The Parable of the Vineyard (Isaiah 5:1-7),or what is a love song doing among the prophets?

Abstract

This article is a close literary reading of the Parable of the Vineyard in Isaiah 5:1-7, paying particular attention to shifts of gender and voice, since the poem begins with the prophet adopting the guise of the female singer. It continues with the poem's evocation and systematic subversion of literary genres, in particular the love song and the prophetic rib, or lawsuit. With the divine judgement in vs. 5-6, intertextual resonances serve to ambiguate the text. Finally, in v. 7, with its apparent decoding, the parable effects a displacement into metaphor and metonymy, since none of the terms is entirely clear. Most important, the suppressed female voice in the poem reemerges in a cry of protest, against the perversion of justice, indeed, but also against the parable itself.