“I am the true vine, and My Father is the keeper of the vineyard. He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, and every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes to make it even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. Just as no branch can bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. I am the vine and you are the branches. The one who remains in Me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in Me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to My Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, proving yourselves to be My disciples.
I will sing for my beloved a song of his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it up and cleared the stones and planted the finest vines. He built a watchtower in the middle and dug out a winepress as well. He waited for the vineyard to yield good grapes, but the fruit it produced was sour! “And now, O dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, I exhort you to judge between Me and My vineyard. What more could I have done for My vineyard than I already did for it? Why, when I expected sweet grapes, did it bring forth sour fruit? Now I will tell you what I am about to do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be consumed; I will tear down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and thorns and briers will grow up. I will command the clouds that rain shall not fall on it.” For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plant of His delight. He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard a cry of distress.
You uprooted a vine from Egypt; You drove out the nations and transplanted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land. The mountains were covered by its shade, and the mighty cedars with its branches. It sent out its branches to the Sea, and its shoots toward the River. Why have You broken down its walls, so that all who pass by pick its fruit? The boar from the forest ravages it, and the creatures of the field feed upon it. Return, O God of Hosts, we pray! Look down from heaven and see! Attend to this vine— the root Your right hand has planted, the son You have raised up for Yourself. Your vine has been cut down and burned; they perish at the rebuke of Your countenance.
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Son of man, how does the wood of the vine surpass any other branch among the trees in the forest? Can wood be taken from it to make something useful? Or can one make from it a peg on which to hang utensils? No, it is cast into the fire for fuel. The fire devours both ends, and the middle is charred. Can it be useful for anything? Even when it was whole, it could not be made useful. How much less can it ever be useful when the fire has consumed it and charred it! Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I will give up the people of Jerusalem. And I will set My face against them. Though they may have escaped the fire, yet another fire will consume them. And when I set My face against them, you will know that I am the LORD. Thus I will make the land desolate, because they have acted unfaithfully,’ declares the Lord GOD.”
Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square7:56
Significance
OT frequently uses vineyard/vine as symbol for Israel (God's covenant people). Regularly stresses Israel's FAILURE to produce good fruit, issuing in judgment. Jesus claims to be "true vine"—fulfills Israel's destiny as true vine of God. Brings forth fruit Israel failed to produce. Jesus as Messiah/Son of God embodies God's true intentions. Israel's vocation is not discarded but taken up and fulfilled in Him: believing branches — Jew and Gentile — are incorporated into the True Vine (John 15:5; Romans 11:17-24). This pair carries the fulfillment axis of Isaiah 5 (the choice planting, v.2, answered by the True Vine, John 15:1); the curse-of-fruitlessness axis (Isaiah 5:6's briers and thorns; John 15:6's burned branches) is carried by the Thorns and Thistles trajectory (TT 190). The verbal thread that binds John 15 to Isaiah 5 runs through the Greek text. In the Septuagint of Isaiah 5:2, 4 and 7, God waited (ἔμεινα, from μένω) for the vineyard to produce its fruit, and it did not; in John 15:4-5 the same verb, now meaning to remain, names how fruit finally comes: "Remain in Me, and I will remain in you." The vine (ἄμπελος) and μένω rarely share a verse, and the sense shifts from God's waiting to the branch's remaining, so this is a play on the vineyard song's own word rather than a quotation of it.
Found via
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type
Allusion
Connection Method(s)
Longitudinal Theme + Contrast (with Analogy grounded in Corporate Solidarity)
