Isaiah 5:6

There shall come up briers and thorns. — The picture of desolation is still part of a parable. The “briers and thorns” (both the words are peculiar to Isaiah) are the base and unworthy who take the place of the true leaders of the people (Judges 9:7). The absence of the pruning and the digging answers to the withdrawal of the means of moral and spiritual culture (John 15:2; Luke 13:8). The command given to the clouds (comp. 2 Samuel 1:21, for the outward form of the thought) implies the cessation of all gracious spiritual influences.