The Vineyard and the Prison

I have been reading over the American mistreatment, neglect, abuse, and torture of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, and I am disgusted. I don't have time to reflect on a deeper commentary, but I'm not sure what this says about the human condition or about what the culture of war breeds in its warriors.

However, since the Invasion of Iraq is touted by its supporters as an act of liberation in the cause of justice, I am forced to turn (again, and again) to the Song of the Vineyard (Isa 5:1-7).

How does this mesh with our supposed acts of justice?

Read it for yourself.

The Song of the Vineyard

I will sing for my beloved
my love-song about his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
high up on a fertile hill-side.

He trenched it and cleared it of stones
and planted it with red vines;
he built a watch-tower in the middle
and then hewed out a winepress in it.

He looked for it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes.

Now, you who live in Jerusalem,
and you men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.

What more could I have been done for my vineyard
that I did not do in it?

Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes,
did it yield wild grapes?

Now listen while I tell you
what I will do to my vineyard:

I will take away its fences and let it be burnt,
I will break down its walls and let it be trampled underfoot,

and so I will leave it derelict;
it shall be niether pruned nor hoed,

but shall grow thorns and briars
Then I will command the clouds
to send no more rain upon it.

The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is Israel,
and the men of Judah are the plant he cherished.

He looked for justice and found it denied,
for righteousness but heard cries of distress.

(Isiah 5:1-7, NEB)

He looked for justice in Abu Ghraib and found it denied,
for righteousness but heard cries of distress.