Genesis 1 tells us that after six days of creating, “God saw all that God had made, and it was very good (mᵊ’ōḏ {meh-ode’} ṭôv).” This explains the profound sadness in the voice of the vineyard creator in Isaiah’s story. A beautiful, abundant space, cultivated to supply the necessities of life, so that all those who share the “vineyard” may thrive with one another. Instead, as Isaiah voices the Creator, “I expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded rotten grapes, expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness but heard a cry!”
“How is it,” I wondered aloud to myself, “that human beings have spent so much energy on being rotten?
