The Book of Isaiah

Chapter 1 V.8 Part 2

Isa 1:8  And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

A cottage, per the dictionary is a small house. A lodge is described as a cabin or cottage used as a temporary shelter.

Some biblical dictionary definitions are as follows:

Cottage: ( 1.) A booth in a vineyard ( Isa 1:8); a temporary shed covered with leaves or straw to shelter the watchman that kept the garden. These were slight fabrics, and were removed when no longer needed, or were left to be blown down in winter ( Job 27:18).

( 2.) A lodging-place ( in Isa 1:8); a slighter structure than the “booth,” as the cucumber patch is more temporary than a vineyard (Isa 24:20). It denotes a frail structure of boughs supported on a few poles, which is still in use in the East, or a hammock suspended between trees, in which the watchman was accustomed to sleep during summer.

Where the watchman was accustomed to sleep? I thought the watchman was supposed to be on the job? This could also denote that Israel was not watching their own gates or over their garden so to speak.

Cucumbers: ( Heb. plur. kishshuim; only in Num 11:5). This vegetable is extensively cultivated in the East at the present day, as it appears to have been in earlier times among the Hebrews. It belongs to the gourd family of plants. In the East its cooling pulp and juice are most refreshing. “We need not altogether wonder that the Israelites, wearily marching through the arid solitudes of the Sinaitic peninsula, thought more of the cucumbers and watermelons of which they had had no lack in Egypt, rather than of the cruel bondage which was the price of these luxuries.”

Gardens were surrounded by hedges of thorns ( Isa 5:5) or by walls of stone ( Pro 24:31). “Watch-towers” or “lodges” were also built in them ( Isa 1:8; Mar 12:1), in which their keepers sat. On account of their retirement they were frequently used as places for secret prayer and communion with God ( Gen 24:63; Mat 26:30-36; Jhn 1:48; 18:1,2). The dead were sometimes buried.

This is interesting considering the “parched (and withered) monument to dead relics” that I found in the meaning of “daughter of Zion.”

Isa 1:8  And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

So here is this parched monument to the dead sitting in a vineyard like a cottage; and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers. In other words, here is Israel, the spiritually parched, dead monument or sepulcher that is sitting in the midst of a flourishing vineyard or a garden of cucumbers, which contain not only life, but the living water they need.

They sit at watch over this living water; this garden of refreshment and life, but they’re position is temporal. A cottage in a vineyard and a lodge in a garden is a temporary shelter for the watchman. A watchman is there but for a specified time, and then the changing of the guard occurs.

So what this is looking like or sounding like to me; is that Israel, the daughter of Zion, will have that position of being in the midst of the garden of life but for a time, and then they will be moved out of the position because they are dead relics and are oblivious to where they are and the position they were placed in.

Again, this is subjective, and I’m telling you what I see and understand at this moment. However, my understanding and perspective rise from the place I’m at and what God wants me to see in this moment in time. I may look at this again at a later moment in time, and see a bit more or a bit less or even something else entirely. It just depends on what God is trying to demonstrate to me and through me at that moment.

Isa 1:8  And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

As a besieged city, means they are captives. The dictionary definition of besiege means to hem in or surround with hostile forces. Additionally, in the definition above of gardens, it mentioned that many times they were surrounded by thorns, hedges or walls and stones.

So Israel is hemmed in by hostile forces in a garden where they sit like a sepulcher of dead relics among a lush, fully water-filled garden that they apparently take no advantage of. Their position in this garden of living water is temporary and will change like the watchmen change shifts.

The hostile forces are without, ready and waiting; and they sit in the very garden that will sustain them, parched spiritually, and like the dead. Wow.