When we purchased our home we also inherited an established grapevine As gardening novices my family invested considerable time learning how to prune water and care for it When our first harvest came I popped a grape from the vine into my mouth mdash only to be disappointed with an unpleasant sour taste nbsp The frustration I felt about painstakingly tending a grapevine only to have a bitter harvest echoes the tone of Isaiah There we read an allegory of God rsquo s relationship to the nation of Israel God pictured as a farmer had cleared the hillside of debris [... more]