Therefore my people go into exile for lack of knowledge; their honored men go hungry, and their multitude is parched with thirst. Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite and opened its mouth beyond measure, and the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitude will go down, her revelers and he who exults in her. Man is humbled, and each one is brought low, and the eyes of the haughty are brought low. But the LORD of hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness. Then shall the lambs graze sas in their pasture, and nomads shall eat among the ruins of the rich. (Isaiah 5:13-17 ESV).
In today’s reading from Isaiah, we discover that although God planted a vineyard with “the choicest vines,” the vineyard “yielded only bad fruit.” Through Isaiah, God speaks bitterly here about the spiritual decline of Israel and the consequences of rejecting him. Our reading is the description of the judgment of God. He is able to do this because He alone is “The Holy God,” El Hakkadosh (pronounced “haw-kaw-doshe’”). This is simply who He is. This name for God comes from the Hebrew word kadosh, meaning “one of a kind, utterly unique, set apart, holy.” Isaiah uses this name at least 30 times throughout his book.
Showing himself as El Hakkadosh, God reveals himself to Israel as completely upright or righteous. He walks a straight path. His exalted moral character sets him apart from the gods of the surrounding nations. He is not merely a useful dispenser of wishes and desires but is holy in and of himself. Because he is holy, God expects, even demands, that his people Israel be holy too. So El Hakkadosh, “the Holy God,” became outraged when his “beloved vineyard,” his children Israel, produced only sour grapes. They had become corrupt and unrighteous.
This was not just Israel’s condition. It was ours as well. The Apostle Paul makes this clear: “All men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We are dead in our sin and disobedience. However, in and through Jesus Christ we are forgiven and restored to relationship to God. Jesus is the true vine (cf. John 15:1); we are grafted into Him and thus set apart for the Holy God. This ultimately produces the good fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that we may now bless the lives of others. What a GREAT privilege we have been given in Jesus!