Article note
I would like to express my gratitude to the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, which granted me a postdoctoral fellowship and thus supported the finalization of this article. For discussion of the topic see Rüdiger Bartelmus, “Beobachtungen zur literarischen Struktur des sog. Weinberglieds (Jes 5,1-7). Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der formgeschichtlichen Methode bei der Interpretation von Texten aus dem corpus propheticum,” in Auf der Suche nach dem archimedischen Punkt der Textinterpretation: Studien zu einer philologisch-linguistisch fundierten Exegese alttestamentlicher Texte, ed. Rüdiger Bartelmus (Zürich: Pano, 2002): 319-336 (here 319-325); Rebecca W. Poe Hays, “Sing Me a Parable of Zion: Isaiah’s Vineyard (5:1-7) and Its Relation to the ‘Daughter Zion’ Tradition,” JBL 135 (2016): 743-761 (here 746-747); Hugh G. M. Williamson, Isaiah 1-5, ICC (London: T&T Clark, 2006): 327-328; John T. Willis, “The Genre of Isaiah 5:1-7,” JBL 96 (1977): 337-362.
1 The Structure of Isa 5:1-7
The structure of the Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard2 is marked by several changes of the identity of the speaker. In v. 1a, the prophet announces a song about3 an intimate friend who owned a vineyard.4 This introduction is followed by the first part of the song in vv. 1b-2, where the prophet recites in third person perspective the story of his dear friend who cultivated a vineyard with great diligence. But it yielded foul fruit instead of good grapes.5
In the subsequent verse 3, the particle וְעַתָּה marks the beginning of a new section.6 The song proper already seems to be over7 because the text now directly turns to the audience, who are addressed as the people of Jerusalem and Judah. They are asked to render judgment between “me and my vineyard”. Quite unexpectedly, the prophet turns out to represent the voice of a different person here, namely that of his dear friend who owns the vineyard. He seems to represent him authentically and with full authority as he speaks on his behalf in first person singular. Here, the question arises by what authority he does this.8 This refers to the next chapter, Isa 6, where the question is answered by Isaiah’s prophetic vocation. Like Isa 5:1-2, the vocation account is also told from a first person singular perspective. Isaiah 5:4 then presents two questions to the audience for judgement. These, however, are rhetorical in nature9 so that verse 4 prompts the direction of the judgement which the audience is asked to make by verse 3.10 Since the prophet already gave testimony of the perfect diligence which the owner applied to his vineyard (v. 2), the answer to the question of verse 4a what else he could have done is obviously “nothing”. Verse 4b is also rhetorical in meaning since the vineyard owner is clearly not interested in learning a variety of possible natural influences which cannot be controlled by an ordinary human wine-grower but may indeed cause a perfectly cultivated vineyard to yield bad fruit or even no fruit at all. Instead, the tone of the vineyard owner’s question in v. 4b indicates the apodictic character of his expectation. He seems to have controlled and averted all possible influences that might have caused the vineyard to yield foul fruit. Thus, the rhetorical question in v. 4b gives a slight hint of the vineyard owner’s universal divine power. The rhetorical questions in v. 4 do not ask what they ask but they raise questions about the vineyard owner who asks them.
The next section, vv. 5-6, is again introduced by the particle וְעַתָּה “now”, which here marks the progress from the verdict, which is implied in v. 4, to the sentence.11 Since the questions in v. 4 are rhetorical, the vineyard owner does not wait for the judgement he asked for but interrupts the judicial considerations of his audience and announces his own judgement against the vineyard. He intends to destroy its protection from wild animals, to stop all pruning and hoeing, and even to command the clouds not to rain upon it. The last-mentioned command already indicates that the vineyard owner must either be at least a prophet like Elijah, who successfully performed a ritual for rain after his triumph over the 400 prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:41-46), or, more probable, God himself, whose commands the clouds obey.12
Nonetheless, the vineyard owner’s identity remains obscure until it is clarified in v. 7, the last section of the song. Introduced by the emphatic particle כִּי, this final passage now speaks of כֶרֶם יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת “the vineyard of YHWH Sabaoth”, thus revealing the identity of the prophet’s friend. Since verse 7 refers to the vineyard owner, who turns out to be YHWH Sabaoth, in third person singular, and since the same verse identifies his vineyard with the house of Israel and the people of Judah, it is also obvious that the speaker’s identity has changed again. The prophet here speaks with his own voice as he did in the introduction and the first section of the song (vv.1a and 1b-2).13 The metaphorical meaning of the unfruitfulness of the vineyard is then explained in v. 7b. While justice and righteousness (מִשְׁפָּט and צְדָקָה) should have grown in the society of Judah like good grapes in a well-cultivated vineyard, the foul fruit in fact produced stands for bloodshed and cries of distress (מִשְׂפָּח and צְעָקָה).
In sum, Isa 5:1-7 consists of five sections. After the introduction by the prophet (v. 1a), the following four main sections are characterized by a chiastic pattern which results from changes in the speaker’s voice as illustrated in the chart below. Although the prophet’s song proper already ends in v. 2,14 the subsequent prophetic interaction cannot be separated from it as it is necessary to understand its meaning and vice versa. Therefore, the Isaiah 5:1-7 forms a literary unit.15
| Introduction Verse 1a: | Prophet’s voice | Announcement of a song about his dear friend, who had a vineyard |
| Song and prophetic interaction | Verses 1b-2: | Prophet’s voice | The story of the friend’s efforts devoted to his vineyard and the disappointing results |
| Verses 3-4: | Friend’s voice | Speaking with his friend’s voice, the prophet requires his audience to render a judgment concerning his own and the vineyard’s behaviour |
| Verses 5-6: | Friend’s voice | Announcement of the prophet’s friend that he will destroy and abandon the vineyard |
| Verse 7: | Prophet’s voice | Identification of the... |
