14 Yahweh will enter into judgment with the elders of his people, and their leaders: "It is you who have eaten up the vineyard. The spoil of the poor is in your houses.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The Lord will enter into judgement with the ancients of his people. Formerly he had erected for God a throne from which he might plead. Now he says that he will enter into judgment. How? with the ancients. There might have been a slight allusion to lawful assemblies, in which older men sit as God's deputies; but I assent to the opinion more commonly entertained, that God contends against the ancients of his people. This passage, therefore, corresponds to the saying of David, God will stand in the assembly of the gods (Psalm 82:1; [1] ) that is, though it may now be thought that princes do everything with impunity, and though there be no one to restrain their caprice and their lawless passions, yet one day they will feel that God is above them, and will render an account to him of all their actions These reproofs, undoubtedly, the judges of that time were very unwilling to hear. They have no wish, and do not think that it is right, that any one should treat them with such sharpness and severity; for they wish that everything should be at their disposal, that their will should be held as a law, and that they should be allowed to do whatever they choose; that all men ought to flatter and applaud them, and to approve of their very worst actions. They think that no man is a judge of their actions, and do not yield subjection to God himself. Since, therefore, they are so unbridled that they neither endure any advices nor any threatening the Prophet summons them to the judgment seat of God. And with their princes They are honorably described, by way of acknowledgment, as the chosen princes of the people. This also deserves attention; for they thought that, on account of their rank, they enjoyed a kind of privilege which set them free from the restraints of law, and that though heathen kings and princes might give an account of their actions, they, on the contrary, were sacred persons. They thought, therefore, that they were beyond the reach of all reproof, and ought not to be addressed, like heathen men, by threats and terrors. On this account Isaiah expressly declares, that the Lord will not only call to account every kind of princes, but especially the proud hypocrites to whose care he had committed his people. And you have destroyed the vineyard [2] The metaphor of a vine is very common, where a nation, and especially the nation of Israel, is the subject. (Psalm 80:8; Jeremiah 2:21.) And by this word the Prophet now shows their crime to be double, because they paid no more regard to the people whom God had loved with extraordinary affection that if they had ruled over a heathen nation. The pronoun you is likewise emphatic; for he addresses the vine-dressers themselves, who, instead of devoting themselves, as they ought to have done, to the cultivation of the vine, devoured it like wild beasts. Accordingly, he represents this to be a great aggravation of their cruelty; for how treacherous was it to destroy what they ought to have preserved and protected? By this comparison the Lord shows how great care he takes of his own people, and how warmly he loves them; not only because the Church is called his vine and inheritance, but by declaring that he will not endure the treachery and wickedness of those who have ruled over it tyrannically. The spoil of the poor is in your houses. He adds one circumstance, by which the other parts of their life might be known, that they had in their houses the prey and spoil of the poor. Now the palace of princes ought to resemble a sanctuary: for they occupy the dwelling place of God, which ought to be sacred to all. It is, therefore, the grossest sacrilege to turn a sanctuary into a den of thieves. He represents still more strongly their criminality by adding of the poor; for it is the most wicked of all acts of cruelty to plunder a poor and needy man, who cannot defend himself, and who ought rather to have been protected.
1 - Like some other quotations of our Author, this is made from memory, and is not quite accurate. -- Ed.
2 - Ye have consumed my vineyard. -- Lowth Ye have eaten bare my vineyard. -- Stock Umeis de ti enepurisate ton ampelona mou; And why did you burn up my vineyard? -- Sept. "vr (bagnar,) in its usual acceptation of burning, does not agree with the sense of a passage, which represents people making a profit of what they consume. Understand it, therefore, of clearing away the productions of the soil, as cattle do when they eat down the grass." -- Rosenmuller
With the ancients - With the old men, the counselors.
Ye have eaten up the vineyard - Hebrew 'Ye have burnt up' - that is, you have oonsumed or destroyed it. By the vineyard is represented the Jewish republic or people; Psalm 80:9-13; compare the notes at Isaiah 5:1-7. The princes and rulers had, by their exactions and oppressions, ruined the people, and destroyed the country.
The spoil of the poor - The "plunder" of the poor; or that which you have taken from the poor by exactions and oppressions. The word "spoil" commonly means the plunder or booty which is obtained in war.
The vineyard. "My vineyard" - כרמי - "dr carmi, Septuagint, Chaldee, Jerome.
The LORD will enter into judgment with the (l) elders of his people, and with their princes: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor [is] in your houses.
(l) Meaning that the rulers and governors had destroyed his Church and not preserved it, according to their duty.
The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof,.... Both civil and ecclesiastical; the princes, chief priests, and elders of the people, who set themselves and took counsel together against the Lord and his Christ; would not suffer the people to be gathered to him; sought his life, and at last took it away.
For ye have eaten up the vineyard, or burnt it (p); the house of Israel, and of Judah compared to a vineyard, in a following chapter; and so the Targum,
"ye have oppressed my people;''
these are the husbandmen our Lord speaks of, that beat the servants that were sent for the fruits of the vineyard, and at last killed the heir, Matthew 21:34.
The spoil of the poor is in your houses; the Pharisees devoured widows' houses, and filled their own, with the spoil of them, Matthew 23:14.
(p) "succendistis", Vatablus, Montanus.
ancients--Hence they are spoken of as "taken away" (Isaiah 3:1-2).
vineyard--the Jewish theocracy (Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:9-13).
eaten up--"burnt"; namely, by "oppressive exactions" (Isaiah 3:12). Type of the crowning guilt of the husbandmen in the days of Jesus Christ (Matthew 21:34-41).
spoil . . . houses-- (Matthew 23:14).
"Jehovah will proceed to judgment with the elders of His people, and its princes. And ye, ye have eaten up the vineyard; prey of the suffering is in your houses. What mean ye that ye crush my people, and grind the face of the suffering? Thus saith the Lord Jehovah of hosts." The words of God Himself commence with "and ye" (v'attem). The sentence to which this (et vos = at vos) is the antithesis is wanting, just as in Psalm 2:6, where the words of God commence with "and I" (va'ani, et ego = ast ego). the tacit clause may easily be supplied, viz., I have set you over my vineyard, but he have consumed the vineyard. The only question is, whether the sentence is to be regarded as suppressed by Jehovah Himself, or by the prophet. Most certainly by Jehovah Himself. The majesty with which He appeared before the rulers of His people as, even without words, a practical and undeniable proof that their majesty was only a shadow of His, and their office His trust. But their office consisted in the fact that Jehovah had committed His people to their care. The vineyard of Jehovah was His people - a self-evident figure, which the prophet dresses up in the form of a parable in chapter 5. Jehovah had appointed them as gardeners and keepers of this vineyard, but they themselves have become the very beasts that they ought to have warded off. בּער is applied to the beasts which completely devour the blades of a corn-field or the grapes of a vineyard (Exodus 22:4). This change was perfectly obvious. The possessions stolen from their unhappy countrymen, which were still in their houses, were the tangible proof of their plundering of the vineyard. "The suffering:" ani (depressus, the crushed) is introduced as explanatory of haccerem, the prey, because depression and misery were the ordinary fate of the congregation which God called His vineyard. It was ecclesia pressa, but woe to the oppressors! In the question "what mean ye?" (mallâcem) the madness and wickedness of their deeds are implied. מה and לכם are fused into one word here, as if it were a prefix (as in Exodus 4:2; Ezekiel 8:6; Malachi 1:13; vid., Ges. 20, 2). The Keri helps to make it clear by resolving the chethibh. The word mallâcem ought, strictly speaking, to be followed by chi: "What is there to you that ye crush my people?" as in Isaiah 22:1, Isaiah 22:16; but the words rush forwards (as in Jonah 1:6), because they are an explosion of wrath. For this reason the expressions relating to the behaviour of the rulers are the strongest that can possibly be employed. דּכּא (crush) is also to be met with in Proverbs 22:22; but "grind the face" (tâchan p'ne) is a strong metaphor without a parallel. The former signifies "to pound," the latter "to grind," as the millstone grinds the corn. They grind the faces of those who are already bowed down, thrusting them back with such unmerciful severity, that they stand as it were annihilated, and their faces become as white as flour, or as the Germans would say, cheese-white, chalk-white, as pale as death, from oppression and despair. Thus the language supplied to a certain extent appropriate figures, with which to describe the conduct of the rulers of Israel; but it contained no words that could exhaust the immeasurable wickedness of their conduct: hence the magnitude of their sin is set before them in the form of a question, "What is to you?" i.e., What indescribable wickedness is this which you are committing? The prophet hears this said by Jehovah, the majestic Judge, whom he here describes as Adonai Elohim Zebaoth (according to the Masoretic pointing). This triplex name of God, which we find in the prophetic books, viz., frequently in Amos and also in Jeremiah 2:19, occurs for the first time in the Elohistic Psalm, Psalm 69:7. This scene of judgment is indeed depicted throughout in the colours of the Psalm, and more especially recals the (Elohistic) Psalm of Asaph (Psalm 82:1-8).
Ancients - The princes or rulers; such were commonly chosen out of those who were in ripe years. Eaten - Destroyed instead of preserving the church and commonwealth of Israel. Spoil - The goods which you have violently taken away from the poor.
*More commentary available at chapter level.