For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for {h} judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold {i} a cry.

(h) Judgment and righteousness are true fruit of the fear of God and therefore in the cruel oppression there is no religion.

(i) Of them who are oppressed.

Wesley's Notes

5:7 Pleasant - In whom God formerly delighted. A cry - From the oppressed, crying to men for help, and to God for vengeance.

King James Translators' Notes

his...: Heb. plant of his pleasures

oppression: Heb. a scab

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. Isaiah here applies the parable. It is no mere human owner, nor a literal vineyard that is meant.

vineyard of the Lord-His only one (Ex 19:5; Am 3:2).

pleasant-"the plant of his delight"; just as the husbandman was at pains to select the sorek, or "choicest vine" (Isa 5:2); so God's election of the Jews.

judgment-justice. The play upon words is striking in the Hebrew, He looked for mishpat, but behold mispat ("bloodshed"); for tsedaqua, but behold tseaqua (the cry that attends anarchy, covetousness, and dissipation, Isa 5:8, 11, 12; compare the cry of the rabble by which justice was overborne in the case of Jesus Christ, Mt 27:23, 24).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:1-7 Christ is God's beloved Son, and our beloved Saviour. The care of the Lord over the church of Israel, is described by the management of a vineyard. The advantages of our situation will be brought into the account another day. He planted it with the choicest vines; gave them a most excellent law, instituted proper ordinances. The temple was a tower, where God gave tokens of his presence. He set up his altar, to which the sacrifices should be brought; all the means of grace are denoted thereby. God expects fruit from those that enjoy privileges. Good purposes and good beginnings are good things, but not enough; there must be vineyard fruit; thoughts and affections, words and actions, agreeable to the Spirit. It brought forth bad fruit. Wild grapes are the fruits of the corrupt nature. Where grace does not work, corruption will. But the wickedness of those that profess religion, and enjoy the means of grace, must be upon the sinners themselves. They shall no longer be a peculiar people. When errors and vice go without check or control, the vineyard is unpruned; then it will soon be grown over with thorns. This is often shown in the departure of God's Spirit from those who have long striven against him, and the removal of his gospel from places which have long been a reproach to it. The explanation is given. It is sad with a soul, when, instead of the grapes of humility, meekness, love, patience, and contempt of the world, for which God looks, there are the wild grapes of pride, passion, discontent, and malice, and contempt of God; instead of the grapes of praying and praising, the wild grapes of cursing and swearing. Let us bring forth fruit with patience, that in the end we may obtain everlasting life.