In Jacob 5 we will read the allegory of the olive tree. While that allegory emphasizes the olive tree, Jacob 5:3 declares: “For behold, thus saith the Lord, I will liken thee, O house of Israel, like unto a tame olive tree, which a man took and nourished in his vineyard; and it grew, and waxed old, and began to decay.”
Jacob’s olive tree is in a vineyard, and in this chapter of Isaiah (corresponding to Isaiah 5), Israel is compared to a vineyard. Where Jacob’s tree has wild branches, Isaiah’s vineyard has wild grapes.
The message of the two allegories is clearly parallel, extending to the statement of the Lord of the vineyard that “what could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done it?” This language appears as a direct reference, if not a quotation, in Jacob 5:47: “But what could I have done more in my vineyard?” Note that Jacob refers to the vineyard, not to the olive tree. We are seeing an intentional paralleling of the two accounts, and Jacob will use Isaiah as an unstated but—to a discerning audience—unmistakable reference to prophetic unity of message with Zenos’s allegory.