Is. 5:1-7 notes for 8/18

This is a broken-hearted love song, filled with hurt and anger at betrayal. We are given only a hint of it the short passage, as it leads into a long lament song. One could use angry heartbreak songs to set the mood.

God seems befuddled here as in  he worked hard  at it (v.2) and knows that nothing more could be done for it (v.4). One could consider linking this to last week where God is weary of worship without justice.

Is. 5  continues last week’s look at God’s disgust with injustice. This time, the surprise is that we are not what God expected.  The image is a gardener who does everything that one should and does not receive the expected crop.  In this case wild grape, (translation guess, could be bad fruit, sour, rotten)  arrive instead of the domesticated grape, the special ones , soreq. In other words the love affair with Israel has gone wrong, as has the vinewyard, itself at times an image of love itself.

The ending is also wordplay justice and bloodshed would be mishpat and mishpah, and righteousness and a cry is tsedaqah and tse’aqah.

You are correct if you hear echoes of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Notice the vineyard becomes a wasteland, going all the way to the creation of Gen. 1, where God transforms the wasteland (bohu).

One could do some interesting work on expectations for Sunday-God doesn’t get what God expects in Isaiah, and we don’t get what we expect in Ps. 80, and we get an unexpected side of Jesus in the gospel lesson.