Isaiah 5:8 - Meaning and Application

The world and the flesh are the two great enemies that can overpower us, yet we are in no danger if we do not yield to them. Love of the world and indulgence of the flesh are the two sins the prophet condemns here in God’s name. These sins were common among the people of Judah, and they were among the wild grapes they brought forth (Isaiah 5:4), so God threatens to bring ruin on them. They are sins we all need to watch against and fear the results of.

First, there is a woe for those who set their hearts on the wealth of this world, place their happiness in it, and grow rich by dishonest or unfair means (Isaiah 5:8). They join house to house and field to field until there is no room left for anyone else. If they could, they would live alone in the middle of the earth, taking over property, positions, profits, and work for themselves. It is not sinful for a person who has enough to buy another house or field, if it is done rightly. But their fault is that they are out of control in their desire to get rich, and they make wealth the main goal of life. They never think they have enough. The more they have, the more they want, like the leech’s daughters who keep crying, “Give, give.”

They cannot enjoy what they have, and they cannot use it for good. Instead, they keep planning how to get more. They want variety in comforts, a winter house and a summer house, and if another person’s house or field is close and useful to them, like Naboth’s vineyard was to Ahab, they want that too. Their greed is not only greedy, it is unfair to others. They want to live in a way that leaves no room for anyone else. To satisfy their craving, they do not care what happens to the people around them, how they take away their neighbors’ rights, what burdens they put on those under their power, or what low and wicked methods they use to pile up treasure. They would swell so large as to fill all space, yet still they are not satisfied (Ecclesiastes 5:10).

What is more, they are foolish to desire this. Why would anyone want to be placed alone in the middle of the earth, when we need the help of other people and find comfort in their company? Why would anyone expect the earth to be emptied for their sake (Job 18:4), when it is meant to be filled by many people? Was the wide world made only for you?

The punishment for this sin is that neither the houses nor the fields they greedily wanted will do them any good (Isaiah 5:9, 10). God revealed this to the prophet as if he whispered it in his ear, as he did in another case (Isaiah 22:14), and the prophet then spoke it openly, as he should, on the housetops (Matthew 10:27). The houses they loved so much would be empty. They would stand desolate, yield no rent, and fall into disrepair. Many houses would be left without inhabitants because the people were cut off by sword, famine, pestilence, or captivity. Or trade would fail, poverty would spread through the land, and people who had once owned houses would be forced to rent or move elsewhere.

Even large and beautiful houses, the kind that would normally attract tenants, would stand empty because there would be too few people left. God did not create the earth to be empty, but to be inhabited (Isaiah 45:18). Yet human plans are often ruined, and what people build does not serve the purpose they intended. We say that fools build houses for wise men to live in, but sometimes, in the end, they are built for no one at all. God has many ways to empty the most crowded cities.

Their fields would also fail them. Ten acres of vineyard would produce only enough grapes for one bath of wine, about eight gallons, and the seed of a homer, a bushel’s sowing of land, would yield only an ephah, one-tenth of a homer. So, because of poor soil or bad weather, they would get back only a tenth of what they planted. Those who set their hearts on the world will rightly be disappointed in what they expect from it.

Second, there is a woe for those who are ruled by the pleasures of the senses, including drunkenness and careless enjoyment (Isaiah 5:11, 12). Sensual living ruins people as surely as greed and oppression do. Christ speaks a woe against the rich, but also against those who laugh now and are full, and those who feast richly (Luke 6:24, 25; Luke 16:19).

The sinners here are, first, people given to drink. They make drinking their work, set their hearts on it, and burden themselves with it. They rise early to chase strong drink, the way farmers or workers rise early for their jobs, as if they feared losing time from what is really a waste of time. Usually drunk people are drunk at night, after the day’s work is done. But these people neglect their duties, abandon them, and give themselves up to pleasing the flesh. They sit at their cups all day and keep going until night, until wine inflames them. It inflames their lusts, so that wild behavior follows drunkenness, and it inflames their passions, for who but such people get quarrels and wounds for no reason? They make drinking a regular trade. They do not even wait for the cover of night, as if ashamed of it. Instead, they delight in rioting in the daytime (2 Peter 2:13).

Second, they are people given to mirth. They hold feasts, and they are so eager for pleasure that they cannot eat or drink without music. They want every kind of instrument, like David and Solomon enjoyed in their times (Amos 6:5; Ecclesiastes 2:8). The harp, the viol, the tambourine, and the pipe must go with the wine, so that every sense is satisfied. They take up the timbrel and harp (Job 21:12). Music is lawful in itself, but when it becomes excessive, when we set our hearts on it, waste time on it, and let it crowd out spiritual and godly joys, then it becomes sin for us.

People like this never pay attention to anything serious. They do not regard the work of the Lord. They do not notice his power, wisdom, and goodness in the creatures they misuse and turn to empty things. They also ignore the kindness of his providence, which gives them the very good things they use to feed their lusts.

God’s judgments have already reached them, and clear signs of his displeasure are on them, but still they do not care. They do not think about God’s hand in all these things. His hand is lifted up, but they refuse to see it. They do not want to interrupt their pleasures or stop to ask what God is doing with them.

The judgments announced against them are already partly being carried out. First, they will be driven out. The land will spit out these drunkards (Isaiah 5:13). “My people,” they call themselves, and they are proud of that name, but they have gone into captivity, as sure as if they were already there, because they have no understanding. How can they have understanding when they have made themselves fools through heavy drinking? They act as if they are wise, but because they ignore God’s case against them and do nothing to make peace with him, they can rightly be called people without knowledge. The reason is simple, they have chosen not to know. They are careless and stubborn, and so they are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

Second, they will become poor and come to need the very things they wasted in excess. Even their honored people will die of hunger, and their crowd will dry up with thirst. Both the leaders and the common people will be near death from lack of food and water. This is the result of the failing grain crop (Isaiah 5:10), for even the king depends on the field (Ecclesiastes 5:9). When the harvest fails, the drunkards are told to weep because the new wine is gone from their mouths (Joel 1:5). The sorrow is not only that they lack it now, but that they abused it when they had it. God is right to make people need, through necessity, what they once abused in excess.

Third, many will be cut off by famine and sword (Isaiah 5:14). So the grave has widened itself. Topheth, the common burial place, is too small. So many will die that it must be enlarged. The grave opens wide without limit, never saying, “That is enough” (Proverbs 30:15-16). This may also point to the place of the damned. Luxury and pleasure lead to that land of darkness and horror, where those who made a god of their stomach are tormented (Luke 16:25; Philippians 3:19).

Fourth, they will be humbled and brought low, and all their honor will be thrown into the dust. Death and the grave will do this completely. Their glory will go down, not only to the earth, but into it. It will not follow them after death (Psalm 49:17) to help them in any way on the other side. It will die and be buried with them, poor glory that fades away so fast. Did they boast in their numbers? Their crowd will go down to the pit (Ezekiel 31:18; Ezekiel 32:32). Did they boast in their splendor? Their pomp will end, along with the shouts that praised them and attended them. Did they boast in their joy? Death will turn it into mourning. The one who laughs and feasts, and never learns seriousness, will go where there is weeping and crying.

So the ordinary person and the powerful person meet together in the grave, and both are humbled under these judgments. However high a man may be, death will bring him low. However low he may be, death will bring him lower still. In view of this, even the eyes of the proud should be humbled now (Isaiah 5:15). Those who will soon be laid low should already learn to look low.

The fruit of these judgments will be this. God will be glorified (Isaiah 5:16). The Lord of hosts, the holy God, will be exalted and shown to be holy through these just acts. His justice must be acknowledged in bringing down those who lifted themselves up, and in this he is honored. He will be exalted as the Lord of hosts, the one who can break the strongest, humble the proudest, and tame the wildest. Power is shown in judgment. It is God’s honor that, although he has great power, justice and right always live where he rules (Psalm 89:13-14).

He will also be honored as a God of perfect purity. He who is holy, completely holy, will be declared holy in the righteous punishment of proud people. When proud people are humbled, the great God is honored, and we should honor him too.

Good people will also be helped and relieved (Isaiah 5:17). Then the lambs will feed in their own way. The meek people of the earth, who followed the Lamb and were frightened and persecuted by proud oppressors, will feed quietly in green pastures, and no one will make them afraid. See Ezekiel 34:14. When the enemies of the church are removed, the churches have rest. Some read this as meaning they will feed at their pleasure. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth,” and they will enjoy great peace. Others take it to mean they will feed according to their need or capacity, hearing the word, which is the bread of life.

The land itself will be left waste and taken by neighbors. The ruined places of the rich men, those who lived in ease, will be eaten by strangers who were not connected to them at all. In the captivity, the poor people of the land were left to be vine dressers and farmers (2 Kings 25:12). They were the lambs who fed in the pastures of the rich, lands that were left open for strangers to eat from. When the Jewish church, those rich and privileged people, was laid waste, their privileges passed to the Gentiles, who had long been strangers, and the lambs of Christ’s flock were welcomed among them.