“What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have done in it?” (v. 4)

My Beloved and His Vineyard

In Isaiah’s prophecy, he declares what God has done in creating such a gorgeous vineyard on a fruitful hill. But after the first four verses, it is all downhill from there because of the people’s sins: greed for property, self-indulgence, arrogance, perversion of right and wrong, and self-serving at the expense of Justice. In a phrase, “just forgetting God!”

In these few words, Isaiah is prophesying God’s intentions and His destiny for His people: Judah and Jerusalem as His Holy Hill, a citadel of righteousness, represented by the tower, walls, etc. But all was lost in 586 B.C. when the city was destroyed, and the people were exiled to Babylon.

My college professor often spoke of “the foreshortening of prophecy.” While this was the earliest prophecy of Isaiah’s to be fulfilled in his lifetime, there was to be an ultimate fulfillment, like so many other prophesies of the Old Testament, in the time of Jesus.

Now fast-forward 1,500 years from the first destruction to Passion Week and Jesus’ last appearance in the temple precincts of Jerusalem. A storm cloud of hostility was building over the head of Jesus by the chief priests and Pharisees as He taught. Among the last parables He used was that of “The Cruel Vinedressers” (Luke 20 and Matthew 21). In both versions, a man planted a vineyard, leased it to vinedressers, and went off to “a far country.” (Jesus has been gone a longtime!) At length, the man sent servants to receive the fruit of their labors. Several bands of servants were sent, only to be rejected, beaten, stoned, and even killed. Finally, as a last resort the lord of the vineyard said, “What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him.” (Luke 20:13 KJV). But alas, the same fate befell him as for all the rest.

It did not take long before the scribes, chief priests, and Pharisees caught on that Jesus was speaking of them. Thus, proverbially speaking, “the last nail was driven into His coffin.” The first stanza of one of the greatest hymns of all time would fit here:

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,

Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!

What more can He say than to you He hath said,

To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

Author: Garth Hyde

Other Lenten readings for today:

• Psalm 63:1-8
• Luke 6:43-45