Planting the Israelites Like Vineyards
When God tells Nathan that the Israelites will plant
His people, He prophetically implies that they
will be uprooted, though of course He hopes they shan’t,
but grieves this will occur one future day.
When God tells Amos that the Israelites will plant
their vineyards, to this prophesy he adds that He
will plant them, too, like vines; this doesn’t mean they can’t
remain in Israel for an eternity.
God plants His people so they thrive like twining vines
on desert land to which they are well suited,
maturing on the terroir like good vintage wines
until they, like the Temple, are uprooted,
but after barren years once more replanted
on dry-as-desert land, they’ll yet again produce
a wine that, once matured enough to be decanted,
rejoices hearts of all the Jews who drink this juice.
Isabel Kershner writes in the September 7 2022 New York Times about vineyards in the Negev (“Desert Winemaking ‘Sounds Absurd,’ but Israeli Vineyards in Negev Show the Way”):
Among the ruins of Avdat, an ancient city in the Negev Highlands that existed from the Nabatean period in the fourth century B.C. until its demise soon after the Muslim conquest in the seventh century A.D., archaeologists have unearthed wine presses and cisterns from up to 1,600 years ago — evidence of a thriving Byzantine-era wine production and export industry.
The ancients of the area grew vines on terraced hillsides and may have produced up to one million liters of wine per year, according to Lior Schwimer, an Israeli archaeologist. The remnants of the distinctive jars used to store the wine have been found as far afield as France and Britain.