There is hope in judgment. There will be a new sprouting up of life in the final age for the remnant of Israel. The vineyard song is about the carefully tended vineyard, while provided with every need, produces wild grapes. The hearers are invited to condemn it to destruction, deprived of fertility. But, the judges are in reality judging themselves. The care of God for his people has brought from them in response, not justice but bloodshed, not righteousness but a cry. Woes to Judah follow the pattern “Woe to those…” followed by therefore-introducing the word of judgment. In the vision in the temple the hand of God rests heavily on Isaiah; finding himself in the presence of Yahweh, he can do no other than accept what is laid on him. The commission of the prophet was laid on Isaiah with such grimness that it evoked the frequent cry of the psalmist, “How long, O Lord?” In the note of gloom, however, there is a ray of light, ”But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return.” Have things really changed that much? Do we not see in almost every disaster the working out of a divine purpose of grace and an opportunity to work out a new and better relationship?
There is hope in judgment. There will be a new sprouting up of life in the final age for the remnant of Israel. The vineyard song is about the carefully tended vineyard, while provided with every need, produces wild grapes. The hearers are invited to condemn it to destruction, deprived of fertility. But, the judges are in reality judging themselves. The care of God for his people has brought from them in response, not justice but bloodshed, not righteousness but a cry. Woes to Judah follow the pattern “Woe to those…” followed by therefore-introducing the word of judgment. In the vision in the temple the hand of God rests heavily on Isaiah; finding himself in the presence of Yahweh, he can do no other than accept what is laid on him. The commission of the prophet was laid on Isaiah with such grimness that it evoked the frequent cry of the psalmist, “How long, O Lord?” In the note of gloom, however, there is a ray of light, ”But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return.” Have things really changed that much? Do we not see in almost every disaster the working out of a divine purpose of grace and an opportunity to work out a new and better relationship?
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