What Does Isaiah 5:1 Mean in the King James?

Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:

Isaiah 5:1 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The vineyard’s hill is pictured as a “horn of oil,” so abundance is built into the setting before the song names any fruit.

THE MEANING

You meet a vineyard set on ground described as rich with oil, while its owner is called beloved through two different Hebrew words. Before any harvest appears, the verse holds intimacy and provision together; what the vineyard yields remains open.

THE ROOT

שֶׁמֶן

shemen

GROWS FROM

ש־מ־ן

Oil; the related adjective carries the sense of fat, rich, or fertile.

The Hebrew phrase is literally “a horn, a son of oil,” rendered as a very fruitful hill. Shemen carries the sense of oil and richness, making the vineyard’s ground feel abundant before any harvest is named.

ALSO GROWS

shemen: Oil

שֶׁמֶן

This is the word behind “oil” in the verse’s vivid phrase, “son of oil.”

shamen: Fat, rich, fertile

שָׁמֵן

This related form shows how the language of oil extends to richness and fertility in the hill’s description.

דּוֹדִי

dodi

GROWS FROM

ד־ו־ד

Beloved one or lover; in love poetry, an intimate term of affection.

The KJV’s “beloved” comes from dodi, a term also heard in the love language of Song of Songs. The vineyard belongs to someone named through intimacy, not merely possession.

ALSO GROWS

dod: Beloved or lover

דּוֹד

This is the base form behind dodi, placing the vineyard within the language of affection.

dodim: Loves or caresses

דּוֹדִים

In Song of Songs 1:2, this related form names intimate love, echoing the relational tone of the verse.

יְדִידִי

yedidi

GROWS FROM

י־ד־ד

Beloved or close friend; a word of affection and attachment.

“wellbeloved” in this verse is yedidi. The first “beloved” is yedidi, while the next is dodi. English uses nearly the same word for both, hiding that the song repeats affection through two distinct Hebrew terms.

ALSO GROWS

yadid: Beloved or friend

יְדִיד

This is the base form behind yedidi, the first affectionate name in the song.

Yedidyah: Beloved of the LORD

יְדִידְיָה

This name, given in 2 Samuel 12:25, preserves the same root of belovedness.

THE PATTERN

Scripture pictures fruitfulness through a vineyard whose life depends on the ground and keeper who sustain it.

Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it.

Psalm 80:8 · KJVThe vine’s life begins with being brought out and planted.

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

Isaiah 5:7 · KJVThe vineyard image opens into a portrait of a people from whom fruit is expected.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

John 15:1 · KJVThe image again joins the vine’s life to the one who tends it.

THE THREAD

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

Isaiah 5:7 · KJV

Isaiah 5:7 names the vineyard as the house of Israel, opening the image from a love song into a portrait of a whole people. It also reveals that the rich ground in verse 1 carries an expectation about what grows there.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us