Isaiah 5:2 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 5:2
And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.
to grub over · conjunction + verb, piel sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
stones
וַֽיְסַקְּלֵ֗הוּvay.sa.ke.Le.hu
H5619
properly · conjunction + verb, piel sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
planted
וַיִּטָּעֵ֙הוּ֙vai.yi.ta.'E.hu
H5193
properly · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
vine
שֹׂרֵ֔קso.Rek
H8321
a vine stock (properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
built
וַיִּ֤בֶןvai.Yi.ven
H1129
to build (literally and figuratively) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
tower
מִגְדָּל֙mig.Dal
H4026
a tower (from its size or height) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
midst
בְּתוֹכ֔וֹbe.to.Kho
H8432
a bisection · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
made
חָצֵ֣בcha.Tzev
H2672
to cut or carve (wood · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
winepress
יֶ֖קֶבYe.kev
H3342
a trough (as dug out) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
looked
וַיְקַ֛וvay.Kav
H6960
to bind together (perhaps by twisting) · conjunction + verb, piel sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
forth
לַעֲשׂ֥וֹתla.'a.Sot
H6213
to do or make · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
grapes
עֲנָבִ֖ים'a.na.Vim
H6025
a grape · noun, common masculine plural absolute
forth
וַיַּ֥עַשׂvai.Ya.'as
H6213
to do or make · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
grapes
בְּאֻשִֽׁיםbe.'u.Shim
H891
poison-berries · noun, common masculine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Jeremiah 2:21 Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?
Deuteronomy 32:32-33 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:
Isaiah 1:2-4 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against m…
Mark 11:13 And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing bu…
Luke 13:6-7 He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.
1 Corinthians 9:7 Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and e…
Revelation 14:18-20 And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Th…
Luke 20:10-18 And at the season he sent a servant to the husbandmen, that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard: but the husbandmen beat him,…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 5:1-7
See what variety of methods the great God takes to awaken sinners to repentance by convincing them of sin, and showing them their misery and danger by reason of it. To this purport he speaks sometimes in plain terms and sometimes in parables, sometimes in prose and sometimes in verse, as here. "We have tried to reason with you (Isa 1:18); now let us put your case into a poem, inscribed to the honour of my well beloved." God the Father dictates it to the honour of Christ his well beloved Son, whom he has constituted Lord of the vineyard. The prophet sings it to the honour of Christ too, for he is his well beloved. The Old Testament prophets were friends of the bridegroom. Christ is God's belo…
fenced--rather, "digged and trenched" the ground to prepare it for planting the vines [MAURER].
choicest vine--Hebrew, sorek; called still in Morocco, serki; the grapes had scarcely perceptible seeds; the Persian kishmish or bedana, that is, "without seed" (Gen 49:11).
tower--to watch the vineyard against the depredations of man or beast, and for the use of the owner (Mat 21:33).
wine-press--including the wine-fat; both hewn, for coolness, out of the rocky undersoil of the vineyard.
wild grapes--The Hebrew expresses offensive putrefaction, answering to the corrupt state of the Jews. Fetid fruit of the wild vine [MAURER], instead of "choicest" grapes. Of the poisonous monk's hood [GES…
And he fenced it,.... With good and wholesome laws, which distinguished them, and kept them separate from other nations; also with his almighty power and providence; especially at the three yearly festivals, when all their males appeared before God at Jerusalem:
and gathered out the stones thereof; the Heathens, the seven nations that inhabited the land of Canaan, compared to stones for their hardness and stupidity, and for their worshipping of idols of stone; see Psalm 80:8.
and planted it with the choicest vine; the seed of Abraham, Joshua, and Caleb, who fully followed the Lord, and the people of Israel with them, who first entered into the land of Canaan, and inhabited it; such having…
The Church Fathers
So let me warn you, holy seedlings, let me warn you, fresh plants in the field of the Lord, not to have it said of you what was said of the vineyard of the house of Israel: "I expected it to produce grapes, but it produced thorns." Let the Lord find good bunches of grapes on you, seeing that he was himself a bunch of grapes trodden in the winepress for you. Produce grapes, live good lives.
(Verse 2.) And he fenced it, and picked stones from it, and planted the vineyard of Sorec, and built a tower in its midst, and constructed a winepress in it. In metaphor, as we said before, the vineyard represents the Jewish people, whom God protected with the help of angels. And he picked stones from it, meaning idols or anything that could hinder the worship of God. And he planted the vineyard of Sorec, which Symmachus alone interpreted as chosen, not expressing the word for word, as it seems to me, but the meaning that is held in the word. For the Hebrews say that the Sorek vine is of the best kind, because it produces abundant and perpetual fruit. Indeed, Sorek is interpreted by some as 'beautifully fruitful', a phrase that we can translate as 'the most beautiful fruits'. He also built a tower in the middle of it, namely a temple in the center of the city, and he constructed a winepress in it, which some people think signifies an altar. Just as all grapes are gathered and trampled in the winepress to extract the wine from them, so the altar receives all the fruits of the people and devours the sacrificed victims, according to what we read about Benjamin, in whose tribe the temple and altar were: Benjamin is a ravenous wolf, in the morning he devours the prey, and in the evening he distributes food (Gen. XLIX, 27). All that is said about the vineyard can also be referred to the state of the human soul, which, though planted by God for good, has not produced grapes but wild grapes; and afterwards is handed over to be trampled by beasts, and has not received the divine rain of teachings, because it has despised past gifts. And I expected, that he would make grapes, and he made labruscas. Concerning labruscas, which we translate, in Hebrew it is written Busim (): which Aquila interpreted as σαπρίας, that is, the worst fruit: Symmachus as ἀτελῆ, that is, imperfect: LXX and Theodotion as thorns: with which the Jews crowned the Lord. For while he was waiting for them to bring grapes to the winepress at the time of the vintage, for which the 83rd Psalm has titles, they, sinking into the cares and vices of the world, which in the Gospel (Mark 4) are interpreted as thorns, presented the stings of blasphemies. I think, however, that it is better for the grapes to be understood as Busim labruscas rather than thorns, so that the similarity of translation may be…
Dictionary and topics
Agriculture — Tilling the ground (Gen. 2:15; 4:2, 3, 12) and rearing cattle were the chief employments in ancient times. The Egyptians excelled in agriculture. And after the Israelites entered into the possession…
Cockle — Occurs only in Job 31:40 (marg., “noisome weeds”), where it is the rendering of a Hebrew word (b’oshah) which means “offensive,” “having a bad smell,” referring to some weed perhaps which has an…
Grape — The fruit of the vine, which was extensively cultivated in Palestine. Grapes are spoken of as “tender” (Cant. 2:13, 15), “unripe” (Job 15:33), “sour” (Isa. 18:5), “wild” (Isa. 5:2, 4). (See Rev.…
Stone — Stones were commonly used for buildings, also as memorials of important events (Gen. 28:18; Josh. 24:26, 27; 1 Sam. 7:12, etc.). They were gathered out of cultivated fields (Isa. 5:2; comp. 2 Kings…
Towers — Of Babel (Gen. 11:4), Edar (Gen. 35:21), Penuel (Judg. 8:9, 17), Shechem (9:46), David (Cant. 4:4), Lebanon (7:4), Syene (Ezek. 29:10), Hananeel (Zech. 14:10), Siloam (Luke 13:4). There were several…
Vine — One of the most important products of Palestine. The first mention of it is in the history of Noah (Gen. 9:20). It is afterwards frequently noticed both in the Old and New Testaments, and in the…
Winepress — From the scanty notices contained in the Bible we gather that, the wine-presses of the Jews consisted of two receptacles of vats placed at different elevations, in the upper one of which the grapes…
And he fenced it. The incessant care and watchfulness of God in dressing his vine are asserted by the Prophet, as if he had said, that God has neglected nothing that could be expected from the best and most careful householder. And yet we do not choose to attempt, as some commentators have done, an ingenious exposition of every clause, such as, that the Church is fenced by the protection of the Holy Spirit, so that it is safe against the attacks of the devil; that the wine-press is doctrine; and that by the stones are meant the annoyances of errors. The design of the Prophet, as I have mentioned, was more obvious, namely, that by incessant care and large expenditure God has performed the par…
The prophet commenced his first address in chapter 1 like another Moses; the second, which covered no less ground, he opened with the text of an earlier prophecy; and now he commences the third like a musician, addressing both himself and his hearers with enticing words. Isa 1:1. "Arise, I will sing of my beloved, a song of my dearest touching his vineyard." The fugitive rhythm, the musical euphony, the charming assonances in this appeal, it is impossible to reproduce. They are perfectly inimitable. The Lamed in lı̄dı̄dı̄ is the Lamed objecti. The person to whom the song referred, to whom it applied, of whom it treated, was the singer's own beloved. It was a song of his dearest one (not his…
The Lord gave the best care to his vineyard, preparing and nursing it as an expert agriculturalist. He watched over it with great attentiveness, planting the best vines—ones that had the potential for abundant sweet grapes. God had great expectations of Israel as his people (see Exod 19:5-6), so the bitter grapes they produced—their unrighteous deeds—were useless and disappointing (cp. Gal 5:22-23).
Rashi on Isaiah 5:2
And he fenced it in Heb. וַיְעַזְּקֵהוּ. He fenced it and walled it around, surrounded like a sort of ring, translated into Aramaic as עִיזְקָא.
and he cleared it of stones Heb. וַיְסַקְלֵהוּ. He cleared it of the stones that are detrimental to the vines, comp. (infra 62:10) “Clear of stones (סַקְּלוֹ מֵאֶבֶן).”
and he planted it with the choicest vines They are the best of all branches for planting.
and he built a tower in its midst A press in which to press the grapes.
and also a vat he hewed therein Heb. יֶקֶב, the pit that is before the press, to receive the wine. Likewise, every יֶקֶב in Scripture is an expression denoting a pit. Likewise (Zechariah 14:4), עַד יִקְבֵי הַמֶלֶךְ, whic…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
— Designed for protection
Ingratitude To God · Illustrated — Illustrated
Judgment · ACCORDING TO OPPORTUNITY AND WORKS — ACCORDING TO OPPORTUNITY AND WORKS
Parables · Of the vineyard — Of the vineyard
Prophets · Frequently spoke in parables and riddles — Frequently spoke in parables and riddles
Towers · Were built: In vineyards — Were built: In vineyards
Unfaithfulness · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Unfruitfulness · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Vine, The · Often degenerated — Often degenerated
Vineyard · Towers in — Towers in
Vineyards · Frequently walled or fenced with hedges — Frequently walled or fenced with hedges
War · 28:25-68;32:30; — 28:25-68;32:30;
Wine Press · In vineyards — In vineyards
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
