Wine, which people use to escape feeling the effects of sin, ultimately proves ineffective. Its source, the grapevine, decays (as a result of drought? cf. Revelation 6:5-6), and even the constitutionally lighthearted cannot escape groaning. [source][source][source]
Context Summary
Isaiah 24:1-13 - The Desolation Of A Guilty World
This and the three following chapters form a single prophecy, describing the calamities about to desolate the land, because the inhabitants had transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Primarily it describes the experiences of Palestine under the successive invasions from the Euphrates valley, first of Nineveh and then of Babylon. There is a mysterious connection between the condition of a man's soul and the response of surrounding nature. The very vineyards would sigh in sad accord with the prevailing misery and sin, Isaiah 24:7-9; and in the great city silence would reign in streets decimated by plague and war, Isaiah 24:10-12. Both in the Old and the New Testament the blessings of sufficiency and comfort are the fruits of holy living; whereas, sooner or later, evil overtakes wrong-doing. "Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed," is always true. [source]
Chapter Summary: Isaiah 24
1The doleful judgments of God upon the land 13A remnant shall joyfully praise him 16God in his judgments shall advance his kingdom
What do the individual words in Isaiah 24:7 mean?
Failsthe new winelanguishesthe vinesighAllmerryheartedthe merry-hearted