3 "Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Now, therefore, O inhabitant of Jerusalem! Those persons with whom he contends are made judges in their own cause, as is usually done in cases so plain and undoubted that the opposite party has no means of evasion. It is, therefore, a proof of the strongest confidence in his cause, when he bids the guilty persons themselves declare if this be not the true state of the fact; for immediately afterwards we shall find him declaring that the accusation is decided against those persons to whom he now commits the decision.
And now - This is an appeal which God makes to the Jews themselves, in regard to the justice and propriety of what he was about to do. A similar appeal he makes in Micah 6:3 : 'O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? Testify against me.' He intended to "punish" them Isaiah 5:5-6, and he appeals to them for the justice of it. He would do to them as they would do to a vineyard that had been carefully prepared and guarded, and which yet was valueless. A similar appeal he makes in Isaiah 1:18; and our Saviour made an application remarkably similar in his parable of the vineyard, Matthew 21:40-43. It is not improbable that he had his eye on this very place in Isaiah; and it is, therefore, the more remarkable that the Jews did not understand the bearing of his discourse.
Inhabitants - ישבי yoshebey, in the plural number; three MSS., (two ancient), and so likewise the Septuagint and Vulgate.
And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, (f) between me and my vineyard.
(f) He makes them judges in their own cause, for as much as it was evident that they were the cause of their own ruin.
And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah,.... All and everyone of them, who were parties concerned in this matter, and are designed by the vineyard, for whom so much had been done, and so little fruit brought forth by them, or rather so much bad fruit:
judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard; between God and themselves; they are made judges in their own cause; the case was so clear and evident, that God is as it were willing the affair should be decided by their own judgment and verdict: so the Targum,
"judge now judgment between me and my people.''
And now, &c.--appeal of God to themselves, as in Isaiah 1:18; Micah 6:3. So Jesus Christ, in Matthew 21:40-41, alluding in the very form of expression to this, makes them pass sentence on themselves. God condemns sinners "out of their own mouth" (Deuteronomy 32:6; Job 15:6; Luke 19:22; Romans 3:4).
The song of the beloved who was so sorely deceived terminates here. The prophet recited it, not his beloved himself; but as they were both of one heart and one soul, the prophet proceeds thus in Isaiah 5:3 and Isaiah 5:4 : "And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard! What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore did I hope that it would bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes?" The fact that the prophet speaks as if he were the beloved himself, shows at once who the beloved must be. The beloved of the prophet and the lover of the prophet (yâdid and dōd) were Jehovah, with whom he was so united by a union mystica exalted above all earthly love, that, like the angel of Jehovah in the early histories, he could speak as if he were Jehovah Himself (see especially Zac 2:12-13). To any one with spiritual intuition, therefore, the parabolical meaning and object of the song would be at once apparent; and even the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the men of Judah (yoosheeb and iish are used collectively, as in Isaiah 8:14; Isaiah 9:8; Isaiah 22:21, cf., Isaiah 20:6) were not so stupefied by sin, that they could not perceive to what the prophet was leading. It was for them to decide where the guilt of this unnatural issue lay - that is to say, of this thorough contradiction between the "doing" of the vineyard and the "doing" of the Lord; that instead of the grapes he hoped for, it brought forth wild grapes. (On the expression "what could have been done," quid faciendum est, mah-la'asoth, see at Habakkuk 1:17, Ges. 132, Anm. 1.) Instead of למה (למּה) we have the more suitable term מדּוּע, the latter being used in relation to the actual cause (Causa efficiens), the former in relation to the object (Causa finalis). The parallel to the second part, viz., Isaiah 50:2, resembles the passage before us, not only in the use of this particular word, but also in the fact that there, as well as here, it relates to both clauses, and more especially to the latter of the two. We find the same paratactic construction in connection with other conjunctions (cf., Isaiah 12:1; Isaiah 65:12). They were called upon to decide and answer as to this what and wherefore; but they were silent, just because they could clearly see that they would have to condemn themselves (as David condemned himself in connection with Nathan's parable, 2-Samuel 12:5). The Lord of the vineyard, therefore, begins to speak. He, its accuser, will now also be its judge.
*More commentary available at chapter level.