057. "A Cottage in a Vineyard, a Lodge in a Garden of Cucumbers
"A Cottage in a Vineyard, a Lodge in a Garden of
Cucumbers"
We can understand a cottage in a garden in our country. To us appears a small but substantial house, but what it really happens to mean is a booth lightly constructed of brushwood, in which the farmer and his family live during harvest time, where they are laboring. The Feast of Booths or Tabernacles was celebrated, and is now, in just such structures or cottages. The farmer may live a distance from his farm or garden, so in the time of harvest he builds a light structure in which they all live to protect the harvest from thieves.
"A lodge in a garden" was something similar, but flimsier in construction. It refers to the rude shelter which the laborer builds for himself in a field where he is hired.
Harvest is past and the people return to their homes, but these structures, cottage and lodge, are never removed, but left to fall apart. The heavy rains of winter beat upon them, the fierce winds tear them in pieces, and these tattered parts present a sorry spectacle of ruin, which is a good picture of a people whom God, grieved by their rejection of His love, has left to themselves. "The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers."