Isaiah 1:8. The daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.
As the fields were not always provided with fences it became necessary to have persons to watch them, especially while the fruit was ripening, in order to keep of all depredators, whether man, beast, or bird. These “keepers of a field” are referred to in Jeremiah 4:17, and they are still to be seen in the East. During the ripening season they watch day and night and through all sorts of weather, and hence need some protection from excessive heat, dew, or storm. This protection is found in temporary huts, which are made of closely twined branches and leaves, or of pieces or matting thrown over a rude framework of poles. There is an allusion to such a frail structure in Job 27:18 and also in Isaiah 24:20. When the crop is gathered and the field forsaken the deserted lodge soon leans and falls, and the whole scene is one of utter loneliness. It was such a picture of desolation to which the prophet compares “the daughter of Zion.”