Note 1 — ISAIAH. (continued 3)

“The house of Israel” (beth Yisrâel) was the whole nation, which is also represented in other passages under the same figure of a vineyard (ch. xxvii. 2, sqq.; Ps. lxxx., &c). But as Isaiah was prophet in Judah, he applies the figure more particularly to Judah, which was called Jehovah’s favourite plantation, inasmuch as it was the seat of the Divine sanctuary and of the Davidic kingdom. This makes it easy enough to interpret the different parts of the simile employed. The fat mountain horn was Canaan, flowing with milk and honey (Exod. xv. 17); the digging of the vineyard, and clearing it of stones, was the clearing of Canaan from its former heathen inhabitants (Ps. xliv. 3); the sorek-vines were the holy priests and prophets and kings of Israel of the earlier and better times (Jer. ii. 21); the defensive and ornamental tower in the midst of the vineyard was Jerusalem as the royal city, with Zion the royal fortress (Micah iv. 8); the winepress-trough was the temple, where, according to Ps. xxxvi. 8, the wine of heavenly pleasures flowed in streams, and from which, according to Ps. xlii. and many other passages, the thirst of the soul might all be quenched. The grazing and treading down are explained in Jer. v. 10 and xii. 10.—Delitsch.

I believe that in a poetical allegory there is always more or less an allusion to the details of that which is allegorised; but it is only allusion,—to be realised by the imagination, rather than by the understanding, of the reader, as well as the poet. The several images are parts of a picture, which must be contemplated as a picture, and its meaning is to enter into the mind through the imagination. Still, a matter-of-fact commentator, like Vitrings, deeply imbued with the spirit of his author, will sometimes greatly help his reader’s imagination by his minute analysis; and I think this is the case in his explanation of the details of this description of the vineyard. “A vineyard” consists of vines planted for the sake of their fruit: the Hebrew nation with its tribes, its families, and its persons, was such a vineyard, appointed to bring forth the fruits of personal and social religion and virtue,—holiness, righteousness, and love to God and man: this nation was established in a land flowing with milk and honey, endowed with all natural advantages, all circumstances which could favour inward life by outward prosperity; and the grace and favour of Jehovah, and the influence of His Spirit, always symbolised by oil, were continually causing it to be fruitful. “And He fenced it,”—the arm of the Lord of hosts, employing kings and heroes, was its defence against all enemies; its institutions were fitted to preserve internal order, and to prevent the admixture of evil from without, with the chosen and separated nation; and its territory was marked out and protected by natural boundaries in a noticeable manner. “Gathered out the stones,”—the heathen nations, and the stocks and stones they worshipped. “And planted it with the choicest vine,”—a nation of the noble stock of the patriarchs, and chosen and cultivated by the Lord of the vineyard, with especial care, for His own use. “And built a tower in it,”—namely, Jerusalem—for the protection and superintendence of the vineyard, as well as to be its farmhouse, so to speak. “And also made a wine-press therein,”—where the wine-press seems to point to the same idea as the sending the servants to receive the fruit, in our Lord’s modification of this parable: lawgivers, kings, and judges, the temple with its priesthood and ordinances, and the schools of the prophets, were the appointed means for pressing out and receiving the wine—the spiritual virtues and graces of the vineyard. And the end is, that “He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.”—Strachy, pp. 62, 63.