11, 12. (a) How does Isaiah illustrate the conditions that will result from Jehovah’s judgment? (b) What grim prospects does Isaiah describe?

¹¹ Appropriately, then, Isaiah uses vineyards and their products to illustrate the conditions resulting from Jehovah’s withdrawing his blessing from the land: “The new wine has gone to mourning, the vine has withered, all those glad at heart have gone to sighing. The exultation of the tambourines has ceased, the noise of the highly elated ones has discontinued, the exultation of the harp has ceased. It is with no song that they drink wine; the intoxicating liquor becomes bitter to those drinking it. The deserted town has been broken down; every house has been shut up from entering. There is an outcry in the streets for want of wine. All rejoicing has passed away; the exultation of the land has departed. In the city an astonishing condition has been left behind; the gate has been crushed to a mere rubble heap.”​—Isaiah 24:7-12.

¹² The tambourine and the harp are pleasant instruments used to praise Jehovah and express joy. (2 Chronicles 29:25; Psalm 81:2) Their music will not be heard at this time of divine punishment. There will be no joyful grape harvests. There will be no happy sounds in the desolated ruins of Jerusalem, with its gate “crushed to a mere rubble heap” and its houses “shut up,” so that no one can enter. What grim prospects for inhabitants of a land that by nature has been so fertile!

[Picture on page 262]

Music and rejoicing will no longer be heard in the land