For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah.”
Parallel Translations
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For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah.”
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Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.
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For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of a homer shall yield an ephah.
Cross-references (7)
Passages linked to Isaiah 5:10 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Leviticus 26:26 When 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.
- Haggai 1:6 You 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.”
- Haggai 2:16 Through 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.
- Haggai 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. Therefore for your sake the heavens withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on that which the ground produces, on men, on livestock, and on all the labor of the hands.”
- Leviticus 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.
- Ezekiel 45:10-11 “You shall have just balances, a just ephah, and a just bath. The ephah and the bath shall be of one measure, that the bath may contain one tenth of a homer, and the ephah one tenth of a homer. Its measure shall be the same as the homer.
- Joel 1:17 The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (12 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Which containeth about ten pottels: so that every acre…
Which containeth about ten pottels: so that every acre should but yield one pottel.
Which containeth an hundred pottels.
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An Ephah containeth ten pottels and is in dry things as much as Bath is in liquors.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Isa 5:10 Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield…
Isa 5:10 Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.
Ver. 10. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath,] viz., Of wine; a poor proportion - not a gallon of wine for an acre of ground planted with vines.
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And the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.] And no more. The earth shall yield but the tenth part of what was sown; so little joy shall you have either of your enlarged houses, or fields laid to fields by evil arts. Et signanter decem ponit iugera, saith Oecolampadius here; neither is it for nothing that the prophet saith ten acres of vineyard, &c., and that they shall have but the tithe of their seed again, to teach them how angry God is with such as through covetousness refuse to pay their tithes duly and truly, &c.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, to…
Ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, to wit, of wine. The bath contained about eight gallons. Thus an acre did yield one gallon.
The seed of an homer shall yield an ephah which was of the same quantity with the bath, only the bath was the measure of liquid things, the ephah of dry and an ephah was the tenth part of an homer, Eze 45:11. So instead of that great increase which that fruitful land commonly yielded, they should lose nine parts of their seed. Thus a fruitful land was made barren for their wickedness, according to God’s threatening, Psa 107:34; and they had as little comfort in their lands as in their houses; which were the two kinds of their purchases, Isa 5:8.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath,....…
Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath,.... They shall get nothing by laying field to field, for their fields shall be barren and unfruitful; though Jarchi and Kimchi take this to be a reason why their houses should be desolate, and without inhabitants, because there would be a famine, rendering the words, "for ten acres", &c. The Targum makes this barrenness to be the punishment of their sin, in not paying tithes; paraphrasing the words thus,
"for because of the sin of not giving tithes, the place of ten acres of vineyard shall produce one bath.''
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The word signifies "yokes", and is used of yokes of oxen; hence the Septuagint and Arabic versions render the words thus, "for where ten yoke of oxen work", or "plough, it shall make one flagon"; and so Kimchi explains them, the place in a vineyard, which ten yoke of oxen plough in one day, shall yield no more wine than one bath. A bath is a measure for liquids; according to Godwin (a), it held four gallons and a half; a small quantity indeed, to be produced out of ten acres of ground; an acre, according to our English measure, being a quantity of land containing four square roods, or one hundred sixty square poles or perches:
and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah: that is, as much seed as an "homer" would hold, which was a dry measure, and which, according to the above writer, contained five bushels and five gallons, should yield only an ephah, which was the tenth part of an homer, Eze 45:11 so that it would only produce a tenth part of the seed sown.
(a) Moses and Aaron, l. 6. c. 9.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain One bath - Of wine. The bath contained about…
One bath - Of wine. The bath contained about eight gallons. Thus an acre did not yield one gallon. An ephah - Which was of the same quantity with the bath, only the bath was the measure of liquid things, the ephah of dry things; and a ephah was the tenth part of an homer. So instead of the increase which that fruitful land commonly yielded, they should loose nine parts of their seed.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Yea, ten acres - In this verse a reason…
Yea, ten acres - In this verse a reason is rendered why the houses mentioned in the previous verse should become desolate. The reason is, that the land would become sterile and barren, as a divine judgment for their oppression. To what particular time the prophet refers, here, is not apparent. It is certain, however, that the land of Canaan was frequently given up to sterility. The withholding of the early and latter rains, or the neglect of cultivation from any cause, would produce this. At present, this formerly fertile country is among the most unproductive on the face of the earth.
Ten acres - An “acre,” among the Hebrews, was what could be plowed by one yoke of oxen in a day. It did not differ materially from our acre.
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Shall yield one bath - One bath of wine. The “bath” was a Jewish measure for liquids, containing about seven gallons and a half. To say that “ten acres” should produce no more wine than this; was the same as to say that it would produce almost nothing.
And the seed of an homer - An “homer” was a Hebrew measure for grain, containing about eight bushels.
An ephah - The “ephah” contained about three pecks. Of course, to say that an homer of seed should produce about three pecks, would be the same as saying that it would produce almost nothing.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Measure. Hebrew, "both." --- Thirty. Hebrew, "a chomer shall…
Measure. Hebrew, "both." --- Thirty. Hebrew, "a chomer shall yield an epha."
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain acres--literally, "yokes"; as much as one yoke of oxen…
acres--literally, "yokes"; as much as one yoke of oxen could plow in a day.
one--only.
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bath--of wine; seven and a half gallons.
homer . . . ephah--Eight bushels of seed would yield only three pecks of produce (Eze 45:11). The ephah and bath, one-tenth of an homer.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 10. The land shall be smitten with the curse…
10. The land shall be smitten with the curse of barrenness; Jehovah’s remedy for land-grabbing.
ten acres] lit. ten yoke; a yoke of land being
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“As much as two stout oxen
Could plough from morn till night.”
one bath] (of wine),—about 8 gallons.
seed of a homer … ephah] The ephah is a dry measure of the same capacity as the bath; the homer is ten ephahs (Eze_45:11).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (10) Ten acres.—The disproportion was as great as that…
(10) Ten acres.—The disproportion was as great as that which we have seen in recent times in vine countries suffering from the Phylloxera or the oidium, or in the potato failures of Ireland. The bath was equal to seventy-two Roman sextarii (Jos. Ant. viii. 2-9), about seven and a half gallons, and this was to be the whole produce of ten acres, from which an average yield of 500 baths might have been expected. The Hebrew word for “acre” means primarily the ground that could be ploughed in a day by a yoke of oxen.
The seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.—Here also there is an all but total failure. The homer was a dry measure of thirty-two pecks, and the ephah was equal to one-tenth of a homer (Eze_45:11; Exo_16:36). This scanty crop—Ruth’s gleanings for a single day (Rth_2:17)—one-tenth of the seed sown, was to take the place of the “thirtyfold, sixty, and a hundredfold” (Gen_26:12; Mat_13:8) of average or prosperous years.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath.…
Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath. The greed of adding field to field will he punished by the curse of barrenness, which God will send upon the laud. Dr. Kay-calculates that ten acres (Roman) of vineyard ought to yield upon the average five hundred baths (or four thousand gallons) instead of one bath (eight gallons). A homer... an ephah. The "ephah" was the tenth-part of a "homer". (Eze_45:11) Corn lands should return only one-tenth part of the seed sown in them.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 5:10 As with drought (5:5-6), the reduction of crops…
5:10 As with drought (5:5-6), the reduction of crops was at times a divine judgment (see Hag 1:6, 9; 2:16).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.