Studying the Parable of the Vineyard in Isaiah 5

 

The Parable of the vineyard is one of the most beautiful poems in the Hebrew Literature. It is popular to doctoral students for their Hebrew Examinations. It is poetry in Hebrew par excellence. No doubt. If you study Classical Hebrew, you will have this poem for your literature selection.


Commentaries on Isaiah 5 is problematic in the following areas: they either focus on the author’s goal or the content or the form of the text (like all the poetical devices that you can find in the poem, no different than modern poems) or they will focus on the situation that is talked about.


Most scholars discuss the poem separated from the role of God or the divine role in the Poem. Instead of the Divine revealing Himself to humans, they think that it is purely a human reflection on how possibly a Divine would speak to humans about Himself. Can you see the difference?


Adventists operate with a harmony of Divine and Human in balance of consideration. What the Holy Spirit wants to convey to humans as His goal and content will find a human vehicle (language) and situation (culture) through which the Holy Spirit will reveal Himself or His content. His goal is not completed until He has edited the human author’s selection of words, not the spelling errors or dialectical spelling differences, or using a short form instead of a long form or inconsistency in doing so. The Holy Spirit does not want a machine copy or computer perfected copy. He wants a human speaking to a human but the content cannot be humanized, secularized, distracted, self-orientated, taking away even a jota or tittle from what the Holy Spirit intended to pack into the message.

                  Revelation in Perspective Divine and Human in Balance.jpg

Some scholars study the parable in Isaiah 5 with a focus on the situation so that they want to compare Isaiah’s culture with the Ancient Near Eastern culture-matrix. It may lead to “parallelomania” as Samuel Sandmel warned. Benno Landsberger pointed out that each culture has their own “conceptual autonomy” which makes comparisons more restricted.


Other scholars want to study Isaiah 5 as form and thus are textually bound to all kinds of nice things we can find in the form of alliteration, assonance, rhythm etc. W. Richter is such an example.


The criterium for study of this parable by other scholars is content. It is the approach of A. Graffy.


W. Prinsloo was a Dean of Theology of the Reformed School in Pretoria and he suggested a synchronic approach to Isaiah 5:1-7: “A synchronic approach implies a formal analysis of Isaiah 5:1-7 so as to determine its structure. This structure provides an objective framework for studying all aspects of the text”. It implies that a total abstinence from all the other elements will provide the solution.


A better approach is to use Gerhard Hasel’s words for the theological center of the Old Testament. He was a Dean of Theology at Andrews University and suggested a multiplex approach which found favor with many scholars in South Africa and in the Calvinistic world, scholars like P. A. Verhoef and others.


An inseparable interrelationship exists here that makes one dependent upon the other. Different than in other schools, in Adventism the interrelationship is a balancing act within the divine and human interaction. Content cannot be understood without understanding the goal of the Holy Spirit in general, the goal of the author in particular and without the form of the author there will not be a proper content that other humans can understand and the goal of the author as well as the goal of the Holy Spirit cannot be seen.

If your lecturer or your pastor does not honor the divine goal of the text or that the content is divine in origin, dump him and find another one who does. The Bible can only be studied on the knees and with no other way.