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Atomic Bible
Isaiah

Chapter 5

The Song of the Vineyard and Woes to the Wicked

Isaiah 5 begins with a lyrical song about a carefully tended vineyard that yields only bad fruit, then reveals that the vineyard is the house of Israel and the men of Judah in whom the LORD expected justice but found bloodshed. The chapter continues with a series of woes against greed, indulgence, defiant sin, moral inversion, self-conceit, drunken corruption, and the rejection of God's law, culminating in the vision of a fierce foreign nation summoned as the instrument of judgment.

As the fifth chapter of Isaiah, this passage gathers the book's covenant lawsuit into one of its most memorable forms: the vineyard song that moves from affection and expectation to verdict and devastation. It also establishes the pattern by which Isaiah's oracles expose specific social sins and then connect them to exile, showing that Judah's collapse is not accidental but the moral consequence of refusing the Holy One of Israel and despising His word.

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Isaiah 5

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vv. 1-7

The Song of the Vineyard

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I1 will sing for my beloved a song of his vineyard: 2He dug it up and cleared the stones

3“And now, O dwellers of Jerusalem 4What more could have been done for My vineyard 5Now I will tell you what I am about to do to My vineyard: 6I will make it a wasteland,

7For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts

vv. 8-30

Woes to the Wicked

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W8oe to you who add house to house 9I heard the LORD of Hosts declare: 10For ten acres of vineyard

11Woe to those who rise early in the morning 12At their feasts are the lyre and harp, 13Therefore My people will go into exile 14Therefore Sheol enlarges its throat 15So mankind will be brought low, and each man humbled; 16But the LORD of Hosts will be exalted by His justice, 17Lambs will graze as in their own pastures,

18Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of deceit 19to those who say, “Let Him hurry and hasten His work 20Woe to those who call evil good 21Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes 22Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine 23who acquit the guilty for a bribe

24Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes the straw, 25Therefore the anger of the LORD burns against His people; 26He lifts a banner for the distant nations 27None of them grows weary or stumbles; 28Their arrows are sharpened, 29Their roaring is like that of a lion; 30In that day they will roar over it,

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  1. 01vv. 1-7The Song of the VineyardThe prophet sings of a beloved who did everything possible for his vineyard, clearing, planting, building, and expecting good grapes, only to receive wild fruit instead. The song then turns into a courtroom accusation in which the owner announces the vineyard's destruction and reveals that the vineyard is Israel, from whom the LORD expected justice and righteousness but found only violence and cries of distress.
  2. 02vv. 8-30Woes to the WickedAfter the vineyard song, Isaiah pronounces repeated woes against the social and moral disorders that explain Judah's bad fruit: land-grabbing greed, revelry without regard for God's work, shameless attachment to sin, moral inversion, self-satisfied wisdom, drunken leadership, and bribery that denies justice. The section closes by tracing these sins to contempt for the LORD's law and by depicting a foreign force swiftly summoned to execute judgment upon the land.
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