Yet I had planted you a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then are you turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine to me?
Yet I had planted you a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then are you turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine to me?
Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine unto me?
But when you were planted by me, you were a noble vine, in every way a true seed: how then have you been changed into the branching plant of a strange vine?
Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine to me?
Yet I had planted you a noble vine, wholly a right seed. How then have you turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine to me?
Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?
I had planted thee a noble vine - I gave thee the fullest instruction, the purest ordinances, the highest privileges; and reason would that I should expect thee to live suitably to such advantages; but instead of this thou art become degenerate; the tree is deteriorated, and the fruit is bad. Instead of being true worshippers, and of a holy life and conversation, ye are become idolaters of the most corrupt and profligate kind. See Isaiah 5:1, etc., where the same image is used.
A noble vine - Properly, a Sorek vine (see Isaiah 5:2), which produced a red wine Proverbs 23:31, and had a lasting reputation Genesis 49:11.
A right seed - literally, "a seed of truth," i. e., true, genuine seed, not mixed with weeds, nor with seed of an inferior quality. Compare Matthew 13:24.
How then art thou turned - Or, "How then" hast thou changed thyself "unto me" (i. e., to my hurt or vexation) "into the degenerate" branches "of a strange vine?" The stock, which was God's planting, was genuine, and of the noblest sort: the wonder was how such a stock could produce shoots of a totally different kind Deuteronomy 32:32.
2:21 A right seed - A right seed of true believers.