God’s Garden
I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
Isaiah 5:1a
The father of a good friend of mine grew up poor. I mean dirt poor. Occasionally he would feed himself by going to a nice restaurant and waiting for people to get up and leave behind food, and he’d run over to grab the leftovers before the table was cleared. His friends were equally as poor. Their idea of a good weekend was to pool their money to buy enough gas and smokes to drive around in their car they had scavenged from a junkyard and drive around all weekend and smoke. Thankfully the story doesn’t end their. My friend’s father through years of hard work built up a business carving and engraving monuments. He worked 12 hours of day, 7 days of work for years to get it off the ground, and the work itself was back breaking. Not to mention the cost of the equipment and the new skills he had to learn on the job, like selling and accounting. Nothing came together overnight, it was the work of a lifetime, and work he expected to put food on his family’s table for a lifetime.
This is exactly what God has done with Israel. He has worked hard to try to create something better for Himself. It has been hundreds of years since He first covenanted with Abraham, he has every expectation that his vineyard, Israel, will last for a long, long time. The expectation is that this vineyard is under the protection and work of God. In Deuteronomy 8:7-8 part of God’s promises to his people are vineyards, and so by calling Israel his vineyard God is calling to mind the covenant that was made with his people.
In other words God has set the agenda. The words his prophet Isaiah has brought strikes at the heart of their identity. The nation of Israel is about to be evaluated and measured by the promises they made to God.
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