And he fenced it. — In the “fence” we may recognise the law and institutions of Israel which kept it as a separate people (Eph. Ii. 14); in the “stones” that were gathered out, the removal of the old idolatries that would have hindered the development of the nation’s life; in the “tower” of the vineyard (comp. in a different context Isaiah 1:8), the monarchy and throne of David, or the watch-tower from which the prophets looked forth (Hab. Ii. 1; Isaiah 21:5-8); in the “winepress,” the temple in which the fruits of righteousness were to issue in the wine of joy and adoration (Zechariah 9:17; Ephesians 5:18). It was, we may note, one of the maxims of the Rabbis that the duty of a scribe was “to set a fence around the law” (Pirke Aboth, i. 1). In the last clause of the verse the pleasant song suddenly changes its tone, and the “wild grapes (sour and hard, and not larger than bilberries) are types of deeds of harsh and cruel injustice on which the prophet proceeds to dwell.
Related Commentaries of Isaiah 5:2
Isaiah 5:2
2 And he fenceda 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.