The Great Isaiah Scroll, the best preserved of the biblical scrolls found at Qumran from the second century BC, contains all the verses in this chapter.
The parashah sections listed here are based on the Aleppo Codex.[5] Isaiah 5 is a part of the Prophecies about Judah and Israel (Isaiah 1-12). {P}: open parashah; {S}: closed parashah.
Verses 8 to 24 contain "the six woes". Anglican theologian Edward Plumptre suggests that the form of the woes preached by Jesus in Luke 6:24–26 is based on this passage.[11] After the general warning conveyed to Israel by the parable of the vineyard, "six sins are particularised as those which have especially provoked God to give the warning".
The six woes of Isaiah relate to those responsible for:
It is not for kings to drink wine, not for rulers to crave beer.
Verse 8
Woe to those who join house to house;
They add field to field,
Till there is no place
Where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land![12]
The law of Israel provided "very stringently and carefully, that as far as possible there should be an equal distribution of the soil, and that hereditary family property should be inalienable. All landed property that had been alienated reverted to the family every fiftieth year, or year of jubilee; so that alienation simply had reference to the usufruct of the land till that time."[13]
You have narrowed the lands of the poor down to nothing.[14]
Verse 20
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil
"This fourth woe relates to those who adopted a code of morals that completely overturned the first principles of ethics, and was utterly opposed to the law of God."[13]
Verse 21
Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
^ abThe New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, Augmented Third Edition, New Revised Standard Version, Indexed. Michael D. Coogan, Marc Brettler, Carol A. Newsom, Editors. Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 2007. pp. 984-986 Hebrew Bible. ISBN978-0195288810
Coggins, R (2007). "22. Isaiah". In Barton, John; Muddiman, John (eds.). The Oxford Bible Commentary (first (paperback) ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 433–586. ISBN978-0199277186. Retrieved February 6, 2019.