Isaiah 5:10

Isa 5:10 Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.

Ver. 10. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath,] viz., Of wine; a poor proportion - not a gallon of wine for an acre of ground planted with vines.

And the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.] And no more. The earth shall yield but the tenth part of what was sown; so little joy shall you have either of your enlarged houses, or fields laid to fields by evil arts. Et signanter decem ponit iugera, saith Oecolampadius here; neither is it for nothing that the prophet saith ten acres of vineyard, &c., and that they shall have but the tithe of their seed again, to teach them how angry God is with such as through covetousness refuse to pay their tithes duly and truly, &c.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

5:10 As with drought (5:5-6), the reduction of crops was at times a divine judgment (see Hag 1:6, 9; 2:16).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Which containeth about ten pottels: so that every acre should but yield one pottel.

Which containeth an hundred pottels.

An Ephah containeth ten pottels and is in dry things as much as Bath is in liquors.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

acres--literally, "yokes"; as much as one yoke of oxen could plow in a day.

one--only.

bath--of wine; seven and a half gallons.

homer . . . ephah--Eight bushels of seed would yield only three pecks of produce (Eze 45:11). The ephah and bath, one-tenth of an homer.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(10) Ten acres.—The disproportion was as great as that which we have seen in recent times in vine countries suffering from the Phylloxera or the oidium, or in the potato failures of Ireland. The bath was equal to seventy-two Roman sextarii (Jos. Ant. viii. 2-9), about seven and a half gallons, and this was to be the whole produce of ten acres, from which an average yield of 500 baths might have been expected. The Hebrew word for “acre” means primarily the ground that could be ploughed in a day by a yoke of oxen.

The seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.—Here also there is an all but total failure. The homer was a dry measure of thirty-two pecks, and the ephah was equal to one-tenth of a homer (Eze_45:11; Exo_16:36). This scanty crop—Ruth’s gleanings for a single day (Rth_2:17)—one-tenth of the seed sown, was to take the place of the “thirtyfold, sixty, and a hundredfold” (Gen_26:12; Mat_13:8) of average or prosperous years.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

10. The land shall be smitten with the curse of barrenness; Jehovah’s remedy for land-grabbing.

ten acres] lit. ten yoke; a yoke of land being

“As much as two stout oxen

Could plough from morn till night.”

one bath] (of wine),—about 8 gallons.

seed of a homer … ephah] The ephah is a dry measure of the same capacity as the bath; the homer is ten ephahs (Eze_45:11).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath,.... They shall get nothing by laying field to field, for their fields shall be barren and unfruitful; though Jarchi and Kimchi take this to be a reason why their houses should be desolate, and without inhabitants, because there would be a famine, rendering the words, "for ten acres", &c. The Targum makes this barrenness to be the punishment of their sin, in not paying tithes; paraphrasing the words thus,

"for because of the sin of not giving tithes, the place of ten acres of vineyard shall produce one bath.''

The word signifies "yokes", and is used of yokes of oxen; hence the Septuagint and Arabic versions render the words thus, "for where ten yoke of oxen work", or "plough, it shall make one flagon"; and so Kimchi explains them, the place in a vineyard, which ten yoke of oxen plough in one day, shall yield no more wine than one bath. A bath is a measure for liquids; according to Godwin (a), it held four gallons and a half; a small quantity indeed, to be produced out of ten acres of ground; an acre, according to our English measure, being a quantity of land containing four square roods, or one hundred sixty square poles or perches:

and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah: that is, as much seed as an "homer" would hold, which was a dry measure, and which, according to the above writer, contained five bushels and five gallons, should yield only an ephah, which was the tenth part of an homer, Eze 45:11 so that it would only produce a tenth part of the seed sown.

(a) Moses and Aaron, l. 6. c. 9.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Yea, ten acres - In this verse a reason is rendered why the houses mentioned in the previous verse should become desolate. The reason is, that the land would become sterile and barren, as a divine judgment for their oppression. To what particular time the prophet refers, here, is not apparent. It is certain, however, that the land of Canaan was frequently given up to sterility. The withholding of the early and latter rains, or the neglect of cultivation from any cause, would produce this. At present, this formerly fertile country is among the most unproductive on the face of the earth.

Ten acres - An “acre,” among the Hebrews, was what could be plowed by one yoke of oxen in a day. It did not differ materially from our acre.

Shall yield one bath - One bath of wine. The “bath” was a Jewish measure for liquids, containing about seven gallons and a half. To say that “ten acres” should produce no more wine than this; was the same as to say that it would produce almost nothing.

And the seed of an homer - An “homer” was a Hebrew measure for grain, containing about eight bushels.

An ephah - The “ephah” contained about three pecks. Of course, to say that an homer of seed should produce about three pecks, would be the same as saying that it would produce almost nothing.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Measure. Hebrew, "both." --- Thirty. Hebrew, "a chomer shall yield an epha."

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, to wit, of wine. The bath contained about eight gallons. Thus an acre did yield one gallon.

The seed of an homer shall yield an ephah which was of the same quantity with the bath, only the bath was the measure of liquid things, the ephah of dry and an ephah was the tenth part of an homer, Eze 45:11. So instead of that great increase which that fruitful land commonly yielded, they should lose nine parts of their seed. Thus a fruitful land was made barren for their wickedness, according to God’s threatening, Psa 107:34; and they had as little comfort in their lands as in their houses; which were the two kinds of their purchases, Isa 5:8.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath. The greed of adding field to field will he punished by the curse of barrenness, which God will send upon the laud. Dr. Kay-calculates that ten acres (Roman) of vineyard ought to yield upon the average five hundred baths (or four thousand gallons) instead of one bath (eight gallons). A homer... an ephah. The "ephah" was the tenth-part of a "homer". (Eze_45:11) Corn lands should return only one-tenth part of the seed sown in them.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

One bath - Of wine. The bath contained about eight gallons. Thus an acre did not yield one gallon. An ephah - Which was of the same quantity with the bath, only the bath was the measure of liquid things, the ephah of dry things; and a ephah was the tenth part of an homer. So instead of the increase which that fruitful land commonly yielded, they should loose nine parts of their seed.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

As the sin related both to lands and houses, so both are mentioned in denouncing punishment. The desolation of the houses was in fact to arise from the unproductiveness of the lands. Ruinous failure of crops and a near approach to absolute sterility are threatened as a condign punishment of those who added field to field and house to house. The meaning of this verse depends, not on the absolute value of the measures mentioned, but on their proportions. The last clause threatens that the seed sown, instead of being multiplied, should be reduced nine tenths; and a similar idea is no doubt expressed by the analogous terms of the preceding clause. “For ten acres of vineyard shall make (produce) one bath,” a liquid measure here put for a very small quantity of wine to be yielded by so large a quantity of land, and “the seed of a homer,” (i.e., seed to the amount of a homer, or in our idiom, a homer of seed), “shall produce an ephah,” a dry measure equal to the liquid bath, and constituting one tenth of a homer, as we learn from (Eze 45:11-14).

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Prophecies of Isaiah (1846–1847; New York: Scribner, 1870–1878) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For ten acres of vineyard And, because of the famine, the inhabitants of the house will be exiled, leaving no one dwelling in them. This, too, will be for your payment in kind for bringing one field near to the other field, for you have stolen the share of the Omnipresent in the tithe of the land.

ten acres of vineyard arpent in French, and I say that the amount of land requiring the work of one day with a yoke of oxen is called צֶמֶד, a yoke.

will produce one bath One measure of wine. A bath is three se’ah.

and the seed of a homer A place where a kur, which is thirty se’ah of grain, is usually produced, will produce an ephah three se’ah.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Ten. A round number, meaning many.

צמדי כרם Pairs of vineyards. They have removed the boundaries, and many vineyards were thus coupled together (נצמדים), combined into one.

בת Bath. A measure. חמר Homer; the same as ten pairs of vineyards. Bath and Epha are likewise equal.

Ibn Ezra on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0); and “Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah - trans. by M. Friedlander, 1873” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.