THE VINE TREE AMONG THE TREES

The people of Israel are often pictured in scripture as either a vine or a vineyard. The nation had been chosen that they might bear fruit for God and be a source of blessing to the world. In the words of Isaiah, ‘He (the Lord) looked that it should bring forth grapes’, Isa. 5. 2, 4. Jotham’s parable, Judg. 9. 12, 13, drew atten­tion to the fact that the vine, if fruitful, occupies a place of honour among the trees. And, as the vine is highly valued on account of its prolific fruit-bearing, so Israel’s high calling distin­guished them from all other nations.

All the life and vigour of the vine is fed into its grape clusters. Apart from its grapes, and the wine produced from them, the vine renders no other service. The wood of other fruit-bearing trees can be used as a source of timber, but the wood of the vine is too brittle, weak and crooked for any such purpose. Its wood is too weak even to function as a peg on which to hang kitchen utensils, v. 3. A barren vine is therefore fit only as fuel for the fire, v. 4. Put simply, a vine is worthless if it is fruitless.

Here the Lord likens the inhabitants of Jerusalem, not to a cultivated vine in a vineyard, but to a wild vine in a forest. He views them, that is, simply as one nation among many. Intrinsi­cally they had no worth. In and of themselves they were no match for the other nations in terms either of military power or of material wealth. Inasmuch as the people of God had failed to fulfil the purpose for which they had been raised up - to yield the fruits of righteousness - they were now fit only to be burned up. Already, they had suffered the fire of God’s judgement through two Babylonian invasions, namely in the days of their kings Jehoiakim and Jehoichin. The fire, that is, had burned them twice, and what remained of the nation was now badly charred, v. 4. They were, therefore, of even less value now than they had been previously, v. 5. It remained only for them to be ‘devoured’ by the fire of God’s judgement and for their land to be made ‘desolate’, vv. 7, 8.

And what of us? Are we bringing forth ‘fruit unto holiness’, Rom. 6. 22? Are we bearing ‘the fruit of the Spirit… in all good­ness and righteousness and truth’, Eph. 5. 9?