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LXX Isaiah

Septuagint

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Chapter 5

1 Now I will sing to my beloved a song of my beloved concerning my vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a high hill in a fertile place.⁠ 2 And I made a hedge round it, and dug a trench, and planted a choice vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and dug a place for the wine-vat in it: and I waited for it to bring forth grapes, and it brought forth thorns. 3 And now, every man of Judah, and you dwellers in Jerusalem, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What shall I do any more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? Whereas I expected it to bring forth grapes, but it has brought forth thorns. 5 And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be for plunder; and I will pull down its walls, and it shall be left to be trodden down. 6 And I will forsake my vineyard; and it shall not be pruned, nor dug, and thorns shall come up upon it as on barren land; and I will command the clouds to rain no rain upon it. 7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his beloved plant: I expected it to bring forth judgment, and it brought forth iniquity; and not righteousness, but a cry. 8 Woe to those who join house to house, and add field to field, that they may take away something of their neighbor's: will you dwell alone upon the land? 9 For these things have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts: for though many houses should be built, many and fair houses shall be desolate, and there shall be no inhabitants in them. 10 For where ten yoke of oxen plow the land shall yield one jar, and he that sows six artabas shall produce three measures. 11 Woe to those who rise up in the morning, and follow strong drink; who wait at it till evening: for the wine shall inflame them. 12 For they drink wine with harp, and lute, and drums, and pipes: but they do not regard the works of the Lord, and do not consider the works of his hands. 13 Therefore my people have been taken captive, because they do not know the Lord: and there has been a multitude of dead bodies, because of hunger and of thirst for water.⁠ 14 Therefore hell has enlarged its desire and opened its mouth without ceasing: and her glorious and great, and her rich and her pestilent men shall go down into it. 15 And the mean man shall be brought low, and the great man shall be disgraced, and the lofty eyes shall be brought low. 16 But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and the holy God shall be glorified in righteousness. 17 And they that were plundered shall be fed as bulls, and lambs shall feed on the waste places of those who are taken away. 18 Woe to those who draw sins to them as with a long rope, and iniquities as with a thong of the heifer's yoke: 19 who say, Let him speedily hasten what he will do, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know it. 20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who make darkness light, and light darkness; who make bitter sweet, and sweet bitter. 21 Woe to those who are wise in their own conceit, and knowing in their own sight. 22 Woe to the strong ones of you that drink wine, and the mighty ones that mingle strong drink: 23 who justify the ungodly for rewards, and take away the righteousness of the righteous. 24 Therefore as stubble shall be burnt by a coal of fire, and shall be consumed by a violent flame, their root shall be as chaff, and their flower shall go up as dust: for they rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and insulted the word of the Holy One of Israel. 25 Therefore the Lord of hosts was greatly angered against his people, and he reached forth his hand upon them, and struck them: and the mountains were troubled, and their carcasses were as dung in the midst of the way: yet for all this his anger has not been turned away, but his hand is yet raised. 26 Therefore he will lift up a signal to the nations that are afar, and shall hiss for them from the end of the earth; and, look, they are coming very quickly. 27 They shall not hunger nor be weary, neither shall they slumber nor sleep; neither shall they loose their belts from their waist, neither shall their shoe-straps be broken. 28 Whose arrows are sharp, and their bows bent; their horses' hoofs are counted as solid rock: their chariot-wheels are as a storm. 29 They rage as lions, and draw near as a lion's cubs: and he shall seize, and roar as a wild beast, and he shall cast them forth, and there shall be none to deliver them. 30 And he shall roar on account of them in that day, as the sound of the swelling sea; and they shall look to the land, and, look, there shall be thick darkness in their perplexity.

Texts in conversation

Compare LXX Isaiah 5:2 and Matthew 21:33

Septuagint · New Testament

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Summary

In Matthew 21, the parable of the vineyard draws on the imagery of Isaiah, where a vineyard gives only bad fruit. Both use agricultural imagery of planting, protection, and expectation, using the vineyard as a symbol of responsibility and failure.

Passages

LXX Isaiah 5:2

Septuagint
1 Now I will sing to my beloved a song of my beloved concerning my vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a high hill in a fertile place. 2 And I made a hedge round it, and dug a trench, and planted a choice vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and dug a place for the wine-vat in it: and I waited for it to bring forth grapes, and it brought forth thorns. 3 And now, every man of Judah, and you dwellers in Jerusalem, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What shall I do any more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? Whereas I expected it to bring forth grapes, but it has brought forth thorns.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Isaiah

Matthew 21:33

New Testament
33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a pit for its winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and went on a journey. 34 When the harvest time was near, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his portion of the crop. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves, beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them the same way. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’
70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Matthew

References

"... The Hebrew text of Isaiah 5:1-7 forms the starting point of a long and intensive interpretation process. Within that process the version of the LXX and the Targum represent two relatively independent moments. In both cases elements from the Hebrew text are copied but a number of other elements are fundamentally changed. Here we encounter the fascinating phenomenon that a text from the Hebrew bible is again and again at the basis of new texts. From 4Q500 we can gather that the interpretation offered by the targumist was current in Jesus' and Matthew's time ... The similarities between Mark 12:1-12 and Isaiah 5:1-7 have been borrowed by Matthew with some minor changes. Moreover, he was further strengthened the connection between the parable and Isaiah 5:1-7. This means that the song from Isaiah not only played a productive role in the genesis of Mark's version of the parable, but Matthew, too ..."
W. J. C. Weren, “The Use of Isaiah 5,1-7 in the Parable of the Tenants (Mark 12,1-12; Matthew 21,33-46),” Bib 79.1 (1998): 1–26.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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LXX Isaiah 5:2 and Matthew 21:33

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