Isaiah 27:6

Isaiah 27 closes a section of the book, chapters 24 to 27, that looks beyond single nations to the whole world under God’s judgment and the salvation of his people. Chapter 24 shows the earth laid waste (Isaiah 24:1–6), chapter 25 praises God for his victory over death, and chapter 26 is a song of trust that looks for the resurrection of the righteous. Chapter 27 opens with this verse, the LORD’s final victory over the forces of evil, and goes on to promise that Israel will be restored and brought home.

“In that day” (yôwm, day) marks a time God himself has set, when he steps in to judge and to save. The phrase runs through these chapters and through the prophets. Zephaniah says, “The great day of the LORD is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly” (Zephaniah 1:14–18), and Joel says that “the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come” (Joel 2:31). For the wicked it is a day of reckoning, and for God’s faithful people a day of rescue and vindication. Here it is the moment the LORD finally defeats every power of evil, in heaven and on earth.

The LORD’s weapon is a chereb, a sword, a word also used for other cutting tools such as a knife, and Scripture often uses it for destruction. Three words describe this one: “sore”, meaning severe, “great”, and “strong”. God speaks of his own sword of judgment in the song of Moses, where he whets his glittering sword and renders vengeance to his enemies (Deuteronomy 32:41). The LORD alone acts in this verse, against an enemy far beyond the strength of any man.

Leviathan, livyâthân, is a serpent or great sea monster. Two descriptions follow, each ending in “serpent”. “Piercing” translates bârîyach, a word for a swift creature that flees and slips away, and “crooked” translates ʻăqallâthôwn, twisted or winding. The third name is the dragon, tannîyn, a sea monster, serpent or dragon, and it lives in the sea, yâm, which in Scripture often stands for unruly and threatening powers. The verbs are just as plain. To “punish” is pâqad, to visit, used here of a visit in judgment that the serpent cannot escape. To “slay” is hârag, to kill.

Scripture speaks of Leviathan elsewhere. The psalmist says to God, “Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces” (Psalm 74:14), and the LORD asks Job, “Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?” (Job 41:1). Another psalm calls Leviathan a creature God made for his sea: “there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.” The nations around Israel told stories of a sea monster from the beginning of the world, and in the Babylonian epic the god Marduk subdues Tiamat. Scripture tells of one LORD who made the great creature of the sea and will punish it, so the most fearsome power anyone could imagine is under his hand.

As soon as the monster is slain, the prophet turns to a song: “In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine.” The song is sung to the vineyard, and the vineyard is the LORD’s people. The verb “sing” is ʻânâh. Strong’s files this verse under a verb that means to humble or afflict, and it notes that the rendering “sing” belongs by mistake to a separate verb. The command is simply to sing, and the verses that follow give the reason: the LORD’s own care for his vineyard.

The vineyard, kerem, is a cultivated garden of vines, and in the prophets it often pictures Israel. A psalm tells how God brought a vine out of Egypt and planted it, and pleads with him to come back and visit it (Psalm 80:8–19). Through Jeremiah the LORD laments, “Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?” (Jeremiah 2:21). Vines were central to Israel’s farming, and a fruitful vineyard meant prosperity and blessing, the kind of blessing the covenant promised to an obedient people (Deuteronomy 28).

In verse 3 the LORD himself speaks. “I the LORD” uses his personal name, Yᵉhôvâh, which Strong’s explains as the self-Existent or Eternal, the name of the God who bound himself to Israel by covenant. He says twice that he keeps the vineyard. To keep, nâtsar, is to guard in a good sense, to protect and maintain, and here it is the work of a watchman who stays at his post for the vineyard’s sake.

To water, shâqâh, is to give to drink, to moisten or irrigate. A vineyard needs water to grow and bear fruit, and the LORD promises to water his “every moment”. The word behind that phrase, rega, is a wink of the eyes, a very short space of time, so the watering comes moment by moment, as often as the vine needs it.

“Lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.” A vineyard in Israel needed constant care, with watering and with guarding against pests, wild animals and thieves, and every farmer knew the work. Here the LORD takes all of it on himself, and his watch is unbroken by night and by day. A psalm says the same of Israel’s keeper: “Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:3–4). For a people who had known unfaithfulness, judgment and the threat of exile, this was a promise of safety under a hand that would stay on them for good.

The same care holds those who belong to Christ. Jesus is the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep (John 10:11), and he says of them, “neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand”, adding that his Father is greater than all (John 10:28–29). He ever lives to make intercession for his people (Hebrews 7:25), and Paul is confident “that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).

“Fury is not in me.” The word for fury, chêmâh, means heat, and so rage, and it can also mean poison. When the LORD says this, he is speaking of his vineyard. The heat of his anger, which fell on unfaithful Israel when the vineyard of chapter 5 was laid waste, is turned away from his people. Isaiah had been told at his call of the desolation to come (Isaiah 6), and this verse speaks to a people brought through it.

Then comes a challenge: “who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle?” Briers, shâmîyr, are thorns, the sharp, prickly growth that chokes a vineyard. Strong’s ties the word to the idea of pricking, and the same word also means a diamond. Here the briers and thorns stand for whatever would harm God’s vineyard, whether hostile nations outside it or wickedness within. Battle, milchâmâh, was something Israel knew well. Isaiah prophesied in the eighth century before Christ, when Assyria was rising and threatened both Israel and Judah, and to such a people God’s word that he would face their enemies himself was a deep comfort.

The LORD answers his own question: “I would go through them, I would burn them together.” To burn, tsûwth, is to set ablaze. Farmers cleared briers and thorns by fire to keep a vineyard healthy, and thorns catch quickly and burn fast. God would march straight through his enemies and burn them all at once. A psalm says, “A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about” (Psalm 97:3), and Nahum asks, “Who can stand before his indignation?” (Nahum 1:6). Anyone who sets himself against the LORD in battle has chosen a fight that ends in fire.

So Paul can ask, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31), and go on to say that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39).

Verse 5 begins with “Or”. The LORD has just spoken of burning the briers and thorns, and now he sets out another way. Anyone who would otherwise face his fire may “take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me”. In a passage full of judgment, the LORD holds out peace even to his enemies. Isaiah opens his book with the same offer: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18).

To take hold, châzaq, is to fasten upon or seize, and the same verb means to be strong or to make strong. Strength here is mâʻôwz, a stronghold, refuge or place of safety, and figuratively God himself as the one who gives that safety. In Israel a stronghold was the fortified place people ran to when an army came. Taking hold of God’s strength means running to him as one’s refuge and holding fast to him. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1), and the one who dwells in the secret place of the most High says of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress” (Psalm 91:1–2).

Peace, shâlôwm, is completeness, soundness, welfare and safety, so peace with God is a whole and sound life with him. To “make” peace uses ʻâsâh, the ordinary verb for doing or making. Among Israel’s neighbours a broken covenant meant enmity, and making peace meant restoring the relationship. Isaiah has just sung of this peace: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee” (Isaiah 26:3).

The verse says it twice: “that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me.” The first is the purpose and the second is the promise. Whoever takes hold of God’s strength will have peace with him, and the repetition makes that certain.

Verse 6 closes the song with its widest promise: “He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root.” The LORD is the one acting, as he has been through the whole passage. To take root, shârash, is to strike root into the soil and be firmly planted. The great empires of Isaiah’s day, Assyria and then Babylon, threatened Israel and in time carried both the northern and the southern kingdoms into exile. A people who knew what it was to be uprooted and scattered hear that God will plant them again to stay. The rest of Isaiah 27 goes on to the gathering of the scattered remnant.

“Israel shall blossom and bud.” Jacob and Israel are one people, called by both of their father’s names. Rooting leads to blossom and bud, the first signs of new life after a barren time, and then to fruit: “and fill the face of the world with fruit.” To fill, mâlêʼ, is to fill or be full of, and the fruit covers the face, pânîym, of the world, têbêl, the inhabited earth. Pânîym is plural in form and always used as a singular, and its senses of surface and front grow out of the face itself. The fruit is tᵉnûwbâh, produce or increase, the natural yield of a plant. In this verse it stands for the blessing, righteousness and knowledge of God that come from a people God has restored.

This goes back to God’s first promise to Abraham: “in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:1–3). God always meant his people to carry blessing to the world. Isaiah says it again when God gives his servant “for a light to the Gentiles” (Isaiah 49:6). The blessing began to spread with Israel’s knowledge of the one God and his law, and it reached its fullness in the gospel of Jesus Christ, which came out of Israel and goes “unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8), as the Lord sent his disciples to teach all nations (Matthew 28:19–20).

Jesus takes up the picture of the vine and applies it to himself: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman” (John 15:1–8). His followers are the branches, and “He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit”. Everything the LORD promises his vineyard in these verses, the watering, the keeping, the rooting and the fruit, is ours in union with Christ, who nourishes his church by his Spirit and his word. The fruit he brings forth in us is “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22–23).

The red wine of verse 2 points ahead to the cup of the new covenant. At the Last Supper Jesus gave the cup and said, “this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:27–29). The song sung over the vineyard becomes the new song of the redeemed, sung to the Lamb who was slain and who redeemed them to God by his blood “out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation” (Revelation 5:9–10).

These six verses set two sides of who God is next to each other. He takes up a great sword against the serpent and burns the thorns that fight against him, and he waters a vineyard every moment and stands guard over it through the night. His power over evil and his tenderness toward his people come from one heart, and the first serves the second: Leviathan is slain so that the vineyard can be safe.

The passage also shows that God’s people flourish by his work. He keeps, he waters, he causes them to take root, and the fruit that fills the world is the fruit of his care. Even the enemy at the gate hears the offer of peace, and whoever takes hold of God’s strength finds the promise standing: “he shall make peace with me.” The song this passage calls for is a song about what the LORD has done for his vineyard, and everyone he has brought into his peace has a part in singing it.