Bible Strands
Isaiah 5:10
For ten acres of vineyard will yield but a bath of wine, and a homer of seed only an ephah of grain.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Isaiah delivers this declaration on behalf of the Lord of Hosts to the people of Judah, immediately after announcing the coming desolation of their homes. The verse functions as a concrete illustration of the curse that will follow their rebellion.
The words — The text highlights עֲשֶׂ֙רֶת֙ (ʿaṣeret), meaning “ten,” and בַּ֣ת (bat), translated as “a bath,” a standard liquid measure for wine. These terms establish a precise mathematical ratio of agricultural failure.
The thread — This pattern of abundant planting yielding meager harvests recurs in Leviticus 26:26 and Haggai 1:6, where promised blessings are replaced by severe scarcity. The same motif appears in Haggai 2:16, which notes a twenty-ephah expectation collapsing into a ten-ephah harvest.
Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that covenant disobedience directly produces economic and agricultural collapse. Readers must confront the reality that divine judgment operates through tangible, measurable loss rather than abstract punishment.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.
Cross-references
- Leviticus 26:26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and dole out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.
- Haggai 1:6 You have planted much but harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on clothes but never get warm. You earn wages to put into a bag pierced through.”
- Haggai 2:16 from that time, when one came expecting a heap of twenty ephahs of grain, there were but ten. When one came to the winepress to draw out fifty baths, there were but twenty.
- Haggai 1:9 You expected much, but behold, it amounted to little. And what you brought home, I blew away. Why? declares the LORD of Hosts. Because My house still lies in ruins, while each of you is busy with his own house.
- Leviticus 27:16 If a man consecrates to the LORD a parcel of his land, then your valuation shall be proportional to the seed required for it—fifty shekels of silver for every homer of barley seed.
- Ezekiel 45:10 You must use honest scales, a just ephah, and a just bath.
- Joel 1:17 The seeds lie shriveled beneath the clods; the storehouses are in ruins; the granaries are broken down, for the grain has withered away.