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duty: “And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not yet eaten of it?”
(Deut. 20:6).
The harvest time was a period of hard work and great rejoicing. The enjoyment of the
“vineyard” was a blessing of God: “And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and
they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them” (Isa. 65:21). The failure of the
“vineyard” to produce or the transfer of ownership of one’s “vineyard” was viewed as
God’s judgment: “Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take
from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in
them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them” (Amos
5:11; cf. Deut. 28:30).
The words “vineyard” and “olive grove’ (
) are often found together in the
biblical text. These furnished the two major permanent agricultural activities in ancient
Israel, as both required much work and time before the crops came in. God promised that
the ownership of the “vineyards” and orchards of the Canaanites was to go to His people
as a blessing from Him (Deut. 6:11-12). God’s judgment to Israel extended to the
“vineyards.” The rejoicing in the “vineyard” would cease (Isa. 16:10) and the carefully
cultivated “vineyard” would be turned into a thicket with thorns and briers (cf. Isa. 32:12-
13). The “vineyard” would be reduced to a hiding place of wild animals and a grazing
place for goats and wild donkeys (Isa. 32:14). The postexilic hope lay in God’s blessings
on the agricultural activity of His people: “And I will bring again the captivity of my
people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall
plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the
fruit of them” (Amos 9:14).
The “vineyards” were located mainly in the hill country and in the low-lying hill
country. The Bible mentions the “vineyard” at Timnath (Judg. 14:5), Jezreel (1 Kings
21:1), the hill country of Samaria (Jer. 31:5), and even at Engedi (Song of Sol. 1:14).
The metaphorical use of
allows the prophet Isaiah to draw an analogy between
the “vineyard” and Israel: “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel …”
(Isa. 5:7). It has also been suggested that the “vineyard” in the Song of Solomon is better
understood metaphorically as “person”: “Look not upon me, because I am black, because
the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me
the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept” (Song of Sol. 1:6).
VIOLENCE
A. Noun.
(
, 2555), “violence; wrong; maliciousness.” This word appears about 60
times and in all periods of biblical Hebrew.
Basically
connotes the disruption of the divinely established order of things.
It has a wide range of nuances within this legal sphere. The expression “a witness in the
case of violent wrongdoing” means someone who bears witness in a case having to do
with such an offense (cf. Deut. 19:16). In this context the truthfulness of the witness is
not established except upon further investigation (Deut. 19:18). Once he was established
as a false witness, the penalty for the crime concerning which he bore false witness was
to be executed against the lair (cf. Deut. 19:19). In Exod. 23:1 Israel is admonished: “…
Put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness,” i.e., a witness who in
accusing someone of a violent crime intends to see the accused punished severely.