What Does Isaiah 5:2 Mean?
And he dug around it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with the red vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and hollowed out a winepress within it. And he waited for it to bring forth grapes, and it brought forth stinking grapes.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.THE KEY
The wild fruit called בְּאֻשִׁים carries a name from the verb for stinking: the vineyard’s harvest does not simply miss its promise; it turns foul.
THE MEANING
Your life can be fenced, cleared, planted, watched, and supplied, yet still yield what is wild and foul. The painful truth is that care and provision are real, while the harvest can still contradict what was hoped for.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that careful provision guarantees a fitting outcome: the vineyard receives every preparation, yet bears wild fruit.
THE ROOT
בְּאֻשִׁים
bəʾušîm
GROWS FROM
באש
Root באש (bāʾaš) means to stink or become foul.
“stinking grapes” in this verse is bəʾušîm. The English phrase names the visible crop, while the Hebrew root also carries the smell of foulness. The image gives the yield a sensory edge: it is not only unexpected, but spoiled.
ALSO GROWS
ūḇāʾaš: shall stink
וּבָאַשׁ
In Exodus 7:18 this form describes the river’s foul smell, showing the same root’s sensory force.
wayyivʾaš: stank, became foul
וַיִּבְאַשׁ
In Exodus 16:20 manna left overnight stinks; the root again names food turned foul.
וַיְקַו
wayqav
GROWS FROM
קוה
Root קוה (qāvāh) means to wait for or hope expectantly.
“waited for it to bring forth” in this verse is wayqav. This is more than a passing glance: the vineyard owner waits expectantly for grapes. The same root forms words for hope, so the fruit is what was awaited, and its actual form exposes the distance between hope and yield.
ALSO GROWS
tiqvāh: hope, expectation
תִּקְוָה
This noun carries the same root into the language of hope, clarifying the expectation behind the owner’s waiting.
miqvēh: hope, refuge
מִקְוֵה
Jeremiah calls the LORD the “hope” of Israel with this word; the same root can name what someone waits for and relies upon.
THE PATTERN
The harvest reveals the nature of what has taken root, regardless of the expectation attached to it.
Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly a seed of truth. How then have you been overturned to me, into the wild shoots of a foreign vine?So every good tree makes good fruit, but the rotten tree makes evil fruit.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink; and the Egyptians shall grow weary of drinking the water of the river.Isaiah’s בְּאֻשִׁים (bəʾušîm, “wild grapes”) shares root באש (bāʾaš, “stink, become foul”) with the river that “shall stink” here. The echo lets the vineyard’s failed crop register as foulness, not merely an unexpected variety.
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