Ten acres of vineyard will not produce even six gallons of wine. Ten baskets of seed will yield only one basket of grain.”
Parallel translations
- WEB For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah.”
- KJV Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.
- BSB For ten acres of vineyard will yield but a bath of wine, and a homer of seed only an ephah of grain.”
- NKJV For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, And a homer of seed shall yield one ephah.”
- NASB “For ten acres of vineyard will yield only one bath of wine, And a homer of seed will yield only an ephah of grain.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The land itself will fail, yielding only a fraction of what was planted. It pictures economic ruin as the fruit of injustice and greed.
Overview
A 'bath' from ten acres and an 'ephah' from a homer of seed represent crushing losses, far less harvested than was sown. The barrenness of the land mirrors the spiritual barrenness of the people. This judgment overturns the prosperity the greedy sought, showing that God can reverse a nation's blessing when it turns from Him.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Lev 26:26When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.
- Hag 1:6You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.”
- Hag 2:16Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty, there were only twenty.
- Hag 1:9–11“You looked for much, and, behold, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?” says Yahweh of Armies, “Because of my house that lies waste, while each of you is busy with his own house.
- Joel 1:17The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.
- Lev 27:16“‘If a man dedicates to Yahweh part of the field of his possession, then your valuation shall be according to the seed for it. The sowing of a homer of barley shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver.
- Ezek 45:10–11You shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath.
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Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 5:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.