regard the work of the Lord, they took no heed of it: the heavens were not fields of starry beauty or solar parable to them, for their bloodshot eyes never looked at the empyrean, at the infinite circle of glory; and the whole earth, with all its carpeting of flowers, was nothing to them but a place to be thrust into at the last when flesh and blood could no longer stand erect. What was the consequence? “Therefore my people are gone into captivity” ( Isa 5:13 ). Not immediately, but morally, and in reality. Find sin in one verse, and you find captivity in the next. Still the Bible maintains its grand moral position, its unrivalled supremacy. Who ever sins goes into bondage. Not only they are in bondage who are shut up within thick walls, and who are condemned to spend the remainder of their days in iron cages; they are in captivity who have voices within them asking for evil things to which they cannot say no. They may drive to their banqueting in chariots of gold drawn by steeds of finest mettle, but they are galloping only to their prison. If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed; if you have a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man you cannot be in prison, you cannot tell the meaning of abridged liberty; you have a glorious freedom. He who is good may walk the earth a free man, though he have but little to eat and nowhere to lay his head. Character is freedom; pureness is liberty; to have few wants is to be rich; to be master of yourself is to be conqueror of the world. These great laws never alter: why do not men fix their attention upon these, and gather around the Bible to say, This is none other than the living word of the living God, keeping the ages pure, and guaranteeing for moral greatness ultimate establishment and coronation? Men go into captivity when they go into sin.
Mark the ruin, note the havoc:
“Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it” ( Isa 5:14 ).
What other picture can compare with this for lurid vividness? Let us change the word “hell,” and substitute what is probably the literal meaning of the prophet Therefore the under-world, the Hadean sphere, the world of shadows, hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure. Even if we get rid of what to many minds is the objectionable word “hell” in its common meaning, yet the place that does enlarge itself is the under-space; it is the sphere of the pit; it is the realm of nightly shadows. How graphic the suggestion that sin is so multiplying on the surface of the earth that all the under-world must enlarge itself to accommodate the thronging and multiplying populations that eat the bread of dishonesty and drink distilled damnation! Think of the process in its whole operation; imagine some spectral voice saying, The evil under-world rulers expect a thousand more men in by the end of the month. Or, Ere the year closes you will need to redouble your accommodation, for the world gets madder: evil is on the steps of the throne, evil is in the house of beggary, the aristocracy are corrupted through and through, and all the original space leading to Hadean places will be crowded, and men will be hurrying down in thousands, as if urged on by the whip of a cruel destiny; be ready! That is the image of the text. All glory and pomp shall be swallowed up. There is a spirit of doom in the universe. Bless God! Tell the devil-ridden aristocrat that he can do what he likes, that he will die with his own dog, and may be buried in the same ditch, and you do but heat his already fevered blood, and take out of his voice the last token of fair manliness. Tell the whole world that the spirit of judgment rules, and that at the end all illgotten property, glory, pomp, is eternal darkness, and you may touch a wholesome fear. It may be the meanest of all appeals that addresses itself to terror, yet so constituted is the human mind that the ministry of fear will always occupy an important position in the education of the world.
Then comes the time of restoration and vindication:
“But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness. Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat” ( Isa 5:16-17 ).
A beautiful pastoral image! We have seen how the great owners proceeded in their acquisition of land more and more until they excluded the small proprietors; but now the time has come when the lambs shall feed after their manner. All the park walls shall be torn down, and all the land that was enclosed for the purpose of hunting game shall be thrown open, and all the little lambs shall feed as they used to do when every little flockmaster had his patch of grass for his little pastoral family: the gilt-headed palings shall be torn up and cast into the furnace; and all the walls that shut out the poor so that they could not see a little green grass or a few flowers shall be shaken from beneath not their topstones thrown down, but their foundations heaved up, and the earth shall cast them off as a nuisance, an incubus intolerable; and the landlords shall get back again all their pastoral lands: Palestine shall yet be the land of the people. God is the great Landlord; the earth is the Lord’s, and we hold rightly what we hold as his gift; what he has given us we may accept and cultivate, and make it right beautiful for him, and when the harvest smiles in its golden abundance let us give the first sheaf to him, saying, The firstfruits be thine, thou Giver of the bread of man; then shall the earth yield her increase, then shall the spade hardly leave the soil it has tilled until the answering ground blushes with flowers or enriches itself with an abundance of wheat.
The evildoers shall not be changed; they will go on, drawing iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope. The idea is that men harness themselves to sin, and drag the black chariot after them with madness. May we know nothing of this but as a historical picture!
Then the prophet denounces those who are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength mingle strong drink. There are bad heroisms. We talk of men being heroic: what in? Read:
“Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink” ( Isa 5:22 ).
They are strong men, they have an abundance of faculty, they are the devil’s heroes, they do not things with half-heart or with reluctant hands; when they drink they drink like strong men, and when they fall they fall with a thud upon the resounding earth giants have fallen; mighty men have lost their standing. Oh, pitiful thought, that we may be great in sin, great in wickedness, prime ministers of perdition, leaders and captains in hosts of darkness; better be the least in the kingdom of heaven. That is honour; that is a blessed immortality.
Prayer
Almighty God, thou art glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come. We hear the voice of thy Son saying unto us, Be ye holy, as your Father in heaven is holy: without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Who can work in us this miracle of purity but thyself, thou mighty One, whose left hand is as his right, and whose hands are filled with omnipotence? Thou canst make us pure, for thou hast the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, and whatsoever we need for our sanctification thou hast, at thy disposal. Holy Spirit, baptize us as with fire; Holy Ghost, descend upon us as in the pentecostal hour. See how far we lag behind, how much we need that we might have had: we have neglected our opportunities; we have sinned away even to the closing moment, the day of mercy; yet whilst light lingers in the western sky there is surely time to repent and return, and cry unto the Lord for his mercy, and put our trust in the Cross. Hear us when we pray; hear us when we ask for pity; hear us and answer us when our cry is for pardon. There is pardon at the Cross; its great name is written in blood; it stands above all other superscriptions, traced by the finger of God. Help us to forsake our way and our thought, wicked and unrighteous, and to return unto the Lord with open face, and eyes beaming with expectation though stained with tears; then shall we receive an abundance of pardon, like wave upon wave rolling in upon the shore. Wherein we have been pardoned, and have entered into the mystery of the better and upper life, may we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in all saintliness and strength of character, that we may be like the Saviour in our degree. May we remember what the fruits of the Spirit are, and renouncing all vanity, self-conceit, pride, and personal assurance, as if we could do anything by our own might, may we strive to bring forth those blessed fruits, and thus make the Lord of the vineyard glad. But the east wind is so blighting, the cold nights are so long, and the destroyer is so wakeful and so pitiless, that oftentimes the blossom is broken off, and our best aspirations never come to fruitfulness. But thou knowest all the tale of human strife and human evolution and human progress, and if thou dost hear our sigh for a better life, a wider and nobler existence, that sigh thou wilt regard as victory; thou wilt hear us and answer us, and some night even, or at the crowing of the cock, thou wilt come, and on us there will rest the unconsuming flame of Christ’s own glory. In this hope we live; in this hope no man can ever die. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Isa 5:8 Woe unto them that join house to house, [that] lay field to field, till [there be] no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!
Ver. 8. Woe unto them that join house to house. ] The prophet goeth on in the exposition of his parable, showing us some more of those wild or stinking grapes, with the sad effects thereof, to the end of the chapter. He beginneth with covetousness – that “root of all evil,” as Paul calleth it, 1Ti 6:10 that metropolis of all wickedness, as Bion – and throweth a woe at it, as do also sundry other prophets. Covetous persons are of the dragon’s temper, who, they say, is so thirsty, that no water can quench his thirst. Covetousness is a dry drunkenness, saith one, an insatiable dropsy, and like hell itself, Isa 5:14 insatiabiliter cava guttura pandit; its never enough will be once alive with fire enough in the bottom of hell. Here they are brought in “joining house to house,” as Shallum did at Jerusalem, Jer 22:13-14 as Nero did at Rome for the enlarging of his palace to a vast extent: whence that of the poet –
“ Roma domus fiet, Veios migrate Quirites,
Si non et Veios oecupet ista domus. ” – Martial.
That lay field to field. ] Encroaching upon others, and engrossing all to yourselves; as William the Conqueror did at New Forest, wherein forty-six parish churches were demolished, with the removing of all the inhabitants, to make room for beasts or dog’s-game. But in true account –
“ Parva seges satis est: laudato ingentia rura,
Exiguum colito. ”
The holy patriarchs were content to dwell in tents. Abraham’s only purchase was a burying place. David in that Litany of his, as one calleth it, blesseth himself from those “men of God’s hand who have their portion here.”
“ Discite quam parvo liceat producere vitam:
Et quantum natura petat. ”
– Lucan. Phar.,
If a man will study rather to satisfy his hunger than his humour, a little will serve. But it is as easy to quench the fire of Etna as the thoughts set on fire by covetousness. Unus Pelaeo iuveni non sufficit orbis. a
Till there be no place,
That they may be placed alone.
a Juvenal.
b Lib. de Naboth et Ahab., cap. 3.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isaiah
A PROPHET’S WOES
Isa 5:8 – Isa 5:30
Drunkenness is, in this text, one of a ring of plague-spots on the body politic of Judah. The prophet six times proclaims ‘woe’ as the inevitable end of these; such ‘sickness’ is ‘unto death’ unless repentance and another course of conduct bring healing. But drunkenness appears twice in this grim catalogue, and the longest paragraph of denunciation Isa 5:11 – Isa 5:17 is devoted to it. Its connection with the other vices attacked is loose, but it is worth noting that all these have an inner kinship, and tend to appear together. They are ‘all in a string,’ and where a community is cursed with one, the others will not be far away. They are a knot of serpents intertwined. We touch but slightly on the other vices denounced by the prophet’s burning words, but we must premise the general observation that the same uncompromising plainness and boldness in speaking out as to social sins ought to characterise Christian teachers to-day. The prophet’s office is not extinct in the church.
The first plague-spot is the accumulation of wealth in few hands, and the selfish withdrawal of its possessors from the life of the community. In an agricultural society like that of Judah, that clotting of wealth took the shape of ‘land-grabbing,’ and of evicting the small proprietors. We see it in more virulent forms in our great commercial centres, where the big men often become big by crushing out the little ones, and denude themselves of responsibility to the community in proportion as they clothe themselves with wealth. Wherever wealth is thus congested, and its obligations ignored by selfish indulgence, the seeds are sown which will spring up one day in ‘anarchism.’ A man need not be a prophet to have it whispered in his ear, as Isaiah had, that the end of selfish capitalism is a convulsion in which ‘many houses shall be desolate,’ and many fields barren. England needs the warning as much as Isaiah’s Judah did.
Such selfish wealth leads, among other curses, to indolence and drunkenness, as the next woe shows. The people described make drinking the business of their lives, beginning early and sitting late. They have a varnish of art over their swinishness, and must have music as well as wine. So, in many a drink-shop in England, a piano or a band adds to the attractions, and gives a false air of aestheticism to pure animalism. Isaiah feels the incongruity that music should be so prostituted, and expresses it by adding to his list of musical instruments ‘and wine’ as if he would underscore the degradation of the great art to be the cupbearer of sots. Such revellers are blind to the manifest tokens of God’s working, and the ‘operation of His hands’ excites only the tipsy gaze which sees nothing. That is one of the curses which dog the drunkard-that he takes no warning from the plain results of his vice as seen in others. He knows that it means shattered health, ruined prospects, broken hearts, but nothing rouses him from his fancy of impunity. High, serious thoughts of God and His government of the world and of each life are strange to him. His sin compels him to be godless, if he is not to go mad. But sometimes he wakes to a moment’s sight of realities, and then he is miserable till his next bout buys fatal forgetfulness.
The prophet forces the end of a drunken nation on the unwilling attention of the roisterers, in Isa 5:13 – Isa 5:17 , which throb with vehemence of warning and gloomy eloquence. What can such a people come to but destruction? Knowledge must languish, hunger and thirst must follow. Like some monster’s gaping mouth, the pit yawns for them; and, drawn as by irresistible attraction, the pomp and the wicked, senseless jollity elide down into it. In the universal catastrophe, one thing alone stands upright, and is lifted higher, because all else has sunk so far,-the righteous judgment of the forgotten God. The grim picture is as true for individuals and their deaths as for a nation and its decay. And modern nations cannot afford to have this ulcer of drunkenness draining away their strength any more than Judah could. ‘By the soul only are the nations great and free,’ and a people can be neither where the drink fiend has his way.
Three woes follow which are closely connected. That pronounced on daring evil-doers, who not only let sin draw them to itself, but go more than halfway to meet it, needing no temptation, but drawing it to them eagerly, and scoffing at the merciful warnings of fatal consequences, comes first. Next is a woe on those who play fast and loose with plain morality, sophisticating conscience, and sapping the foundations of law. Such juggling follows sensual indulgence such as drunkenness, when it becomes habitual and audacious, as in the preceding woe. Loose or perverted codes of morality generally spring from bad living, seeking to shelter itself. Vicious principles are an afterthought to screen vicious practices. The last subject of the triple woes is self-conceit and pretence to superior illumination. Such very superior persons are emancipated from the rules which bind the common herd. They are so very clever that they have far outgrown the creeping moralities, which may do for old women and children. Do we not know the sort of people? Have we none of them surviving to-day?
Then Isaiah comes back to his theme of drunkenness, but in a new connection. It poisons the fountain of justice. There is a world of indignant contempt in the prophet’s scathing picture of those who are ‘mighty’ and ‘men of strength,’-but how is their strength shown? They can stand any quantity of wine, and can ‘mix their drinks,’ and yet look sober! What a noble use to put a good constitution to! These valiant topers are in authority as judges, and they sell their judgments to get money for their debauches. We do not see much of such scandals among us, but yet we have heard of leagues between liquor-sellers and municipal authorities, which certainly do not ‘make for righteousness.’ When shall we learn and practise the lesson that Isaiah was reading his countrymen,-that it is fatal to a nation when the private character of public men is regarded as of no account in political and civic life? The prophet had no doubt as to what must be the end of a state of things in which the very courts of law were honeycombed with corruption, and demoralised by the power of drink. His tremendous image of a fierce fire raging across a dry prairie, and burning the grass to its very roots, while the air is stifling with the thick ‘dust’ of the conflagration, proclaims the sure fate, sooner or later, of every community and individual that ‘rejects the law of the Lord of Hosts, and despises the word of the Holy One of Israel.’ Change the name, and the tale is told of us; for it is ‘righteousness that exalteth a nation,’ and no single vice drags after it more infallibly such a multitude of attendant demons as the vice of drunkenness, which is a crying sin of England to-day.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 5:8-12
8Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field,
Until there is no more room,
So that you have to live alone in the midst of the land!
9In my ears the LORD of hosts has sworn, Surely, many houses shall become desolate,
Even great and fine ones, without occupants.
10For ten acres of vineyard will yield only one bath of wine,
And a homer of seed will yield but an ephah of grain.
11Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may pursue strong drink,
Who stay up late in the evening that wine may inflame them!
12Their banquets are accompanied by lyre and harp, by tambourine and flute, and by wine;
But they do not pay attention to the deeds of the LORD,
Nor do they consider the work of His hands.
Isa 5:8
NASB, NKJV,
NJB, REBWoe
NRSV, JPSOA Ah
TEVYou are doomed
There is some debate among commentators as to whether there are six or seven woes (BDB 222) listed. This is not literally the Hebrew term woe (BDB 17, which denotes a lament, cf. Isa 3:9; Isa 3:11; Isa 6:5; Isa 24:16). This translation suggestion from BDB is ah, alas, or ha (cf. Isa 1:4; Isa 10:1; Isa 10:5; Isa 17:12; Isa 28:1). It expresses painful dissatisfaction with the current situation or consequences.
They begin the consequences of judgment on Judah because of their straying from God’s covenant. They are basically a listing of the sins of the Judean society.
to those who add house to house and join field to field This refers to the greedy land owners who exploited the poor by taking their ancestral lands (i.e., the land division by Joshua) to accumulate more and more land for themselves (cf. Jer 22:13-17; Mic 2:2). The law of Moses protected the allotted lands by enacting the Year of Jubliee (cf. Lev 25:8-55; Num 36:4). All land must return to the original tribal family owners every fiftieth year. Although there is no record in the OT of Israel ever honoring this release, it was still the expressed will of God.
Isa 5:9 The opening of Isa 5:9 is very emphatic, with no VERB, literally in my ears, the LORD of hosts. This is a clear claim of verbal divine revelation (cf. Isa 22:14)! This is not Isaiah’s message, nor Isaiah’s emotion! YHWH is shouting through His prophet to His wayward people.
This judgment is similar to Amo 5:11 and Mic 6:15. The expectations of the rich and exploitive elements of society will not materialize. They will not enjoy their ill-gotten gain! We reap what we sow (see note at Isa 3:10-11).
Isa 5:10 For ten acres of vineyard Acres is literally a couple or a pair (BDB 855, cf. 1Sa 14:14), which denoted animals yoked together for agricultural purposes. One yoke was the amount of land an oxen could plow in one day.
will yield only one bath of wine The term bath (BDB 144 II) is a liquid measurement in Hebrew and it is equal to eight to ten gallons. In this context it is a metaphor for the fruitlessness of the usurped land.
SPECIAL TOPIC: Ancient near Eastern Weights and Volumes (Metrology)
And a homer of seed will yield but an ephah of grain Again this is a striking metaphor for the fruitlessness of the usurped land. We learn from Eze 45:11 that there were ten ephahs in one homer; therefore, this is stating that if a farmer plants one hundred pounds, he will only harvest ten.
Isa 5:11 Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may pursue strong drink The next sin mentioned is one of riotous pleasure-seeking from morning to evening. It needs to be stressed that the Bible does not condemn wine, but it does condemn the abuse of wine. This same metaphor of strong drink is used in Isaiah 28. Other poignant passages on this subject are found in Pro 20:1; Pro 23:29-35. However, one must add the balance of Psa 104:14-15; Ecc 9:7. Strong drink (BDB 1016) is a Hebrew term describing the addition of intoxicating grain liquors to wine. See Special Topic: Biblical Attitudes Toward Alcohol and Alcoholism .
Isa 5:12 Their banquets are accompanied by This is a way of speaking of the cultural entertainment of the day. It depicts a wealthy class given to worldly pleasures.
But they do not pay attention to the deeds of the LORD,
Nor do they consider the work of His hands God’s covenant people’s refusal to hear and understand God’s will is a recurrent theme (cf. Isa 1:2-3; Isa 1:10 a; Isa 5:12-13; Isa 5:24; Isa 6:9-10; Isa 30:9). God had given them spiritual ears and eyes (cf. Deu 29:4), but their collective blindness and deafness had caused God to remove the possibility of comprehension (cf. Isa 6:9-10; Isa 29:9-10).
The tragedy of these verses is that the Judeans of Isaiah’s day were depending on their own resources and schemes instead of the provision of their Covenant God. One should compare Isa 5:24 d,e with Deu 8:11-20.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Woe. Figure of speech Epibole, “Woe” repeated six times in succession (verses: Isa 5:8, Isa 5:11, Isa 5:18, Isa 8:20, Isa 8:21, Isa 8:22). Note the six subjects.
no. Hebrew. ephes. Occurs in “former” portion only here and in Isa 34:12; the “latter” portion in Isa 40:17; Isa 41:12, Isa 41:29; Isa 45:6, Isa 45:14; Isa 46:9; Isa 47:8, Isa 47:10; Isa 52:4; Isa 54:15. App-79.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Isa 5:8-10
Isa 5:8-10
WOE TO THE GREEDY AND THE SELFISH
“Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land! In mine ears saith Jehovah of hosts, of a truth many houses shall be left desolate, even great and fair without inhabitant. For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah.”
The insatiable desire of men to own more and more is the direct and certain result of a gross materialism in the heart. God here promises a judgment upon such ambitious concentrations of wealth and power.
“In mine ears …” This is a reference to Isaiah’s hearing the voice of God conveying to him the words God would have him deliver to the people.
“Acres …” The literal Hebrew word here is “yokes,” being a reference to “the amount of ground that two strong oxen could plow in a day.
God’s judgment upon the natural environment of greedy and selfish societies is shown in the prophecy here of a terrible drought in which a homer of seed shall yield only an ephah of grain. The severity of this is indicated by the fact that an ephah is only the tenth part of a homer. Thus the harvest would be cut to a disastrously low percentage of the seed sown.
After the general warning conveyed to Judah by the song or parable of the vineyard, six sins are pointed out as those which have especially provoked God to give the warning. He now pronounces woes of application against each of these sins.
Isa 5:8-10 WOE AGAINST MONOPOLY AND GREED: Selfishness – greed for possession of land and houses. Many rich people are notorious for this sin. They are not satisfied to own a small business, however well paying; they must monopolize. It gives them a sense of security and power. God never intended for a few to control the wealth of the world. These men of Isaiahs day were land-grabbers to the extent that there was no room left for the poor man who must either live on the property of the landowners as slaves or immigrate to another territory. This violated the Mosaic law which had apportioned a parcel of land to each family head. This land was to remain in the family. If it should have to be sold, it was to be returned to the original family in the year of Jubilee, Gods judgment is spoken directly into the ear of Isaiah. There can be no mistake-God will judge! Desolate houses; barren and unfruitful land. Ten acres of vineyard normally should produce 4,000 gallons of wine instead of 8 gallons. The land would produce but l/10th the seed sown.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
them: Jer 22:13-17, Mic 2:2, Hab 2:9-12, Mat 23:14, Luk 12:16-24
field: 1Ki 21:16-20
they: Heb. ye placed, Eze 11:15, Eze 33:24
Reciprocal: Num 5:29 – when a wife goeth Job 3:14 – which built Job 15:28 – desolate Job 18:19 – nor any Job 20:19 – he hath violently Pro 15:27 – He that is Ecc 4:8 – no Isa 10:1 – Woe Isa 10:14 – And my Isa 57:17 – the iniquity Jer 22:14 – I will Amo 1:13 – ripped up the women with child Amo 4:1 – which oppress Amo 5:11 – treading Hab 2:5 – who Zep 1:13 – build Luk 12:19 – Soul 1Ti 6:9 – they
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 5:8-10. Wo unto them, &c. The unfolding of the parable, after the general key in the preceding verse, comprehends two things, according to the argument of the parable; the crimes of this ungrateful people, and the punishment decreed to their crimes. That join house to house That add new purchases of houses and lands to their former possessions. Not that this was in itself absolutely unlawful, but because they did it from an inordinate desire of riches, and with the injury of their brethren. That they may be placed alone That they alone may be the lords and owners, and all others only their tenants and servants. Thus, the first crime condemned is avarice and rapacity; which is strongly described in this verse, and which prevailed remarkably among the Jews. Its punishment, even the desolation of those houses which they coveted, and the devastation of those fields which they obtained so rapaciously, is set forth in the two following verses. See Vitringa. In mine ears, said the Lord That is, It was revealed in mine ears: or, I heard God speak what I am now about to utter. Of a truth many houses shall be desolate In vain are ye so intent upon joining house to house, and field to field; your houses shall be left uninhabited, and your fields shall become desolate and barren: so that a vineyard of ten acres shall produce but one bath (not eight gallons) of wine, and the husbandman shall reap but a tenth part of the seed which he has sown. Bishop Lowth. Thus it is predicted that a fruitful land should be made barren for their wickedness, according to Gods threatening, (Psa 107:34,) and they would have as little comfort in their lands as in their houses.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 5:8-24. A Series of Denunciations on Various Offenders.This section contains a collection of Woes, originally independent and even now not woven into a single symmetrical address. Whether they come from different periods of Isaiahs ministry is not so clear; no confidence can be felt in the attempts to date them. The text has not been very well preserved.
Isa 5:8-10. Woe to the grasping land-holders who drive the old possessors from their ancestral homesteads that they may have large estates all to themselves. Soon there will be a loneliness they will not desire, the solitude of desolation, and their lands will yield a harvest far less than the seed. With their land the dispossessed would lose their civil rights, to which the Hebrews hung tenaciously, as we see from the story of Naboth (1 Kings 21).
Isa 5:9. Read, therefore the Lord of hosts hath sworn in mine ears.
Isa 5:10. acres: literally yokes, a yoke being as much as two strong oxen could plough from morn till night.a bath: a liquid measure equivalent to an ephah of dry measure, about nine gallons of wine, a very small vintage from so large a vineyard. Since an ephah was the tenth part of a homer (Eze 45:11), the harvest amounts to only a tenth of the seed.
Isa 5:11-17. In this section Isa 5:15 f. is probably a marginal quotation of Isa 2:11 made from memory. Isa 5:14 foretells utter destruction, a prophecy of humiliation is out of place; the woe is on revellers, these verses are a denunciation of pride. Isa 5:14; Isa 5:17 also do not properly follow Isa 5:13, which has announced the penalty; they seem to be the conclusion of another woe; in which a city had been denounced to which the pronoun her, incorrectly rendered their, must refer. Isa 5:11-13 is a Woe on the drunkards and revellers, who practise the disgraceful habit (Ecc 10:16 f., Act 2:15) of drinking in the morning, and leave God out of their calculations. Blind to the signs of His working, they perish by captivity and famine. Isa 5:14; Isa 5:17 describe how the city, presumably Jerusalem, is swallowed by Sheol, the insatiable underworld (Pro 30:16, Hab 2:5), depicted as a monster distending its mouth to devour her. Then the lambs pasture on its site, and the ruined mansions are the camping ground of nomads
Isa 5:13. Read, Their honourable men are exhausted (mezeh) with famine.
Isa 5:17. We need a parallel to lambs in the second clause; read either, and the waste places shall fatlings eat: or and the waste places shall kids (gedaim) eat. In the first clause we should perhaps read feed in their desert place.
Isa 5:18-24. Woe to the scoffing free-thinkers who believe the Day of Yahweh will never come, and challenge God to do His worst. As beasts are yoked to a cart, so they yoke themselves to sin with strong cords of flippant frivolity, and drag with sin the punishment which comes in its train. Woe to the sophists who pervert the radical moral distinctions. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, i.e. the smart, self-satisfied politicians, who flout the counsel given by Yahweh through His prophet. Woe to the drunkards, heroes not for the fray but the debauch, with the strong head of the hard drinker. Not content with ordinary wine, they mix spices with it to enhance its flavour and increase its strength. Woe to those who take bribes to acquit the guilty and condemn the innocent. They shall be like stubble consumed by the flame and a plant with rotting root and blossom turned to dust. Isa 5:23 does not follow naturally on Isa 5:22.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
5:8 Woe to them that join house to house, [that] lay field to field, till [there is] no {k} place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!
(k) That is, for the poor to dwell in.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
2. The wildness of the grapes 5:8-25
Yahweh’s crop was worthless because it produced wild grapes that manifested six blights. The word "woe" (Heb. hoy), a term of lament and threat, introduces each one (cf. Amo 5:18; Amo 6:1; Rev 8:13; Rev 9:12).
"The word ’woe’ itself, appearing six times in the passage, does not just denounce our sins, it laments our sins. The same word is translated ’Ah!’ in Isa 1:4 and ’Alas!’ in 1Ki 13:30. Remember that ’woe’ is the opposite of the word ’blessed’ (cf. Luk 6:20-26)." [Note: Ortlund, p. 66.]
"He [Isaiah] holds up six clusters of wild grapes, as it were, to illustrate what’s going wrong, six ways we resist the grace of God, six answers to the question ’Why?’ Each is presented with a ’Woe.’" [Note: Ibid., p. 68.]
Two double "therefore" sections break the laments into two groups by concluding them (Isa 5:13-14; Isa 5:24-25). The "woe" sections emphasize the crop produced, and the "therefore" sections the harvest (judgment) to come. In the "woes" there is a chiastic progression.
A The property motive (Isa 5:8-10)
B Self-indulgence (Isa 5:11-12)
C Sin pursued (Isa 5:18-19)
C’ Sin justified (Isa 5:20)
B’ Self-conceit (Isa 5:21)
A’ The money motive (Isa 5:22-23) [Note: Adapted from Motyer, p. 70. For a rhetorical critical study of the passage, see Robert B. Chisholm Jr., "Structure, Style, and the Prophetic Message: An Analysis of Isaiah 5:8-30," Bibliotheca Sacra 143:569 (January-March 1986):46-60.]
One writer saw saw six things the Lord hates in these sections: greed (Isa 5:8), hedonism (Isa 5:11-13), rebellion (Isa 5:18-19), immorality (Isa 5:20), pride (Isa 5:21), and injustice (Isa 5:22-23). [Note: Dyer, p. 531]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Sins of the upwardly mobile 5:8-17
This section identifies sins that marked the people among whom Isaiah lived-and their consequences. They are still very much with us.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Two initial woes 5:8-12
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The first quality that spoiled Israel’s fruit was greed, an example of which Isaiah detailed (cf. Mic 2:1). The Israelites were buying out their neighbors, as they had opportunity or made the opportunity, to increase their land holdings. The wealthier or smarter members of the community took advantage of their less fortunate brethren and so deprived them of their opportunity to live on land that God had given them (cf. Lev 25:23). The carpetbaggers who descended on the South following America’s Civil War similarly took advantage of many southerners whose farms had been decimated by invading northern troops. They bought up their land for a fraction of its worth and drove the former owners into destitute poverty.
Buying additional land is not wrong in itself, but when it involves abusing other people it becomes wrong. Isaiah was not decrying large farms or estates per se; he was condemning squeezing out the small man to make oneself more prosperous, secure, and admired. Those who did this in his day ended up isolated, rather than enjoying the fellowship of their brethren (cf. Mat 16:25-26; Col 3:5).
God would judge this greed by causing the families of these isolated rich people to dwindle (Isa 5:9). Ironically, by the time a person has enough money to build a mansion he is often too old to enjoy it, his family has grown up and moved out, and his spouse may die soon because she is usually old too. God would judge the farmers by decreasing the productivity of their crops (Isa 5:10; cf. Deu 28:20-24; Psa 106:15; Hag 1:5-6). The land-hungry would become hungry. No matter how many acres a person may own, God still controls the weather. Agricultural productivity was one of God’s promised blessings under the Old Covenant (Deu 28:11-12; cf. Isa 4:2).