Isaiah

Take-Aways

Twenty-first century Westerners often view land as property – a material object to be possessed. However, in an early Middle Eastern context, land is understood as something with whom both God and people have a relationship. This relationship is both political and economic, but it is also theological. Isaiah tells a poem about God’s relationship with God’s vineyard, and we see from the beginning that God’s love for the land provides a metaphor for God’s care for God’s people: “Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard.” First the land is God’s, and God gives the land to humanity to steward on God’s behalf. In this framework, God distributes land – it is not humanity’s “real estate.” Isaiah cautions his hearers against accumulating houses and fields in greed, as though it is theirs, regardless of the larger community who also has a relationship with the land because the land is God’s. The New Interpreters Bible Commentary picks up on this theme, saying, “Treating land simply or primarily as property narrows the vision of the environment as a whole.” Do we consider the environment as something we possess? An object that we can greedily acquire and use for our purposes? Or is land a gift we tend and steward as part of our loving response to God?

Calvin’s Commentary on Isaiah

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom13.xii.i.html

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!

Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible

The first oracle (5:8-10) condemns those who accumulate land; there is no suggestion that the land has been stolen (as in the story of Naboth’s vineyard, 1 Kings 21), but even to purchase land in perpetuity was forbidden (Lev 25:23). On the Day of Atonement, which began the year of jubilee, all land returned to its original owner. Perhaps those who broke the law of jubilee were being condemned. Isaiah curses what has been taken: the houses will become deserted and the land barren. The punishment fits the crime (p 503).

New Interpreters Bible Commentary

This prophetic speech concerning houses and field–what we call real estate–presumes traditional Israelite understandings of land and justice, economics and power. Those who “join house to house, who add field to field” (v.8), subvert the ancient order concerning land–the land promised to the patriarchs, divided among the tribes and their families, and never to be treated as real estate that can be sold (Lev 25:23). So the greedy development of large estates by the few at the expense of the many is social and economic injustice, creating or expanding a class of homeless people. But it is more than that. Is is the violation of a divinely established order, taken to be the expression of election as well as justice. Land is not to be treated as property to be accumulated. It belongs to the Lord, whose equitable distribution of it among the tribes and clans as trustees is to be maintained in perpetuity. In the eight century BCE, economic shifts in the direction of capitalism were undermining the traditional ideas of stewardship of the land.

The punishment implied in v. 8b, is the isolation of the greedy. Verses 9b-10 sketch a scene of judgment as an empty landscape, “desolate” and presumably ruined mansions whose owners and occupants have vanished. Such devastation may result from military invasion, but in this case the cause is crop failure. “Ten acres” (lit. “ten yoke.” the land that can be worked by ten yoke of oxen in a day) of vineyard will produce only about five and a half gallons of wine, and “a homer of seed shall yield a mere ephah”–that is, the harvest will be one-tenth of the seed planted. Since this announcement is the word of Yahweh, it sets judgment into motion. Remarkably, as in Gen 3:17-19, the Lord punishes sinners by cursing the land (p93).

With regard to land, 5:8-10 continues a central theme of the Hebrew scriptures by insisting that land and land ownership are not simply economic or political issues but are spiritual and theological matters as well. The problem set out here is driven by greed, by those who overthrwo the ancient tradition that the tribes, clans, and families of Israel are trustees of the Lord’s land in order to acquire mor than they need. These verses evoke reflection on environmental, political, and economic issues. Treating land simply or primarily as property narrows the vision of the environment as a whole. Was the world created just to satisfy excessive human appetities? Political and military conflicts persist–and not just in modern Israel–because people disagree about God’s selection of stewards of particular lands, or, whether with theological justification or not, they disagree about conflicting claims to particular lands. Few in our time can understand the spiritual attachment to land or the economic disaster of not having it better than those who have lost farms that had been held in their family for generations (Vol. 6, p96).

Take-Aways

Not only is the connection between humanity and the land prevalent in the books of Moses, but it is a fact often witnessed to by the prophets. Because of human sin, “the gladness of the earth is banished.” Pay close attention to Isaiah’s description; he states, “The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants.” How often are we tempted to read that line figuratively and disregard its literal truth? The fact is that the truth Isaiah speaks lies both in the figurative and the literal. Humanity has literally polluted the earth with garbage and waste, and we also pollute it with the fruits of excessive consumption, greed, and hubris. Whether figurative or literal, however, this pollution is the result of sin. The sins that we inflict upon the land are then visited back upon us, through decreased production of crops, increase of natural disasters, and the spread of violence.

Calvin’s Commentary on Isaiah

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom14.xiii.i.html

There is a kind of mutual bargain between the land and the husbandmen, that it gives back with usury what it has received: if it does not, it deceives those who cultivate it. But he assigns a reason, imputing blame to them, that they render it barren by their wickedness. It is owing to our fault that it does not nourish us or bring forth fruit, as God appointed to be done by the regular order of nature; for he wished that it should hold the place of a mother to us, to supply us with food; and if it change its nature and order, or lose its fertility, we ought to attribute it to our sins, since we ourselves have reversed the order which God had appointed; otherwise the earth would never deceive us, but would perform her duty.

Because they have transgressed the laws. He immediately assigns the reason why the earth is unfaithful, and deceives her inhabitants. It is because those who refuse to honor God their Father and supporter, will justly be deprived of food and nourishment. Here he peculiarly holds up to shame the revolt of his nation, because it was baser and less excusable than all the transgressions of those who had never been taught in the school of God. The word תורה (tōrāh) is applied to “the Law,” because it denotes instruction; but here, in the plural number, תורת (tōrōth,) it denotes all the instruction that is contained in the “Law.” But as the “Law” contains both commandments and promises, he adds two parts for the purpose of explanation.

They have changed the ordinance. The Hebrew word חק (chōk) means “an ordinance,” and on that account some think that it denotes ceremonies, and others that it denotes morals. We may render it “commandments;” and I understand it to mean not only ceremonies, but everything that belongs to the rule of a holy life.

They have broken the everlasting covenant. The third term employed by him is, ברית, (bērīth,) by which he means a covenant and contract. This word is limited to those “contracts” by which the Lord, who adopted his people, promised that he would be their God. (Exodus 19:6; 29:45; Leviticus 26:12.) He therefore charges them with ingratitude, because, when the Lord revealed himself by all these methods, and gave proofs of his love, they were disobedient and rebellious, “transgressed the laws,” and “broke the holy covenant.”

He calls it “the covenant of eternity,” or “the everlasting covenant,” because it ought to be perpetual and inviolable, and to be in force in every age. It was to be transmitted, in uninterrupted succession, from father to son, that it might never be effaced from the memory of man, but might be kept pure and entire. He therefore represents in strong terms their treachery and wickedness, because they dared to violate that covenant which God had made with them, and to overthrow what the Lord intended to be firm and permanent. This was monstrous; and therefore we ought not to wonder that the earth takes vengeance for this wickedness, and refuses to give food to men.

The New Interpreters Bible Commentary

As in Hos 4:1-3, the earth suffers because of human sin, as commonly understood in the Hebrew Bible. Thus what follows in vv. 5-6 is the most explicit explanation for the coming trouble in the entire section (chaps. 24-27). The earth withers because it has been “polluted” by its inhabitants. Three sources of pollution are listed, but they are actually one. The first two, transgression of laws and violation of statutes, parallel one another, and amount to the third, breaking “the everlasting covenant” (v. 5). Which covenant does the author have in view? The obvious answer is the covenant with Noah (Gen 9:1-17), since it is called “an everlasting covenant,” and extends to all people and creatures of the earth. On the other hand, the reference to laws and statutes leaves open the possibility that this is the Sinai covenant (Exod 19-Num 9). In this context, and somewhat in tension with vv. 1-3, the disaster comes not from divine intervention against the people and the earth, but from the “curse” that has its effects, polluting and devastating all creation. “Guilt” need not be punished because it sets terrible effects into motion. So NIV reads “its people must bear their guilt” (v. 6), that is, they have set the tragedy into motion” (p211).

The pollution of the earth is a moral issue. In the biblical tradition the environmental implications of particular human crimes or sins is not always obvious. We can understand how dumping industrial waste into a river pollutes it. But how does the violation of, e.g., some of the Ten Commandments “cause” the land to mourn and fish to die? On this issue, as on so many others, the biblical tradition calls for those who take it seriously to reflect more deeply upon human responsibilities to both the earth and all its inhabitants. Moreover, it should not be surprising that prophecies concerning the virtual destruction of the earth elicit reflection on the environment, for many contemporary writers on the subject claim that the environmental crisis has apocalyptical implications. Those who destroy or use up natural resources will lose those resources, or their descendants will (Vol. 6, p213-214).

Take-Aways

The images in this Isaiah passage are of all existing creation being renewed, not replaced. This renewal is for both humanity and for creation. For people, the Lord makes weak hands strong, feeble knees firm, blind eyes open, deaf ears unstopped. For creation, the Lord causes water to flow abundantly from the dry places, and the desert blooms. We see that God does not abandon the first creation. Instead, God comes to it and restores it, so it can express the fullness of life. God loves his creation and does not forsake it, for it is good. When we understand the high value the existing creation has to God, does it inspire us to uphold it as well?

Calvin’s Commentary on Isaiah

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom15.iv.i.html

1. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad. Here the Prophet describes a wonderful change; for having in the former chapter described the destruction of Idumaea, and having said that it would be changed into a wilderness, he now promises, on the other hand, fertility to the wilderness, so that barren and waste lands shall become highly productive. This is God’s own work; for, as he blesses the whole earth, so he waters some parts of it more lightly, and other parts more bountifully, by his blessing, and afterwards withdraws and removes it altogether on account of the ingratitude of men.
Let us now see when this prophecy was fulfilled, or when it shall be fulfilled. The Lord began some kind of restoration when he brought his people out of Babylon; but that was only a slight foretaste, and, therefore, I have no hesitation in saying that this passage, as well as others of a similar kind, must refer to the kingdom of Christ; and in no other light could it be viewed, if we compare it to other prophecies. By “the kingdom of Christ,” I mean not only that which is begun here, but that which shall be completed at the last day, which on that account is called “the day of renovation and restoration,” (Acts 3:21;) because believers will never find perfect rest till that day arrive. And the reason why the prophets speak of the kingdom of Christ in such lofty terms is, that they look at that end when the true happiness of believers, shall be most fully restored.

After having spoken of dreadful calamities and predicted the lamentable ruin of the whole world, the Prophet comforts believers by this promise, in which he foretells that all things shall be restored. This is done by Christ, by whom alone they can be renewed and made glad; for he alone renews everything, and restores it to proper order; apart from him there can be nothing but filth and desolation, nothing but most miserable ruin both in heaven and in earth. But it ought to be carefully observed, that the world needed to be prepared by chastisements of this nature, in order that it might be fit and qualified for receiving such distinguished favor, and that the grace of Christ might be more fully manifested, which would have been concealed if everything had remained in its original state. It was therefore necessary that the proud and fierce minds of men should be cast down and subdued, that they might taste the kindness of Christ, and partake of his power and strength.

2. Flourishing it shall flourish. He describes more fully how great, will be the effect of the grace of Christ, by whose power and might those places which had been overgrown with filthy and noxious weeds “flourish” exceedingly and regain their vigor. This repetition is used for the sake of amplification. The doubling of the word “flourish” may be taken in two senses; either to denote the prolongation of time in incessant vegetation; as if he had said, “It shall not flourish with a passing or fading blossom, so as to return immediately to the foul condition in which it once was, but with a continual, uninterrupted, and long-continued bloom, which can never fade or pass away;” or to denote the increase and daily or yearly progress of improvement; for Christ enriches us in such a manner as to increase his grace in us from day to day.
They shall see the glory of Jehovah. What he had formerly spoken metaphorically he now explains clearly and without a figure. Till men learn to know God, they are barren and destitute of everything good; and consequently the beginning of our fertility is to be quickened by the presence of God, which cannot be without the inward perception of faith. The Prophet undoubtedly intended to raise our minds higher, that we may contemplate the abundance and copiousness of heavenly benefits; for men might be satisfied with bread and wine and other things of the same kind, and yet not acknowledge God to be the author of them, or cease to be wretched; and indeed men are often blinded and rendered more fierce by enjoying abundance. But when God makes himself visible to us, by causing us to behold his glory and beauty, we not only possess his blessings, but have the true enjoyment of them for salvation.

6. For waters shall be dug. He next adds other blessings with which believers shall be copiously supplied, as soon as the kingdom of Christ is set up; as if he had said, that there will be no reason to dread scarcity or want, when we have been reconciled to God through Christ, because perfect happiness flows to us from him. But he represents this happiness to us under metaphorical expressions; and, first, he says that “waters shall be dug;” because, where formerly all was barren, there the highest fertility shall be found. Now, we are poor and barren, unless God bless us through Christ; for he alone, brings with him the blessing of the Father, which he bestows upon us. Wicked men, indeed, have often a great abundance of good things, but their wealth is wretched; for they have not Christ, from whom alone proceeds a true and salutary abundance of all blessings. Death unquestionably would be more desirable than that abundance of wine and of food with which we, at the same time, swallow the curse of God. When, therefore, Christ shall gloriously arise, rivers and waters shall flow out and yield true and valuable advantage.

Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible

After the great judgment comes renewal. As in Revelation 21, where the new heavens and the new earth follow upon the great judgment, so too here, centuries earlier, there is the same sequence. Originally it probably marked the renewal of nature with autumn rain after the fiery heat of the summer, but in the liturgy of the temple and the vision of the prophet it has become a picture of the new age after the fiery judgment. The dry land blooms (35: 1-2), both literally and spiritually, since the dry land was the curse on Adam when he was cut off from the presence of God and the rivers of Eden (Gen 3:17-19). In the new age the glory of the Lord would be seen again (35:2), coming to strengthen the weak (vv. 3-4) (p 521).

Take-Aways

Not only people respond to God’s compassion–creation too responds to God in joy. In this passage, Isaiah gives a dynamic image–creation joins humanity, even leads humanity, to worship God. This image opens our understanding of human relationship with creation. Humanity does not just “rule” creation. Instead, Scripture also tells us that creation leads us. Do we always see our selves in positions of authority over creation, or do we ever humble ourselves to it?

This apocalyptic vision speaks to the coming harmony between humanity and nature. That which appears to harm and disserve human interest, briers and thorns, actually becomes a balm and a service. This testifies to the Lord’s name, it is the Lord’s doing, and it is part of our worship.

Calvin’s Commentary on Isaiah

The mountains and hills shall break out before you. By ‘the mountains and hills’ he means that everything which they shall meet in the journey, though in other respects it be injurious, shall aid those who shall return to Jerusalem. They are metaphors, by which he shews that all the creatures bow to the will of God, and rejoice and lend their aid to carry on his work. He alludes to the deliverance from Egypt, (Ex. siv.22) as is customary with the Prophets; for thus it is described by the Psalmist, ‘The mountains leaped like rams, and the hills like lambs. What ailed thee, O sea, that thou fleddest, and Jordan, (Josh. iii. 16,) that thou wast driven back?” (Ps. cxiv. 4,5.) For the restoration of the Church may be regarded as a renovation of the whole world, and in consequence of this, heaven and earth are said to be changed, as if their order were reversed. But all this depended on former predictions, by which they had received a promise of their return (p172-73).

The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary

The final two verses are generally related to a ‘second exodus’ motif, whereby exiles are depicted as returning home from Babylon. Yet the removal of thorns and briers is a promise rooted in Isaiah’ former word concerning the remnant in the land, the rejuvenated ‘pleasant vineyard’ (see 27:2-4). Briers and thorns are what the land is reduced to under God’s judgment (5:6; 7:24-25), to be removed by God’s gracious action. In the lavish promises of God, the people will come and go from Zion in joy and peace, as all nature salutes God’s dramatic turning of fortunes. This will constitute an everlasting memorial on precisely those terms–that God has wiped out the days of judgment and given those who repent a fully new lease on life (p482-83).

The Oxford Bible Commentary

A recurring theme running throughout the book of Isaiah is that of paradise regained (Whybray 1975:195). In 11:6-9 it was animal life that was transformed; here we are reminded of the ‘briers and thorns’ of the early chapters (5:6 and elsewhere), though the actual words used here are different. In the present vision such threats to agriculture will be replaced by cypress and myrtle, symbols of God’s transformation of the wilderness (41:19). Then, in a way which contributed to the vision of St Francis, the trees can join mountains and hills in praise of God. Not all apocalyptic visions are as attractive as this (p479).

Take-Aways

This famous Isaiah passage speaks hope to the realities of Isaiah’s contemporary audience–blessing of land would be of particular importance to this agricultural Palestinian community. As Jerome points out, God promises to transform the current creation, and transformation does not mean annihilation. God takes what exists and makes it new. The New Interpreter’s Bible puts it this way, “Blessing stands (65:23) where curse–over ground, creation, procreation, and human labor–ruled before.” This renewal is complete, and it is of great hope. When we think of the future of the earth, do we first think about God’s hopeful promise? Does God’s hope draw us in and cause us to act out of hope instead of despair?

Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture

Newness Means a Change into Something Better. Jerome: Those who interpret the new heaven and earth to be a change for the better, rather than the destruction of the elements, cite this passage: ‘You founded the earth in the beginning, Lord, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will endure; they will grow old like a garment, and you will roll them up like cloth, and they will be changed.’ In this psalm is demonstrated clearly a perdition and destruction that is not an annihilation but a transformation for the better. Neither does what is written elsewhere indicate that there will be a complete destruction of that was there at the beginning, but rather a transformation: ‘The moon will shine like the sun, and the sun’s light will be strengthened sevenfold.’ And that this may be better understood, let us use an example from our own human condition: when an infant grows into a boy, and a boy into an adolescent, and an adolescent into a man and a man into an old man, the same person continues to exist throughout his succession of ages. For he remains the same man as he was, even though it can be said that he has changed a little and that the previous ages have passed away. Understanding this truth, the apostle Paul said, ‘for the form this world is perishing.’ Notice that he said ‘form,’ not substance (p273-74).

The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary

Here again we can feel the presence of chap. 1, with its call to heavens and earth to serve as witnesses against rebellious children. But so far gone are those days, enclosing the wicked opponents of the servants as well, that God announces an imminent plan: the creation of a new heavens and a new earth. The final vindication of the servant and the servants was to involve the reconstitution of Zion and her repopulation with children she did no know she had even conceived. So, naturally, those themes appear here (v.18).

But the descriptions accompanying this new heaven and new earth are more than the natural fulfillment of promises God has made, even as they are that, to be sure. The most graphic example of this is seen in the final verse (6:25). Here a word-for-word recycling of verses from Isa 11:6-9 appears. That is, God is making good on the word of promise to Isaiah’s generation, when God spoke of a day to come when enemies in the realm of nature would peacefully coexist. Yet, appended to this is reference to the serpent and the curse upon him, based upon Gen 3:14. To speak of a new heaven and a new earth is to return to creation and the curses that followed upon the very first act of disobedience. It is to go back beyond the rebellions of Isaiah’s generation, or of the present generation; back to the very point of rupture. In order for the former things to be put away for good, God must begin all over again.

Mention of the curse over evil as embodied in the serpent–that creature that cannot coexist with others except as a parasite–makes clear that Genesis language and context are pivotal in the construction of this unit. When this is clear, then one can see the force of all other allusions as well advanced years, like the ages of the great ancestors from Genesis, will be like youth, and there will be no premature dying (65:20). Human labor will not be marked by the ‘thorns and thistles’ of Genesis (3:18) nor by Isaiah’s briers and thorns (5:6; 7:24, 25; 27:4; 55:13). Children will be born without labor pains, in line with the promises to Zion (54:1; 66:7), and with obvious resonance to Gen 3:16. Blessing stands (65:23) where curse–over ground, creation, procreation, and human labor–ruled before. The ‘seed’ the servant was to see becomes, in this new heaven and earth, a new creation altogether. In the enjoyment of one’s work in long life (65:22) humankind is likened to a tree in its longevity, and one can hear in this verse no reference to a tree of life to be contrasted with a tree of knowledge of good and evil. Something truly new is being set forth, against the backdrop of these former things (p544-545).

The Oxford Bible Commentary

The bitterness of the preceding poem gives way to a new promise. ‘For’ at the outset suggests a link with what has preceded, but this may be an assertive usage: ‘Surely I am!’ YHWH as creator has been a recurrent theme since ch. 40, and the last two chapters of the book take this to a climax with a complete renewal of heaven and earth 9cf. 66:22). The ‘former things’ played an important part in the lawcourt-like material of ch. 41; now, as in 43:18, they are to be set aside. The cosmic picture of v. 17 then narrows down to hopes for Jerusalem in 18-19, but perhaps in view of the way the city is idealized in Isaiah the shift is less dramatic than it seems. The blessings promised in the following verses are characteristic of the hopes of an agricultural community in the ancient world. The allusion to a tree in v. 22 may be a deliberate contrast to the rejected trees of 1:29-31, in view of other allusions to that section in these final chapters (p483).