Chapter 5: Yeshayah sings of G-d’s vineyard

1. Yeshayah sings a song about Hashem’s vineyard:

• The investment made for the vineyard: I will now sing for my beloved the song about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard in a fertile corner [i.e. the Jewish people]. He fenced the vineyard and cleared it of stones, and planted it with the choicest vines, and built a tower in its midst. He also built a vat and hoped to produce grapes. However, it produced wild berries.
• Bemoaning the fact the vineyard did not produce grapes: Dwellers of Jerusalem and Judah, what more could I have done for my vineyard that I did not do? Why did I hope to produce grapes and instead it produced wild berries?
• Hashem says what He will now do to His vineyard: Now, I will inform you what I am going to do to my vineyard. I will destroy it and I will make it desolate. I will command the clouds not to produce rain over it.
• The Nimshal to the Jewish people: The vineyard above refers to the Jewish people who are the plant of His joy. Hashem had hoped for justice, but behold there was injustice.
• The curses that will befall the land: Your mansions shall become desolate, without inhabitants. Ten acres of vineyard will produce one 1/10^th of their projected yield.
• Bemoaning the state of Jewry: Woe to those who wake up early to pursue the drinking of wine. They sit and drink until late in the night and have the wine inflame [their lusts]. They play music during their drinking feasts. They do not regard the work of Hashem, [which is His Torah[1]].
• Exile: As a result, My people shall go into exile and shall die of hunger, and thirst.
• Bemoaning the state of Jewry: Woe to those who say of the evil that it is good and of the good that it is evil; who present darkness as light and light as darkness, who present bitter as sweet and sweet as bitter. Those who exonerate the guilty due to bribes, and the innocence of the innocent they take away from them.
• Therefore, Hashem has become angry with His people, and has struck them, and nonetheless His anger has not turned back.

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[1] Rashi 5