“Hear another parable. There was a man who was a master of a household, who planted a vineyard, set a hedge about it, dug a wine press in it, built a tower, leased it out to farmers, and went into another country.
Parallel Translations
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“Hear another parable. There was a man who was a master of a household, who planted a vineyard, set a hedge about it, dug a wine press in it, built a tower, leased it out to farmers, and went into another country.
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Herken another similitude. Ther was a certayne housholder which planted a vineyarde and hedged it roude about and made a wynpresse in it and bilt a tower and let it out to husbandmen and wet in to a straunge countre.
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Heare another parable, There was a certaine housholder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and made a winepresse therein, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a strange countrey.
Cross-references (22)
Passages linked to Matthew 21:33 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Isaiah 5:1-4 Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in the middle of it, and also cut out a wine press in it. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. “Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes?
- Mark 12:1-12 He began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it, dug a pit for the wine press, built a tower, rented it out to a farmer, and went into another country. When it was time, he sent a servant to the farmer to get from the farmer his share of the fruit of the vineyard. They took him, beat him, and sent him away empty. Again, he sent another servant to them; and they threw stones at him, wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully treated. Again he sent another; and they killed him; and many others, beating some, and killing some. Therefore still having one, his beloved son, he sent him last to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those farmers said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ They took him, killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. What therefore will the lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the farmers, and will give the vineyard to others. Haven’t you even read this Scripture: ‘The stone which the builders rejected was made the head of the corner. This was from the Lord. It is marvelous in our eyes’?” They tried to seize him, but they feared the multitude; for they perceived that he spoke the parable against them. They left him, and went away.
- Luke 20:9-19 He began to tell the people this parable. “A man planted a vineyard, and rented it out to some farmers, and went into another country for a long time. At the proper season, he sent a servant to the farmers to collect his share of the fruit of the vineyard. But the farmers beat him, and sent him away empty. He sent yet another servant, and they also beat him, and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty. He sent yet a third, and they also wounded him, and threw him out. The lord of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. It may be that seeing him, they will respect him.’ “But when the farmers saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.’ They threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What therefore will the lord of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy these farmers, and will give the vineyard to others.” When they heard that, they said, “May that never be!” But he looked at them and said, “Then what is this that is written, ‘The stone which the builders rejected was made the chief cornerstone?’ Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but it will crush whomever it falls on to dust.” The chief priests and the scribes sought to lay hands on him that very hour, but they feared the people—for they knew he had spoken this parable against them.
- Jeremiah 2:21 Yet I had planted you a noble vine, a pure and faithful seed. How then have you turned into the degenerate branches of a foreign vine to me?
- Song of Solomon 8:11-12 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon. He leased out the vineyard to keepers. Each was to bring a thousand shekels of silver for its fruit. My own vineyard is before me. The thousand are for you, Solomon, two hundred for those who tend its fruit.
- John 15:1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer.
- Psalms 80:8-16 You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations, and planted it. You cleared the ground for it. It took deep root, and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shadow. Its boughs were like God’s cedars. It sent out its branches to the sea, its shoots to the River. Why have you broken down its walls, so that all those who pass by the way pluck it? The boar out of the wood ravages it. The wild animals of the field feed on it. Turn again, we beg you, God of Armies. Look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vine, the stock which your right hand planted, the branch that you made strong for yourself. It’s burned with fire. It’s cut down. They perish at your rebuke.
- Hosea 4:1 Hear Yahweh’s word, you children of Israel; for Yahweh has a charge against the inhabitants of the land: “Indeed there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land.
- Malachi 2:4-9 You will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that my covenant may be with Levi,” says Yahweh of Armies. “My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him that he might be reverent toward me; and he was reverent toward me, and stood in awe of my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many away from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of Yahweh of Armies. But you have turned away from the path. You have caused many to stumble in the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi,” says Yahweh of Armies. “Therefore I have also made you contemptible and wicked before all the people, according to the way you have not kept my ways, but have had respect for persons in the law.
- Luke 19:12 He said therefore, “A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return.
- Deuteronomy 1:15-17 So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and respected men, and made them heads over you, captains of thousands, captains of hundreds, captains of fifties, captains of tens, and officers, according to your tribes. I commanded your judges at that time, saying, “Hear cases between your brothers and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the foreigner who is living with him. You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.”
- Deuteronomy 16:18 You shall make judges and officers in all your gates, which Yahweh your God gives you, according to your tribes; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.
- Deuteronomy 17:9-12 You shall come to the priests who are Levites and to the judge who shall be in those days. You shall inquire, and they shall give you the verdict. You shall do according to the decisions of the verdict which they shall give you from that place which Yahweh chooses. You shall observe to do according to all that they shall teach you. According to the decisions of the law which they shall teach you, and according to the judgment which they shall tell you, you shall do. You shall not turn away from the sentence which they announce to you, to the right hand, nor to the left. The man who does presumptuously in not listening to the priest who stands to minister there before Yahweh your God, or to the judge, even that man shall die. You shall put away the evil from Israel.
- Deuteronomy 33:8-10 About Levi he said, “Your Thummim and your Urim are with your godly one, whom you proved at Massah, with whom you contended at the waters of Meribah. He said of his father, and of his mother, ‘I have not seen him.’ He didn’t acknowledge his brothers, nor did he know his own children; for they have observed your word, and keep your covenant. They shall teach Jacob your ordinances, and Israel your law. They shall put incense before you, and whole burnt offering on your altar.
- 1 Kings 22:19 Micaiah said, “Therefore hear Yahweh’s word. I saw Yahweh sitting on his throne, and all the army of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left.
- Isaiah 1:10 Hear Yahweh’s word, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah!
- Jeremiah 19:3 Say, ‘Hear Yahweh’s word, kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem: Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, “Behold, I will bring evil on this place, which whoever hears, his ears will tingle.
- Matthew 13:18 “Hear, then, the parable of the farmer.
- Matthew 21:28 But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first, and said, ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard.’
- Matthew 23:2 saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees sat on Moses’ seat.
- Matthew 25:14-15 “For it is like a man, going into another country, who called his own servants, and entrusted his goods to them. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to each according to his own ability. Then he went on his journey.
- Mark 13:34 “It is like a man, traveling to another country, having left his house, and given authority to his servants, and to each one his work, and also commanded the doorkeeper to keep watch.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (25 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Those men oftentimes are the cruelest enemies of the…
Those men oftentimes are the cruelest enemies of the Church, to whose fidelity it is committed: But the vocation of God, is neither tied to time, place, nor person.
Made the place strong: For a tower is the strongest place of a wall.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 33 Hear another parable: There was a certain householder,…
33 Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:
Ver. 33. Planted a vineyard, and hedged it] Of all possessions, saith Cato, Nulla maiorem operam requirit, none requires more pains than that of a vineyard. Grain comes up and grows alone, Mar 4:28. Iniussa virescunt gramina, saith the poet; but vines must be dressed, supported, pruned, sheltered every day almost, Joh 15:2. The Church is God’s continual care, αιρει, καλθαιρει, Amputat, putat, &c., Isa 27:3, and he looks for an answerable return of fruits, Act 12:20. Regnum Anglia, regnum Dei, said Polydore Virgil long since. The kingdom of England is the kingdom of God. It may well be said so, since the Reformation especially; neither is there anything more threateneth us than our hateful unfruitfulness. The cypress tree, the more it is watered, the less fruitful; so many of us, the more taught, the more untoward.
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And went into a far country] As the impious husbandmen imagined, who put far away the evil day. But God shall shoot at such "with an arrow, suddenly shall they be wounded," Psa 64:7; as a bird is stricken with the bolt, while he gazeth at the bow. Morae dispendium faeneris duplo pensatur, God pays men at length for the new and the old. (Jerome.)
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Mark hath this parable, Mar 12:1-9. Luke hath it,…
Mark hath this parable, Mar 12:1-9. Luke hath it, Luk 20:9-16. Who is here intended under the notion of a householder, or a man? We are told by the prophet Isaiah, Isa 5:1,2, it is the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: the house of Israel and the men of Judah are his vineyard, his pleasant plant, Isa 5:7 he hedged this people by his providence. God often compares his church to a vineyard, Deu 32:32; Psa 80:8; Jer 2:21. The other expressions, of making in it a winepress, or a winefat, signify no more than that God had provided for the Jews all things necessary for use or ornament. His letting of it out to husbandmen, and going into a far country, signifies that, being himself, as to his glorious residence, in heaven, he had entrusted the church of the Jews with a high priest, and other priests and Levites.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain In this parable, God compares the Jewish church to…
In this parable, God compares the Jewish church to a vineyard; himself to an house holder: his planting, pruning and fencing his vineyard, denotes his care to furnish his church with all needful helps and means to make it spiritually fruitful. His letting it out to husbandmen, signifies his commitiing the care of his church to the priests and levites, the public pastors and governors of the church.
His servants are the prophets and apostles, whom he sent from time to time to admonish them to bring forth fruit answerable to the cost which God had expended on them. His son is Jesus Christ, whom the rulers of the Jewish chuch slew and murdered. The scope of the parable is to discover to the Jews, particularly to the Pharisees, their obstinate impenitency under all means, their bloody cruelty to the prophets of God, their tremendous guilt in crucifying the Son of God; for all which, God would unchurch them finally, and ruin their nation, and set up a church among the Gentiles, that should bring forth better fruit than the Jewish church ever did.
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From the whole, Note, 1. That the church is God’s vineyard, exceeding dear and precious to the planter and the owner of it.
2. As dear as God’s vineyard is unto him, in case of barrenness and unfruitfulness, it is in great danger of being destroyed and laid waste by him.
3. That the only way and course to engage God’s care over his vineyard, and to prevent his giving it to other husbandmen, is to give him the fruits of it. It is but a vineyard that God lets out, it is no ingeritance; no people ever had so many promises of God’s favour as the Jews had, nor ever enjoyed so many privileges, whilst they stood in his favour, as they did; yet though they were the first, and the natural branches they are broken off, and we Gentiles stand by faith; let us not be highminded but fear, Rom 11:20.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Hear another parable,.... Which, though Luke says was spoken…
Hear another parable,.... Which, though Luke says was spoken to the people, who, were gathered round about him, yet was directed to, and against the chief priests; who continued with him till it was delivered, and the application of it made; when they perceived it was spoken of them. The design of it is, to set forth the many favours and privileges bestowed on the Jewish nation; their unfruitfulness, and the ingratitude of the principal men among them; and their barbarous usage of the servants of the Lord, and particularly of the Son of God himself: the consequence of which would be, the removal of the Gospel from them, and the miserable destruction of them. So that this parable is partly a narrative, of some things past, and partly a prophecy of some things to come:
there was a certain householder: by whom the great God of heaven and earth is meant; who may be so called, either with respect to the whole world, which is an house of his building, and the inhabitants of it are his family, who live, are nourished, and supplied by him; or to the church, the house of the living God, the family in heaven and in earth, called the household of God, and of faith; or to the people of Israel, often called the house of Israel, the family, above all the families of the earth, God took notice of, highly favoured, and dwelt among,
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Which planted a vineyard: of the form of a vineyard, the manner of planting it, and the size of it, the Jews say many things in their Misna (f),
"He that plants a row of five vines, the school of Shammai say, "it is a vineyard"; but the school of Hillell say, it is not a vineyard, unless there are two rows--he that plants two vines over against two, and one at the tail or end, , "lo! this is a vineyard"; (it was a little vineyard;) but if two over against two, and one between the two, or two over against two, and one in the midst, it is no vineyard, unless there are two over against two, and one at the tail or end.
Again (g),
"a vineyard that is planted with less than four cubits (between every row), R. Simeon says, is no vineyard; but the wise men say it is a vineyard.
And the decision is according to them. Now by this vineyard is meant, the house of Israel and the men of Judah, the nation of the Jews, as in Isa 5:7 from whence our Lord seems to have taken many of the ideas expressed in this parable; who were a people separated from the rest of the world, and set with valuable plants, from whom fruit might reasonably be expected: the planting of them designs the removing them out of Egypt, the driving out the natives before them, and settling them in the land of Canaan, where they were planted with choice vines, such as Joshua, Caleb, &c. and where they soon became a flourishing people, though for their iniquities, often exposed to beasts of prey, the neighbouring nations, that were suffered at times to break in upon them. The Jews often speak (h) of the house of Israel, as the vineyard of the Lord of hosts, and even call their schools and universities vineyards: hence we read (i) of
, the vineyard in Jabneh, where the scholars were placed in rows, as in a vineyard,
And hedged it round about; as it was usual to set a hedge, or make a wall round a vineyard, which according to the Jewish writers, was to be ten hands high, and four broad; for they ask (k),
"rdg hz ya, "what is a hedge?" That which is ten hands, high.
And elsewhere (l),
"An hedge that encompasses a vineyard, which is less than ten hands high, or which is ten hands high, but not four hands broad, it has no circuit (or void place between that and the vines)--an hedge which is ten hands high, and so a ditch which is ten hands deep, and four broad, lo! this is lawful to plant a vineyard on one side of it, and herbs on the other; even a fence of reeds, if there is between the reeds the space of three hands, lo! this divides between the vineyard and the herbs, as an hedge.
By this "hedge" is designed, either the law, not the oral law, or the traditions of the elders, which the Jews (m) call , "an hedge for the law", which was none of God's setting, but their own; but either the ceremonial law, which distinguished them from other people, was a middle wall of partition between them, and the nations of the world, and kept them from coming among them, and joining together; or the moral law, which taught them their duty to God and man, and was the means of keeping them within due bounds; or else the protection of them by the power of God, which was an hedge about them, is here intended; and which was very remarkable at the time of their three feasts of passover, pentecost, and tabernacles; when all their males went up to Jerusalem, and the whole country was, left an easy prey to the nations about them; but God preserved them, and, according to his promise, suffered not their neighbours to have any inclination or desire after their land,
And digged a winepress in it; which is not "the ditch", that went through a, vineyard; for this cannot be said of a winepress, and is Dr. Lightfoot's mistake (n); but "the winefat", in which they squeezed the grapes and made the wine, and this used to be in the vineyard: the rule about it is this,
"Mrkbv tgh, the winepress that is ten hands deep and four broad, R. Eliezer says, they may set in it; but the wise men do forbid it (o).
By this may be meant, the altar where the drink offerings of wine were poured forth; and so the Targumist (p) renders it by "my altar I have given them, to atone for their sins": though one of their commentators (q), by it, understands the prophets, who taught Israel the law, that their works might be good before God and men; they urged and pressed them to the performance of them, as grapes are squeezed in the winepress:
and built a tower; the same the Jews call "the watch house"; which was an high place, in which the watchman stood to keep (r) the vineyard, and which was built in the vineyard; of this they say,
"Mrkbv hrmwv, the "watch house which is in the vineyard", that is ten hands high and four broad, they set in it (s).
By this is meant, either the city or Jerusalem, which stood in the midst, and on the highest part of the land of Israel; or the temple, which stood on the highest part of Jerusalem, where the priests and Levites kept their watch every night; and so the Targumist (t) interprets it, by "my sanctuary I built among them": that is, the temple:
and let it out to husbandmen; of which there were different sorts, as there were different methods of hiring and letting out fields and vineyards among the Jews: one sort was called and such was he, who hired of his neighbour a field to sow in it, or a vineyard to eat of the fruit of it, for a certain sum of money yearly; see Sol 8:11 another sort was called and this was one that hired a field, or a vineyard, and agreed to give the proprietor of it yearly, so many measures of the fruit thereof, whether it yielded more or less; and there was a third sort, called or and such was he, who agreed to give the owner half, or a third, or a fourth part of the increase of the field, or vineyard (u). Now it is not of the former, but of the latter sort of letting out and farming, that this is to be understood; not of letting it out for money, but for fruit, as appears from Mat 21:34 and by the husbandmen are meant, the rulers of the Jews, civil and ecclesiastical, especially the latter; the priests, Levites, and Scribes, who were intrusted with the care of the Jewish people, to guide and instruct them, and cultivate the knowledge of divine things among them, that they might bring forth fruits of righteousness; and to offer their gifts and sacrifices, and the like, which are meant by letting out the vineyard to them: and went into afar country; which must be interpreted consistent with the omnipresence of God, who is every where, and cannot be said properly to move from place to place; but fills heaven and earth with his presence, and cannot be contained in either: but this phrase seems to design his taking up his residence in the thick darkness, in the tabernacle and temple, when the civil and ecclesiastical state of the Jews was settled, and God did not appear to them in that visible manner he had done before; but having fixed their order of government, worship, and duty, left them to themselves and their rulers; for many years; in which he expressed much longsuffering and patience towards them,
(f) Misna Kilaim, c. 4. sect. 5, 6. Maimon. Hilch. Kilaim, c. 7. sect. 7. (g) Ib. c. 5. sect. 2. Maimon ib. sect. 1. (h) Tzeror Hammor, fol. 148. 2. Zohar in Exod. fol. 2. 1. (i) T. Hieros. Beracot, fol. 7. 4. T. Bab. Yebamot, fol. 42. 2. (k) Misn. Kilaim, c. 4. sect. 3. (l) Maimon. Hilch. Kilaim, c. 7. sect. 14, 15. (m) Pirke Abot. c. sect, 1. (n) Horae in Mark xii. 1. (o) Misn. Kilaim, c. 5. sect. 3. (p) Targum Jon. in Isa. v. 2. Vid. T. Hicros. Succa, fol. 54. 4. (q) R. David Kimchi in loc. (r) Maimon. in Misn. Kilaim, c. 5. sect. 3. Aben Ezra in Isa. v. 2. (s) Misn. Kilaim, c. 5. sect. 3. Maimon. Hilch. Kilaim, c. 7. sect. 22. (t) Targum Jon. in Isa. v. 2. (u) T. Hieros. Demai, fol. 25. 1. Gloss in T. Bab. Moed. Katon, fol. 11. 2. & in Bava Metzia, fol. 103. 1. in Avoda Zara, fol. 21. 2. Maimon. Hilch. Shecirut, c. 8. sect. 1, 2. Bartenora in Misn. Pea, c. 5. sect. 5. & in Demai, c. 6, sect. 1.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain A certain householder planted a vineyard - God planted…
A certain householder planted a vineyard - God planted the Church in Canaan; and hedged it round about - First with the law, then with his peculiar providence: and digged a wine press - Perhaps it may mean Jerusalem: and built a tower - The temple: and went into a far country - That is, left the keepers of his vineyard, in some measure, to behave as they should see good. Mark xii, 1; Luke xx, 9.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 33. There was a certain householder] Let us…
Verse 33. There was a certain householder] Let us endeavour to find out a general and practical meaning for this parable. A householder - the Supreme Being. The family - the Jewish nation. The vineyard - the city of Jerusalem. The fence - the Divine protection. The wine-press - the law and sacrificial rites. The tower - the temple, in which the Divine presence was manifested. The husbandmen - the priests and doctors of the law. Went from home - entrusted the cultivation of the vineyard to the priests, c., with the utmost confidence as a man would do who had the most trusty servants, and was obliged to absent himself from home for a certain time. Our Lord takes this parable from Isa 5:1, c. but whether our blessed Redeemer quote from the law, the prophets, or the rabbins, he reserves the liberty to himself to beautify the whole, and render it more pertinent.
Some apply this parable also to Christianity, thus: - The master or father - our blessed Lord. The family - professing Christians in general. The vineyard - the true Church, or assembly of the faithful. The hedge - the true faith, which keeps the sacred assembly enclosed and defended from the errors of heathenism and false Christianity. The wine-press-the atonement made by the sacrifice of Christ, typified by the sacrifices under the law. The tower-the promises of the Divine presence and protection. The husbandmen - the apostles and all their successors in the ministry. The going from home-the ascension to heaven. But this parable cannot go on all fours in the Christian cause, as any one may see. In the case of the husbandmen, especially it is applicable; unless we suppose our Lord intended such as those inquisitorial Bonners, who always persecuted the true ministers of Christ, and consequently Christ himself in his members; and to these may be added the whole train of St. Bartholomew EJECTORS, and all the fire and faggot men of a certain Church, who think they do God service by murdering his saints. But let the persecuted take courage: Jesus Christ will come back shortly; and then he will miserably destroy those wicked men: indeed, he has done so already to several, and let out his vineyard to more faithful husbandmen.
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Digged a wine-press] ωρυξε ληνον. St. Mark has υποληνιον, the pit under the press, into which the liquor ran, when squeezed out of the fruit by the press.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Mat 21:33. Hear another parable — In which you…
Mat 21:33. Hear another parable — In which you are very nearly concerned, as your own consciences must quickly tell you. In the preceding parable of the two sons, our Lord convicted the Pharisees, the chief priests, and elders, of absolute disobedience to God, their heavenly Father, notwithstanding all their fair speeches and smooth promises: here he rises upon them, and shows them, as in a glass, the high privileges they enjoyed; and their exceeding great ingratitude, that, if possible, he might awaken their souls, and disarm them of the horrid purpose they had already conceived of murdering him, the true heir of the vineyard whereof they were such unfaithful husbandmen. And indeed they must have proceeded to great lengths in iniquity, and have hardened their hearts above measure, who could go on in their black design of destroying Jesus, after he had thus plainly shown them his knowledge of their design, and laid open their devices, and the dreadful consequences thereof to themselves, to the justice of which they had subscribed with their own lips. There was a certain householder — Or, master of a family, representing God, the proprietor of all; which planted a vineyard — The Jewish Church planted in Canaan, represented also as a vineyard, Isa 5:1-4, in a parable on which this of our Lord seems to be founded; see the notes there. There could not be a more natural emblem of the church, or one more familiar and obvious for the prophets and our Lord to use in Judea, than that of a vineyard; as that country abounded with vineyards, and so gave the people constant occasion, by having them always before their eyes, to recollect and apply the spiritual instructions drawn from them. And the comparison was not only obvious, but natural: and the particulars, whereof our Lord and the prophets speak, as they are essential to a vineyard, so do they beautifully correspond to the essential blessings vouchsafed of God to the Jewish Church. 1st, It is necessary that a vineyard should be planted, for vines are not anywhere the natural produce of the soil. Our Lord, therefore, mentions this particular first. 2d, Vines being tender plants, and vineyards subject to the incursions of beasts and enemies, it is necessary they should be enclosed. Therefore it is here observed that this vineyard was hedged round about; namely, by the divine protection, which was as a wall of fire round the Jewish Church and people, whereby he enclosed and defended them from all their enemies. But a hedge is not only for defence, but for the distinction and separation of property; and so God distinguished and separated his church by the fence of circumcision, and the ceremonial law, which were what St. Paul calls the partition wall, which was broken down and taken away in Christ, who yet has appointed a gospel order and discipline to be the hedge round about his church. 3d, A vineyard, being thus planted and fenced, must be provided with a place for the cultivator’s reception and dwelling; and for the gathering in and receiving of the fruit. Accordingly this householder built a tower for the former purpose, and prepared a wine-press for the latter. So God provided for his ancient church a tabernacle first, and then a temple, wherein the cultivators of his vineyard might dwell and watch continually, (for the priests are the Lord’s watchmen,) where also he himself promised to dwell, and give them the tokens of his presence among them, and pleasure in them: and in this temple he set up his holy altar, which, as the wine-press flowed with the blood of the grape, was to flow continually with the blood of the sacrifices, the fruits of their obedience, the testimonies of their faith, and then truly acceptable when offered up in faith of the great Sacrifice, whose blood all the blood shed in sacrifices prefigured, and who was himself trodden in the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. The next clause, And let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country, signifies no more than that God, having established and provided his vineyard with all things necessary to render it fruitful to his praise, committed the care and cultivation of it to the priests and elders, the ecclesiastical and civil rulers, by whose ministry the people were to be instructed and governed, without expecting such extraordinary marks of God’s constant presence and immediate direction as appeared at his forming them into a church.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The parable of the vineyard - This is also…
The parable of the vineyard - This is also recorded in Mar 12:1-12; Luk 20:9-19.
Mat 21:33
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Hear another parable - See the notes at Mat 13:3.
A certain householder - See the notes at Mat 20:1.
Planted a vineyard - A place for the cultivation of grapes. It is often used to represent the church of God. as a place cultivated and valuable. Judea was favorable to vines, and the figure is frequently used, therefore, in the sacred writers. See Mat 20:1. It is used here to represent the “Jewish people” - the people chosen of the Lord, cultivated with care, and signally favored; or perhaps more definitely, “the city of Jerusalem.”
Hedged it round about - This means he enclosed it, either with a fence of wood or stone, or more probably with “thorns,” thick set and growing - a common way of enclosing fields in Judea, as it is in England,
And digged a wine-press in it - Mark says, “digged a place for the wine-fat.” This should have been so rendered in Matthew. The original word does not mean the “press” in which the grapes were trodden, but the “vat or large cistern” into which the wine ran. This was commonly made by digging into the side of a hill. The “wine-press” was made of two receptacles. The upper one, in Persia at present, is about 8 feet square and 4 feet high. In this the grapes are thrown and “trodden” by men, and the juice runs into the large receptacle or cistern below. See the notes at Isa 63:2-3.
And built a tower - See also the notes at Isa 5:2. In Eastern countries at present, these towers are often 80 feet high and 30 feet square. They were for the keepers, who defended the vineyards from thieves and animals, especially from foxes, Son 1:6; Son 2:15. Professor Hackett (Illustrations of Scripture, pp. 171, 172) says of such towers:
They caught my attention first as I was approaching Bethlehem from the southeast. They appeared in almost every field within sight from that direction. They were circular in shape, 15 or 20 feet high, and, being built of stones, looked, at a distance, like a little forest of obelisks. I was perplexed for some time to decide what they were; my traveling companions were equally at fault. Suddenly, in a lucky moment, the words crossed my mind, ‘A certain man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country,’ Mar 12:1. This recollection cleared up the mystery. There, before my eyes, stood the towers of which I had so often read and thought; such as stood there when David led forth his flocks to the neighboring pastures; such as furnished to the sacred writers and the Saviour himself so many illustrations for enforcing what they taught.
These towers are said to be sometimes square in form as well as round, and as high as 40 or 50 feet. Those which I examined had a small door near the ground, and a level space on the top, where a man could sit and command a view of the plantation. I afterward saw a great many of these structures near Hebron, where the vine still flourishes in its ancient home; for there, probably, was Eshcol, whence the Hebrew spies returned to Joshua with the clusters of grapes which they had gathered as evidence of the fertility of the land. Some of the towers here are so built as to serve as houses: and during the vintage, it is said that the inhabitants of Hebron take up their abode in them in such numbers as to leave the town almost deserted.
And let it out ... - This was not an uncommon thing. Vineyards were often planted to be let out for profit.
Into a far country - This means, in the original, only that he departed from them. It does not mean that he went out of the “land.” Luke adds, “for a long time.” That is, as appears, until the time of the fruit; perhaps for a year. This vineyard denotes, doubtless, the Jewish people, or Jerusalem. But these circumstances are not to be particularly explained. They serve to keep up the story. They denote in general that God had taken proper care of his vineyard - that is, of his people; but beyond that we cannot affirm that these circumstances of building the tower, etc., mean any particular thing, for he has not told us that they do, and where he has not explained them we have no right to attempt it.
Mat 21:34
And when the time of the fruit drew near ... - The time of gathering the fruit.
The vineyard was let out, probably, for a part of the fruit, and the owner sent to receive the part that was his.
Sent his servants - These, doubtless, represent the prophets sent to the Jewish people.
Mat 21:35
And beat one - The word translated here as “beat” properly means to flay or to take off the skin; hence to beat or to whip so that the skin in many places is taken off.
And killed another - Isaiah is said to have been put to death by sawing him asunder.
Many other of the prophets were also put to death. See Luk 13:34; Heb 11:37; 1Sa 22:18; 1Ki 19:10.
And stoned another - This was among the Jews a common mode of punishment, Deu 13:10; Deu 17:7; Jos 7:25. Especially was this the case in times of popular tumult, and of sudden indignation among the people, Act 7:58; Act 14:19; Joh 8:59; Joh 10:31. This does not I imply, of necessity, that those who were stoned “died,” but they might be only severely wounded. Mark says, “At him they cast stones and wounded him in the head, and sent him away,” etc.
There is a little variation in the circumstances as mentioned by Matthew, and by Mark and Luke, but the substance is the same. Mark and Luke are more particular, and state the order in which the servants were sent one after another. They all denote the dealing of the people of Israel toward the prophets. All these things had been done to them. See Heb 11:37; Jer 44:4-6; 2Ch 36:16; Neh 9:26; 2Ch 24:20-21.
Mat 21:37
Last of all ... - Mark adds that this was an only son, greatly beloved.
This beautifully and most tenderly exhibits the love of God in sending his only Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to die for people. Long had he sent the prophets, and they had been persecuted and slain. There was no use in sending any more prophets to the people. They had done all that they could do. God had one only-begotten and well-beloved Son, whom he might send, and whom the world “ought” to reverence even as they should the Father, Joh 5:23. God is often represented in the Bible as giving his Son, his only-begotten and wellbeloved Son, for a lost world, Joh 3:16-17; 1Jo 4:9, 1Jo 4:14; Rom 8:3, Rom 8:32; Gal 4:4.
Saying, They will reverence my son - To “reverence” means to honor, to esteem, to show deference to. It is that feeling which we have in the presence of one who is greatly our superior. It means to give to such a person, in our feelings and our deportment, the honor which is due to his rank and character.
Mat 21:38
But when the husbandmen ... - They determined to kill him, and as he was the only son, they supposed they could easily seize on the property It was rented to them; was in their possession; and they resolved to keep it.
This circumstance has probably no reference to any particular conduct of the Jews, but is thrown in to keep up the story and fill up the narrative. An heir is one who succeeds to an estate, commonly a son; an “inheritance” is what an heir receives.
Mat 21:39
And they caught him ... - This refers to the conduct of the Jews in putting the Saviour to death.
So they understood it, Mat 21:45. The Jews put him to death after they had persecuted and slain the prophets. This was done by giving him into the hands of the Romans and seeking his crucifixion, Mat 27:20-25; Act 2:23; Act 7:51-52.
And cast him out of the vineyard - The vineyard in this parable may represent Jerusalem. Jesus was crucified “out” of Jerusalem, on Mount Calvary, Luk 23:23. See the notes at Heb 13:12.
Mat 21:40
When the lord, therefore ... - Jesus then asked them a question about the proper way of dealing with those people.
The design of asking them this question was that they might condemn themselves, and admit the justice of the punishment that was soon to come upon them.
Mat 21:41
They say ... - They answered according as they knew people would act, and would act justly in doing it.
He would take away their privileges and confer them on others. This was the answer which Jesus wished. The case was so clear that they could not answer otherwise. He wished to show them the justice of taking away their national privileges, and punishing them in the destruction of their city and nation. Had he stated this at first they would not have heard him. He, however, by a parable, led them along to “state themselves” the very truth which he wished to communicate, and they had then nothing to answer. They did not, however, yet see the bearing of what they had admitted.
Mat 21:42, Mat 21:43
Jesus saith ... - Jesus, having led them to admit the justice of the great “principle” on which God was about to act toward them proceeds to apply it by a text of Scripture, declaring that this very thing which they admitted to be proper in the case of the “husbandmen” had been predicted respecting themselves.
This passage is found in Psa 118:22-23. It was first applicable to David, but no less to Jesus.
The stone - The figure is taken from building a house. The principal stone for size and beauty is that commonly laid as the cornerstone.
Which the builders rejected - On account of its want of beauty or size it was laid aside, or deemed unfit to be a cornerstone. This represents the Lord Jesus, proposed to the Jews as the foundation or cornerstone on which to build the church, but rejected by them - the builders - on account of his lack of comeliness or beauty; that is, of what they esteemed to be comely or desirable, Isa 53:2-3.
The same is become ... - Though rejected by them, yet God chose him, and made him the foundation of the church. Christ is often compared to a stone, a cornerstone, a tried, that is, a sure, firm foundation - all in allusion to the custom of building, Act 4:11; Rom 9:33; Eph 2:20; 1Pe 2:7.
Lord’s doing - The appointment of Jesus of Nazareth to be the foundation of the church is proved by miracle and prophecy to be the work of God.
Marvellous in our eyes - Wonderful in the sight of his people. That he should select his only Son - that he should stoop so low, be despised, rejected, and put to death - that God should raise him up, and build a church on this foundation, embracing the Gentile as well as the Jew, and spreading through all the world, is a subject of wonder and praise to all the redeemed.
Mat 21:43
The kingdom of God ... - Jesus applies the parable to them - the Jews.
They had been the children of the kingdom, or under the reign of God; having his law and acknowledging him as King. They had been his chosen and special people, but he says that now this privilege would be taken away; that they would cease to be the special people of God, and that the blessing would be given to a nation who would bring forth the fruits thereof, or “be righteous” that is, to the Gentiles, Act 28:28.
Mat 21:44
Whosoever shall fall ... - There is a reference here, doubtless, to Isa 8:14-15. Having made an allusion to himself “as a stone,” or a rock Mat 21:42, he proceeds to state the consequences of coming in contact with it. He that falls upon it shall be broken; he that “runs against it” - a cornerstone, standing out from the other parts of the foundation shall be injured, or broken in his limbs or body. He that is offended with my being the foundation, or that opposes me, shall by the act injure himself, or make himself miserable “by so doing,” even were there nothing further. But there is something further.
On whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder - That is, in the original, will reduce him to dust, so that it may be scattered by the winds. There is an allusion here, doubtless, to the custom of stoning as a punishment among the Jews. A scaffold was erected twice the height of the man to be stoned. Standing on its edge, he was violently struck off by one of the witnesses: if he died by the blow and the fall, nothing further was done; if not, a heavy stone was thrown down on him, which at once killed him. So the Saviour speaks of the “falling” of the stone on his enemies. They who oppose him, who reject him, and who continue impenitent, shall be crushed by him in the day of judgment, and perish forever.
Mat 21:45, Mat 21:46
At last, they perceived that he spoke of them, and would have gratified their malice at once but they feared the people.
Remarks On Matthew 21
1. Jesus is omniscient, and sees and knows all things, Mat 21:2.
2. It is our duty to obey the Lord Jesus, and to do it at once, Mat 21:3. When He commands there should be no delay. What he orders is right, and we should not hesitate or deliberate about it.
3. Especially is this the case where He is to be honored, as he was on this occasion, Mat 21:3, Mat 21:8. If it was for “our” interest or honor only that we obeyed him, it would be of less consequence; but our obedience will honor Him, and we should seek that honor by any sacrifice or self-denial.
4. We should be willing to give up our property to honor the Lord Jesus, Mat 21:3. He has a right to it. If given to spread the gospel, it goes, as this did, to increase “the triumphs of our King.” We should be willing to give our wealth that he might “gird on his sword,” and “ride prosperously among the heathen.” Everyone who is saved among the pagan by sending the gospel to them will be for the honor of Jesus. They will go to swell his train when he shall enter triumphantly into his kingdom at the day of judgment.
5. It is our duty to honor him, Mat 21:7-9. He is King of Zion. He is Lord of all. He reigns, and shall always reign.
“Sinners! Whose love can ne’er forget
The wormwood and the gall,
Go spread your trophies at his feet,
And crown him Lord of all.
“Ye chosen seed of Israel’s race;
Ye ransomed from the fall;
Hail him who saves you by his grace,
And crown him Lord of all.
“Let every kindred, every tribe,
On this terrestrial ball,
To him all majesty ascribe,
And crown him Lord of all.”
6. “Children” should also honor him and shout “hosanna” to him, Mat 21:15. The chief priests and scribes, in the time of our Saviour, were displeased that they did it; and many of the great, and many formal professors since, have been displeased that “children” should profess to love and honor Jesus. They have opposed Sunday schools, and opposed the praying of children, and opposed their singing to his praise, and opposed their giving their money to spread his gospel; but Jesus loves such praise and such service. The mouths of babes and sucklings should be taught to speak his name; and whatever the world may say, whatever the proud, the rich, or the formal may say, children should seek him early and give their first years to him. He loves their praises. Perhaps few of all the songs of thanksgiving are so pleasant to his ears as the “hosannas” of a Sunday school.
7. We have here a view of the glory of Jesus, Mat 21:9-11. Though humble yet he was King. Though most of his life unhonored, yet once he had the honors of his station rendered to him, and entered the city of his father David as a triumphant King of Zion. He will be yet “more” honored. He will come with all his saints, with the glory of his Father, and with the holy angels. There we shall be; and we should be prepared to join with the vast host in shouting hosanna to the returning King of Zion.
8. Yet, amid all these honors, he was meek and lowly, Mat 21:5. Others would have been proud and lifted up, but he was always meek; his heart was not proud. He is the only one of kings that could bear triumph and honors without being lifted up by it and made proud.
9. Yet amid all his triumphs he wept over Jerusalem (Luke). No king, no conqueror, ever before showed compassion like this. People weep when “they” are afflicted, or are poor and needy; but what prince has ever, in the moment of his triumph, wept over the miseries and dangers of his subjects? Not an instance can be found in all history where an earthly conqueror ever showed compassion like this. So Jesus has still compassion over blind, ruined, wretched man. Amid all the triumphs of the gospel, he does not forget those I who are yet in their sins, but stretches out his arms to welcome them to his embrace.
10. Prophecy will be certainly and exactly fulfilled (Luke). That respecting Jerusalem was literally accomplished; and in like manner will all that is predicted of “all” sinners assuredly come to pass. If Jerusalem had repented it would have been saved; so if sinners repent they will be saved. If not, like Jerusalem, in due time they will perish.
11. Jesus purified the temple, Mat 21:12. It was the house of God. So our hearts should be the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit; so, also, they should be pure. All worldly cares, and traffic, and business, that would interfere with the dwelling of the Spirit there, and all wickedness, oppression, extortion, cheating, and pollution should be banished. God dwells not in such polluted temples; and unless we are “pure in heart,” he will not be with us, and we shall not see his face in peace. Compare the notes at 1Co 3:16-17.
12. Jesus only can purify our hearts. He does it by his blood and Spirit. Over all our sins he holds the same power as he did over the traffickers in the temple. At his command they will flee, and we shall be pure. If our hearts are ever purified, therefore, it will be by the power of Jesus. Nor should we wait in sin for him to do it. We should come to him, and beseech him to have mercy, and to save us from our pollutions.
13. Envy and hatred will take hold of very small matters, to show itself against the good and even the prudent, Mat 21:15. When the enemies of Jesus could find nothing else to blame, they chose to find fault with the shouting of children. So always in a revival of religion, or any great work of the Lord, it is some small matter that is seized upon something not exactly to the view of wicked objectors - that is made the occasion of reproach and opposition.
14. We must produce fruit in our lives as well as flowers, Mat 21:19. A profession of religion is like the flowers of spring. A revival is like fragrant blossoms. They are beautiful, and promise much fruit; but how many wither, and droop, and fall useless to the ground! How few of all the blossoms of the spring produce ripe and mellow fruit in autumn! So, alas! it is often with those who appear well in revivals of religion.
15. If we make a profession and do not produce fruit, Jesus will curse us, and we shall soon wither away, Mat 21:19-20. He will suffer none to enter into his kingdom on the ground of profession only. If we bear fruit and live lives of piety, we are Christians; if not, all our professions are like the blossoms of spring or the leaves of the tree. They will not save us from the withering frown of Jesus.
16. People will do almost anything right or wrong, and as often wrong as right - to court popularity, Mat 21:24. It is generally not asked by such people what is “right” or what is “true,” but what will secure popularity. If they have that, they are satisfied.
17. People often tell a direct falsehood rather than acknowledge the truth, Mat 21:27. Especially is this the case when the truth makes against them.
18. Double-dealing and an attempt to evade the truth commonly lead into difficulty. If these people had been honest, they would have had far less trouble, Mat 21:27.
19. A state of gross and open sin is often more hopeful than one of hypocrisy, pride, and self-conceit, together with external conformity to religion, Mat 21:28. Multitudes of profane and licentious people may be saved, while the proud and self-righteous will be cut off. The reasons are,
That the wicked, the gross, have no righteousness on which they can pretend to rely.
(2)Nothing so effectually prevents religion as pride and self-confidence.
There is often really more ingenuousness and candor, and less of malignity against the gospel, among the openly wicked, than among those who are outwardly righteous, but who are inwardly like whited sepulchres, full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.
20. Multitudes of people profess to go, and go not, Mat 21:30. They profess to love God, and love themselves better. They profess to obey him, and yet obey their lusts. They are hypocrites, and destruction must come upon them.
21. Sinners, when they see the effect of truth on others, should repent, Mat 21:32. It is proof of the truth of religion, and they, as much as others, need it.
22. We see the goodness of God in sending his messengers to a lost world, Mat 21:33-38. His prophets he sent one after another, and they were put to death. His well-beloved Son he sent, and He also was put to death. Nor is his mercy yet stayed. He still sends his message to sinners. Thousands have died, as his Son did, in attempting to spread the gospel, but still he sends it. We have often, often rejected it, yet still he sends it. What earthly monarch would be treated in this manner? What earthly parent would be so patient and so kind?
23. If we improve not our privileges they will be taken away from us, Mat 21:43. The gospel will be sent to many of the pagan, and they will be saved, but woe to those who have had it all their lives and are not saved.
24. All who reject the Saviour must perish, Mat 21:44.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain A certain master of a family, &c. This master…
A certain master of a family, &c. This master is God; the vineyard, the Jews; the husbandmen, the Jewish priests; the servants, God’s prophets, sent from time to time: the son, called (Mark xii. 6,) his only and most dear son, is our Saviour Jesus Christ, whom they persecuted to death. (Witham) --- By this parable, our Saviour teaches the Jews that the providence of God had wonderfully watched over them from the beginning, that nothing had been omitted to promote their salvation, and that notwithstanding his prophets had been put to most cruel deaths, still the Almighty was not turned away from them, but had at length sent down his only Son, who should suffer at their hands the inexpressible ignominies and tortures of his cross and passion. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lxix.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which…
Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard--(See on Luk 13:6).
and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower--These details are taken, as is the basis of the parable itself, from that beautiful parable of Isa 5:1-7, in order to fix down the application and sustain it by Old Testament authority.
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and let it out to husbandmen--These are just the ordinary spiritual guides of the people, under whose care and culture the fruits of righteousness are expected to spring up.
and went into a far country--"for a long time" (Luk 20:9), leaving the vineyard to the laws of the spiritual husbandry during the whole time of the Jewish economy. On this phraseology, see on Mar 4:26.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 33. Hear another parable — You have felt the…
33. Hear another parable — You have felt the effect of one, now hear another. Householder — The head of a family.
A vineyard — A symbol of the field of duty and service of God, customarily used in both the Old Testament and the New. See Deu_32:32, Isa_5:1-7, and Mat_20:1. Hedged it round about — A hedge is a row of perfectly dense thorn bushes, (often in Judea the prickly pear,) planted around a field, to fence it in and exclude all intruders.
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A winepress — Including the wine vat, which was a square or round vat or pit excavated in the earth, mortared and plastered so as to make it tight like a modern cistern. Over this vat was the wine-press, into which the grapes were heaped, and when the juice was trodden out it flowed into the vat.
Built a tower — A tower or observatory in the garden, having a view in all directions, in which a watchman is stationed to guard against robbers. The vineyard represents the Church or fold of God’s service. This must be girt as with a hedge; it must have its ordinances for receiving the flow of the divine nourishment; it must have its towers and watchmen against the assaults of the profane or the incursions of hypocrites. Let it out — Leased or rented it, with rent to be paid from the produce. Went into a far country — God leaves men in their state of probation to work out their destiny.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 33. planted a vineyard] Cp. the parable in Isa_5:1-7,…
33. planted a vineyard] Cp. the parable in Isa_5:1-7, where the description is very similar to this. See also Psa_80:8-16; Jer_2:21; Eze_15:1-6. The vine was adopted as a national emblem on the Maccabean coins.
hedged it round about] with a stone wall or with a fence of prickly pears. St Luke makes no mention of the separating hedge. Israel was separated throughout her history politically, and even physically, by the natural position of Palestine.
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digged a winepress] The winepress was often dug or hewn out of the limestone rock in Palestine. There were two receptacles or vats. The upper one was strictly the press or ληνός (Matthew), the lower one the winefat or ὑπολήνιον (Mark) into which the expressed juice of the grape passed. The two vats are mentioned together only in Joe_3:13, “The press (gath) is full, the fats (yekabim) overflow” (quoted in Bibl. Dict., see art. “Winepress”).
built a tower] Probably a wooden booth raised on a high platform, in which a watcher was stationed to guard the grapes.
Neither the winepress nor the tower seems to have any special significance in the interpretation of the parable.
let it out to husbandmen] This kind of tenancy prevails in many parts of Europe. It is known as the metayer system, the arrangement being that the occupier of the land should pay to the landlord a portion—originally half—of the produce. The system existed in England for about sixty years at the end of the fourteenth century. Before the Revolution of 1790 nearly the whole of the land of France was rented by metayers. At the time of our Lord’s ministry it was customary for the Romans to restore conquered lands on condition of receiving a moiety of the produce. Fawcett’s Manual of Political Economy, p. 223; Rogers’ Political Economy, p. 168.
went into a far country] Translate, left his home. The words “went into a far country” are not in the original text.
33–42. The Wicked Husbandmen
Mar_12:1-11; Luk_20:9-18.
No parable interprets itself more clearly than this. Israel is represented by an image which the prophets had made familiar and unmistakeable—the Vineyard of the Lord. The householder who planted the Vineyard and fenced it round signifies God the Father, Who created the nation for Himself—a peculiar and separate people. The husbandmen are the Jews, and especially the Pharisees, the spiritual leaders of the Jews. The servants are the prophets of God, the Son is the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (33) Which planted a vineyard.—The frequent recurrence of this…
(33) Which planted a vineyard.—The frequent recurrence of this imagery at this period of our Lord’s ministry is significant. (Comp. Mat_20:1; Mat_21:28; Luk_13:6.) The parable that now meets us points in the very form of its opening to the great example of the use of that image in Isa_5:1. Taking the thought there suggested as the key to the parable, the vineyard is “the house of Israel;” the “fence” finds its counterpart in the institutions which made Israel a separate and peculiar people; the “wine-press” (better, wine-vat—i.e., the reservoir underneath the press), in the Temple, as that into which the “wine” of devotion, and thanksgiving, and charity was to flow; the “tower” (used in vineyards as a place of observation and defence against the attacks of plunderers; comp. Isa_1:8), in Jerusalem and the outward polity connected with it. So, in like manner, the letting out to husbandmen and the going “into a far country” answers historically to the conquest by which the Israelites became possessors of Canaan, and were left, as it were, to themselves to make what use they chose of their opportunities.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 33-46. Parable of the vineyard let out to…
Vers. 33-46. Parable of the vineyard let out to husbandmen. (Mar_12:1-12 Luk_20:9-19)
Hear another parable. The domineering and lately imperious party are reduced to the position of pupils; they have to listen to teaching, not to give it; to answer, not to put questions. This parable sets forth, under the guise of history, the Pharisaical party in its official character, and as the representative of the nation. It also denounces the punishment that surely awaited these rejecters of the offered salvation; thus exemplifying the teaching of the withered fig tree (vers. 17-20). As applicable to the Jewish nation generally, it represents the long suffering of God and the various means which, in the course of their history, he had used to urge them to do their duty as his servants; and it ends with a prophecy of the coming events, and the terrible issue of impenitence. We must take the parable as partly retrospective, and partly predictive. There was a certain householder; a man (anyrwpov) that was a householder. Christ in his parables often, as here, introduces God in his dealings with mankind as a man. His house is the house of Israel in particular, and in general the whole human family. A vineyard. God"s kingdom upon earth, and particularly the Jewish Church. The figure is common throughout Scripture. (see on Mat_20:1) It was planted when God gave Israel a law, and put them in possession of the promised land. The parable itself is founded on Isa_5:1-7, where, however, the vineyard is tended by the Lord himself, not by husbandmen, and it bears wild grapes, not good grapes. By these differences different developments of declension are indicated. In the earlier times it was the nation that apostatized, fell into idolatry and rebellion against God, the theocratical Head of their race and polity. In later days it is the teachers, rabbis, priests, false prophets, who neglect the paths of righteousness, and lead people astray. In the parable these last come into painful prominence as criminally guilty of opposing God"s messengers. Hedged it round; put a hedge around it. The fence would be a stone wall a necessary defence against the incursions of wild animals. This fence has been regarded in two senses first, as referring to the physical peculiarities of the position of the Holy Land, separated from alien nations by deserts, seas, rivers, and so isolated from evil contagion; second, as intimating the peculiar laws and minute restrictions of the Jewish polity, which differentiated Judaism from all other systems of religion, and tended to preserve purity and incorruption. Probably the "hedge" is meant to adumbrate both senses. Many, however, see in it the protection of angels, or the righteousness of saints, which seem hardly to be sufficiently precise for the context. Digged a winepress. The phrase refers, not to the ordinary wooden troughs or vats which were used for the purpose of expressing and receiving the juice of the grapes, but to such as were cut in the rock, and were common in all parts of the country. Remains of these receptacles meet the traveller everywhere on the hill slopes of Judaea, and notably in the valleys of Carmel. The winepress is taken to signify the prophetic spirit, the temple services, or all things that typified the sacrifice and death of Christ. A tower; for the purpose of watching and guarding the vineyard. This may represent the temple itself, or the civil power. Whatever interpretation may be put upon the various details, which, indeed, should not be unduly pressed, the general notion is that every care was taken of the Lord"s inheritance, nothing was wanting for its convenience and security. Let it out to husbandmen. This is a new feature introduced into Isaiah"s parable. Instead of paying an annual sum of money to the proprietor, these vine dressers payed in kind, furnishing a stipulated amount of fruit or wine as the hire of the vineyard. We have a lease on the former terms in Song of Son_8:11, where the keepers have "to bring a thousand pieces of silver for the fruit." The husbandmen are the children of Israel, who had to do their part in the Church, and show fruits of piety and devotion. Went into a far country; apedhmhsen : went abroad. In the parabolic sense, God withdrew for a time the sensible tokens of his presence, no longer manifested himself as at Sinai, and in the cloud and pillar of fire. "Innuitur tempus divinae taciturnitatis, ubi homines agunt pro arbitrio" (Bengel). God"s long suffering gives time of probation.
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Vers. 33-41. The parable of the vineyard.
The vineyard is a favourite image in the Bible, and the mention of it by Christ would call to mind in his hearers the Old Testament illustrations of Israel. But more than Israel the nation must be intended by our Lord, because the vineyard is to go on after the destruction of the Jewish state. Our thoughts are therefore directed to the kingdom of heaven, partially realized in Israel, more fully realized in the Christian Church, but always a spiritual vineyard.
I GOD HIMSELF FOUNDS KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. The owner of the vineyard has it properly planted and all its arrangements completed before he sends husbandmen into it. They have not to begin in the wilderness. God does not behave like the Pharaoh who ordered the Israelites to make bricks without straw. He plants. Therefore he has a right to look for fruit.
II GOD ENTRUSTS THE WORK OF HIS VINEYARD TO MEN. There is work for God to be done in his kingdom. This is a high privilege, and it carries with it a grave responsibility. God will not have the just return for all his gifts if his husbandmen are not faithful in his service. The Jewish leaders were God"s husbandmen. So are Christian workers today.
III GOD EXPECTS FRUITS FROM HIS VINEYARD. God gives freely; but he looks for a return. It is not that he needs anything. But he does not desire his work to be wasted. He asks for grapes where he has planted a vine. This, then, is the one question for the Church, Is it bearing fruit? By so doing it can glorify God. (Joh_15:8)
IV THE MESSENGERS OF GOD HAVE BEEN SHAMEFULLY TREATED. Evidently the servants represent the prophets of ancient Israel, ending with John the Baptist, who was beheaded, though not by the Jews. The reason for this ill treatment is here explained. It is selfishness. The leaders of Israel governed for their own advantage, and not for the glory of God. The leaders of the Church have too often shown a self-seeking spirit, and therefore they have rejected God"s true servants, such as Savonarola, Huss, Latimer, Wesley.
V THE ADVENT OF CHRIST IS A MARK OF GOD"S LONG SUFFERING PATIENCE. The owner of the vineyard would try a last means. He would see if the husbandmen would reject his son. It was a great risk to run; but the fruit was precious, and the vineyard was worth rescuing from those who usurped the rights of ownership. God would not east out Israel till Christ had come. But now Christ has come to us as God"s last Messenger.
VI THE REJECTION OF CHRIST IS A FATAL SIN. After the husbandmen had killed the heir to the estate, no more patience could be shown to them. They had filled up their cup of guilt to the brim. They had rejected the last and greatest message from their Master. To be cast forth and destroyed is their rightful doom. This doom came upon the leaders of Israel in the overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus. It awaits those false and traitorous leaders of the Church who repeat the sin of the Hebrew hierarchy. It awaits all who work in the midst of the privileges of Christendom without rendering any fruit to the glory of God.
VII THE DOOM OF THE FAITHLESS IS FOLLOWED BY THE APPOINTMENT OF NEW WORKERS. Gentiles took the place of Jews. God"s work cannot stand still. He will have fruit if not through our agency, then by other means. When the official leaders of the Church are unfaithful, God sets them aside, so that, though their doom is postponed, they are really no longer entrusted with any powers by God. Then he raises up men from outside the ranks of office a John Bunyan or a George Fox. Thus the vineyard is saved, and God has the fruit of true service. W.F.A.
Vers. 33-44. Parable of the wicked husbandmen.
The priests and elders already stood convicted of having incapacitated themselves for recognizing the Divine in Jesus. But theirs was not the guilt of common unbelievers. It was not merely their personal, hut their official duty to keep themselves awake to the Divine, by righteousness of life. It was the duty for which their office existed. They are as agents whom a man has appointed to manage his business, and who use their position only to enrich themselves. The parable under which this judgment is carried home to them is one they could not fail to understand. The vineyard was Israel the small section of humanity railed off from the degrading barbarism around, as if to try what could be done by bestowing every advantage that could help men to produce the proper fruit of men. Nothing was wanting which could win them to holiness, nothing which could enlarge, purify, fertilize human nature. The result was that they were content, as many professing religion are content now, with receiving and doing nothing. They measured themselves by the care God spent on them, not by the fruit they yielded; by the amount of instruction, the grace they received, not by the use that they made of it. Again and again God sent to remind them he was expecting fruit of his care, but his messengers speedily found that they were willing enough to live upon God, but not to live to him. But it is the keepers of the vineyard who are here censured for unfaithfulness, and that on two grounds.
1. They used their position solely for their own advantage. They had failed to remember they were servants. The religious leader is as liable as the political or military leader to be led by a desire for distinction, applause, power. Success may be the idol of the one as truly as of the other. It is not the sphere in which one"s work is done that proves its spirituality or worthiness, nor even the nature of it, but the motive.
2. They are censured for their zeal in proselytizing a more insidious form of the temptation to use their position for their own ends. The indignation of our Lord was roused by the same element in their zeal, which so often still taints zeal for the propagation of religious truth. It was the desire rather to bring men to their way of thinking than to bring them to the truth. How wide spreading and deep reaching this evil is those well know who have observed how dangerously near propagandism is to persecution. The zeal that proceeds from loving consideration of others does not, when opposed, darken into violence and ferocity. If we become bitter and fierce when contradicted, we may recognize our zeal as springing from desire to have our own influence acknowledged, rather than from deep love of others, or regard for the truth as truth. The condemnation of the parable our Lord enforces by reference to the Scriptures of which they professed to be guardians. Rejection by the builders was one of the marks of the Foundation stone chosen by God. They cavilled at his allowing the hosanna psalm to be applied to himself, but this was itself proof that he was what the crowd affirmed him to be. Note:
(1) That Jesus claims to be the Heir of God. In acting for God he acted for himself.
(2) He implies that this was known to the Jewish leaders. It was because they knew he was the Heir they were so eager to remove him. Their state of mind is intelligible and very common. There are thousands who have a haunting suspicion that Jesus deserves very different kind of recognition from what they give him, but who will not let their minds dwell on the conviction, lest it should urge them to unwelcome action.
(3) The very fact that Christ is rejected by so many is proof that he is Divine. The higher the blessing the fewer there are who acknowledge and accept it. Our Lord completes the warning, abandoning the figure of the parable, and making use of the figure of the stone.
(1) Christ is a Stone of stumbling to those to whom he is presented. The gospel once heard must henceforward be an element in the condition of the hearer. No man who has heard can be as if he had not heard. Men are often conscious that he is the one Foundation on whom life can be safely built, and yet they try to pass on in life as if he were not there. While they do so they are held back, distracted; their life is a mere make-believe. Or habitual falseness of spirit is produced, it may be unconsciously to themselves. But the frost that has only lasted a few minutes is as surely frost as when it has formed a strength of surface the hammer cannot break. Each refusal to determine regarding Christ leaves the conscience a little blunter. It is thus men are bruised on this Stone of stumbling.
(2) The second action of the Stone is final. Those who determinedly oppose Christ lie at once slain and buried by what should have been their joy. Their dwelling and refuge become their tomb. Things are to move on eternally in fulfilment of the will of Christ. To oppose his course, to attempt to work cut an eternal success apart from him, is as idle as to stand on the path of an avalanche of stone in order to stem it. Acceptance or rejection of Christ is the determining element in human destiny. Without him we can make nothing or worse than nothing of life. "Better," will a man say that a millstone had been hanged about nay neck, and that I had been cast into the sea, than that I should have lived to reject him." Think of it more, go closer to him, keep yourself in the light of his words and life, and you will see that it is so, and must be so, that he is the Hand of God stretched out to us, the Word of God spoken to us out of the silence. D.
Vers. 33-46. Goodness and severity.
In this parable Jesus sets forth the privileges, the sins, and the impending ruin of the Jewish people. It brings before us for our admonition
I WHAT THE LORD DID FOR HIS PEOPLE.
1. He became a Father to them.
(1) By virtue of creation he is the Father of the whole family of man.
(2) By the Sinai covenant he became especially the Head of the house of Israel.
(3) By the everlasting covenant of his gospel he is now the Father of all believers everywhere.
2. He gave them a rich inheritance.
(1) The land of promise was as "a vineyard" in distinction from the surrounding countries. (cf. Isa_5:1-7) They were morally as well as physically distinguished.
(2) God himself "planted" them as "a vine from Egypt". (cf. Psa_80:8-15 Isa_61:3 Jer_2:21)
3. He made every provision for their benefit.
(1) "He set a hedge about it.
(a) By the "law of commandments contained in ordinances" he separated his people from the idolatrous nations surrounding.
(b) His providence was as a wall of fire for their defence. (see Zec_2:5)
(2) "He digged a winepress," or vat for the reception of the wine. To conserve the purposes of their planting he gave them the services of the sanctuary daily offerings, sabbaths, new moons, annual festivals.
(3) "He built a tower" whence to watch the approach of robbers. Jerusalem with its temple was the watch tower of the vineyard.
II THE RETURN HE RECEIVED FOR HIS GOODNESS.
1. The husbandmen kept from him the fruits.
(1) The rent is paid in produce. The fruits are those of righteousness and love. When the people entered upon the inheritance they gave verbal and intellectual acknowledgment of their obligations. The practical acknowledgment is the test of principle.
(2) God does not require rent paid in advance. He is not unreasonable. There is a time in which he looks on in silence. In this interval he looks for preparatory labour.
(3) He does expect the fruit in its season, in "the time for gathering the fruit." God claims the firstfruits of all our increase.
(4) The husbandmen were here radically at fault. The righteousness of the priests and elders was selfishness and pride. Their goodness was hypocrisy.
2. They maltreated his messengers.
(1) After they demanded a king, and the Lord their God withdrew his Shechinah, he sent them his earlier prophets, down to the time of the Assyrian captivity which ended the kingdom of Israel.
(2) To the remaining two tribes "he sent other servants, more than the first." The later prophets were more in number and greater in the clearness of their predictions. These ended with John the Baptist.
(3) But these they beat, as Jeremiah, and killed, as Isaiah and John, and stoned, as Zechariah the son of Jehoiada. (see 2Ch_36:16 Neh_9:26 Jer_25:3-7 Heb_11:36, Heb_11:37)
(4) The priests and rulers were the descendants of the race that had killed the prophets. (see Mat_5:12 Mat_23:34-37 Act_7:52 1Th_2:15)
3. They murdered the heir.
(1) "They will reverence my Son," armed with Divine credentials, and fully representing the Householder. The Son of David, and Heir to the kingdom. The Son of God, and "Heir of all things". (see Mat_3:17 Mat_17:5 Joh_3:35 Heb_1:1, Heb_1:2)
(2) "They cast him forth out of the vineyard." Christ was cast out of the synagogue as a profane person, and delivered to the Romans to be executed, and relegated to Calvary for that purpose, "outside the gate" of the city.
(3) There they "killed him." So they filled up the measure of their iniquity.
III THE SEVERITY OF HIS RETRIBUTION.
1. God dooms the sinner to the judgment of his sin.
(1) The priests little suspected whither Jesus was leading them when he led them to say, "He will bring these wretches to a wretched death." The truth, unpractised, which we carry with us into the other world, will judge us to perdition. Jesus expressed this in those words, "I judge no man: the word that I have spoken unto you, the same shall judge you in the last day." So the clearer our light the darker our condemnation.
(2) The priests first pronounced their condemnation in the words cited; Jesus seems to have afterwards pronounced it in the same terms. (see Luk_20:16) "Out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee.
2. He brings confusion upon his schemes.
(1) He excludes him from the inheritance. The inheritance was the very thing the priests sought to retain (ver. 38). Sin is the direct way to frustrate the sinner"s designs.
(2) He puts another in his place. Nothing so angered the inveterate Jew as the proposal to carry the gospel to the Gentile. Little did the priests estimate the significance of their sentence, "And he will let out the vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons." Persecution may destroy the ministers, but cannot destroy the Church.
(3) They will exalt the stone which the builders rejected. The disciples fetched their hosannas from the context of the passage quoted from Psa_118:22, Psa_118:23, which carries conviction and terror to the enemies of Christ.
(4) The words of the psalm were first spoken of David, who, after suffering persecution from Saul and rejection from the chiefs of Israel, at length triumphed over his enemies, and rose to unexampled prosperity. David, that rejected stone which became the head of the corner, (cf. 1Sa_14:38) was therein a type of Christ. In his resurrection, ascension, and exaltation as the Head of his Church, the temple of the living stones, the copestone was brought up with the shoutings of angels. What a confusion to the murderers of the Heir was his triumphant resurrection!
3. He brings judgment upon them to destruction.
(1) Falling upon the stumbling stone (Jesus in his humiliation), the offender is "broken". (see Isa_8:14, 15 1Pe_2:8) Jerusalem became a desolation. The nation was broken. The spiritual judgment of blindness and obduracy is more terrible than the temporal suffering. (see Rom_11:8-10 1Th_2:15) Instead of being humbled, the sinner is exasperated when his sin is pointed out.
(2) The stone becoming active and falling upon the sinner, he is crushed into dust. (see Isa_60:12 Dan_2:44) The same stone, Christ, now however coming, not in humiliation, but in the glory of his majesty and power. "How shall we escape, if we neglect his great salvation? J.A.M.
The wicked husbandmen.
This parable belongs to the series in which our Lord shows up his enemies, and reveals to them at once their own shameless schemings, and his complete knowledge of their devices. But while the relation of the parable to those Pharisees should be recognized, it is necessary also to see that the man of God can never let the evils of his age alone. Those Pharisees were holding men in creed and ceremonial bondage; Christ did not attack them because of their personal enmity to him. It was this a liberator of human thought can never let the thought enslavers alone. Illustration: Luther, or C. Kingsley. In this parable we have the dealings of God with men illustrated in the dealings of God with the Jews, and pictured in the parable of the vineyard renters. Explain the first references of the parable. Vineyard, God"s chosen people. Husbandmen, the ordinary leaders and teachers of the nation. Servants, the prophets or special messengers. Destruction, the final siege of Jerusalem. Others, the transfer of gospel privileges to the Gentiles.
I THE REASONABLENESS OF GOD"S DEALINGS WITH MEN. Illustrate this:
1. From the vineyard figures. (Compare the more elaborate description in Isaiah 5) Chosen ground. Planted. Nourished. Guarded. Pruned. And a wine-vat prepared in expectation of fruit. What could have been done more?
2. From the historical facts of God"s dealings with Israel. God"s call, redemption, provision, guidance, and prosperity. The final seeking fruit was Christ"s coming.
3. From our own personal experience, as members of the spiritual Israel of God. Recall the graciousness of the Divine dealings with us.
II THE UNREASONABLENESS OF MEN"S DEALINGS WITH GOD. Illustrate this:
1. From the vineyard figures. The shame, dishonesty, ingratitude, and rebellion of these husbandmen. See to what length it goes.
2. From the historical facts. The resistance, again and again, of Jewish prophets, as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos. The wilful casting out of the Son.
3. From our own personal experience. Take the case of one unsaved. Up to this resisted motherhood, friendship, Bible, inward call of Christ, etc. How must man"s unreasonableness be divinely met?
(1) The sinfulness by Divine chastisement.
(2) The unworthy response to privilege by the loss of privilege.
(3) The persistent wrong by judgment. "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John A. Broadus 1886 · Public Domain Mat 21:33-46.
Mat 21:33-46.
Parable Of The Wicked Husbandmen
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Found also in Mar 12:1-12 Luk 20:9 to Luk 19:33 f. Hear another parable. Jesus addresses the Jewish rulers. (Mat 21:23) Many of the people also were listening. (Luk 20:9) He had not called Luk 20:28-30 a parable, but all perceived that it was such. As to the term, and the general principles upon which our Lord’s parabolic discourses must be interpreted, see on "Mat 13:3". In explaining certain points of the story itself, we may sometimes for convenience anticipate the application. The imagery here recalls Psa 80:8-16, and especially Isa 5:1-7. Bruce: "Our parable is but an old theme worked up with new variations. Every one who heard it knew what the vineyard with its hedge, winepress, and tower signified, and who the vine-dressers were, and who the servants sent for the fruits. These phrases belonged to the established religious dialect of Israel." A certain householder, see on "Mat 10:25". A tower, in which guards stay to protect the vineyard against robbery. Pulpit interpretation should beware of separately "spiritualizing" the hedge, winepress, tower, etc. Origen here especially cautions against "torturing the parable," and then does it. These details simply show that the owner made all necessary arrangements, so that the vineyard ought to have yielded a good return. (compare Isa 5:4) Let it out to husbandmen, the general term ’agriculturists,’ here applied to one particular department of agriculture. Went into a far country, literally (in our colloquial) moved away. Luke adds, ’for a long time.’ The time; season of the fruits (as in Mat 21:41), not ’time,’ see on "Mat 11:21". His servants, ’bond-servants’ (Rev. Ver. margin), doulos see on "Mat 8:6"; here they act as the master’s agents. Mark and Luke mention only a single servant each time, but Mark adds ’and many others.’ To receive the fruits of it, or, his fruits. The Greek may mean either; the connection favours the latter, and so Mark and Luke. The rent was sometimes paid in money (Edersheim), but in this case in a certain portion of the crop, (see Mar 12:2) which the agents might then sell to the tenants or any one else, or might carry away with them. This is largely practised at the present day in India and in Italy, and to a considerable extent in this country.
Mat 21:35. And beat one, more exactly, scourged, literally, ’flayed.’ Goebel: "For the bodily ill-treatment of the prophets, the example of Jeremiah may be compared (Jer 20:1-18; Jer 37:15; Jer 38:6), and of Micah; (1Ki 22:24) for the killing, the murder of the prophets in the time of Elijah, (1Ki 18:4, 1Ki 19:10) and of Urijah by Jehoiakim; (Jer 26:20 ff.) and for the stoning, the example of Zechariah. (2Ch 24:12 f.) The killing of the prophets collectively is mentioned in Old Testament, (Jer 2:30 Neh 9:26) and referred to by Jesus in Mat 23:31, Mat 23:35, Mat 23:37 Luk 13:34; also in Act 7:52 Heb 11:36." And stoned another may well follow ’killed,’ since it denotes a very wrathful and cruel way of killing. Stoning did not necessarily kill, (Act 14:19) but was apt to do so.(Act 7:59) However it is not necessary to find regular progression in a series of terms in a style so familiar as that of the Gospels.
Mat 21:36 f. Renewed and more urgent calls. Goebel urges that the word translated more (pleionas) here means more excellent (as in Heb 11:4), of higher dignity; but that use is quite rare, and does not seem to be here called for. His son. Mark and Luke add ’beloved.’ They will reverence my son. Luke prefixes ’it may be.’ This indicates a hope that was doomed to disappointment. Such a detail could be applied to God only by anthropomorphism, as when it is said that God repented. And we may add that although God’s Son was slain, his mission did ultimately bring fruits from "other husbandmen."
Mat 21:38. Let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. This was something not likely to occur in such a case, but entirely possible, and that is enough for an illustration; the conduct to be illustrated was itself extraordinary. The owner in the story had been long absent, and seems to have had no other son; he might not return for years, might die in a distant land, and leave the vineyard permanently in their possession.
The property of a continuous absentee is often very freely handled by the occupiers. The story shows serious defects in local government and outbreaks of popular violence, such as we know to have been not uncommon in Palestine at that period. Alexander: "It is incongruous to press the correspondence of the sign and the thing signified, although this proposition bears an evident analogy to the ambitious and absurd attempt of the Jewish rulers in the time of Christ to oust him from his heritage and make their own provisional authority perpetual. In every effort to continue the Mosaic institutions beyond the time prescribed for their duration, the Jews have been guilty of the usurpation here projected by the husbandmen."
Mat 21:39. And cast him out of the vineyard. Alexander: "The act of casting out denotes the whole rejection of our Lord, but perhaps with an allusion to the literal fact of his suffering without the holy city, (Heb 13:11-13) which must not however be regarded as the whole sense."For six months past Jesus has been telling the disciples that the rulers at Jerusalem would kill him, (Mat 16:21, Mat 17:23, Mat 20:18) and now to the rulers themselves he intimates the same through a "parabolic veil" so transparent that they do not fail to see. (Mat 21:45 f.) Doubtless some of those who heard these sayings were reminded of them a few weeks later by Peter’s words on the Day of Pentecost, and all the more were pricked in their heart. (Act 2:23, Act 2:37, Act 3:14)
Mat 21:41. He will miserably destroy those wicked men. The Rev. Version preserves the verbal assonance of the Greek; but the Greek describes them as wicked—evil they are and evil shall be their fate. Instead of drawing out this reply from the rulers, so as to condemn them out of their own mouth (compare Nathan and David), our Lord in Mark and Luke makes the statement himself. We may perhaps suppose (Mald.) that he repeated their statement, so solemnly and pointedly as already to indicate that it meant them; thus leading them to say "be it not so." (Luk 20:16, Rev, Ver., margin.) At any rate there is no substantial difference (compare on Mat 3:17). Goebe: "On one side the rhetorical question (in Mark and Luke) is still an appeal to the assent of the hearers to the statement introduced by the question; and on the other, the acceptance of the answer of the Sanhedrists by the Lord (in Matthew)is equivalent in substance to a statement of his own of the same purport." In destroying the husbandmen, the owner acts as also a sovereign. (compare Mat 22:7)
Mat 21:42. Our Lord now pointedly and severely applies his illustration to the Jewish rulers, whom he has been addressing ever since Mat 21:23, and to the nation in general. (Mat 21:42-44.) The nation of Israel, after being established by special divine act in the land of promise, and provided with everything necessary for righteous living, failed to render to God the fruits of righteousness, when called on by providential dealings and by inspired messages; they have insulted and sometimes killed his messengers the prophets, and are now on the point of slaying his Son (compare Act 7:52) Yet this will not end the matter. The rejected one is God’s chief corner-stone for the temple of human salvation.
Did ye never read in the Scriptures? as in Mat 12:3, Mat 19:4, Mat 21:16. Mark’s phrase (Mar 12:10, Rev. Ver.) makes still more pointed the rebuke of their ignorance, ’Have ye not read even this Scripture’? The term ’Scriptures’ or ’Scripture’ (Mat 22:29, Mat 26:54, Mat 26:56, and throughout the New Testament) had a technical sense among the Jews of our Lord’s time, (just as among us), denoting a certain well-known group of sacred books. We learn from Josephus and the Talmud, from Melito and Origen (see works on The Canon), that this group comprised exactly our Old Testament, neither more nor less, and was recognized as definite and fixed. The Talmud states, it is true, that in what must have been the latter part of our first century, some Rabbis questioned, on internal grounds, whether Ecclesiastes was sacred, and some others as to Solomon’s Song; but the final decision supported those books, and there is no hint of any question as to the other books—so that the exception proves the rule. When therefore Jesus and the apostles spoke of ’the Scriptures’ or ’Scripture’ as sacred and authoritative, they knew that their hearers would understand them to mean that well-known group of books; and they have thus stamped their seal upon the entire Old Testament
Our Lord’s quotation is from Psa 118:22 f., just preceding the words borrowed in the hosannas of the multitude during the triumphal entry (see on "Mat 21:9"). The quotation follows the Hebrew and the Sept. without any noticeable difference. Mark has the same. The second couplet, ’This was from the Lord,’ etc., is omitted by Luke, and also by Peter, who quotes the passage both in addressing the Sanhedrin, (Act 4:11) and in his first Epistle. (1Pe 2:7) Compare in general Isa 28:16. The stone which the builders rejected. A few miles northwest of Jerusalem, on the Roman road to Gibeon, may now be seen in an old quarry a stone set on end, say 8 x 3 x 2 feet. As observed from the road it is a good stone, but on riding around you find a great flaw that destroys its value. This stone was quarried and offered, but when lifted up for inspection was rejected by the builders, and there it stands. Imagine such a rejected stone to become the chief corner stone in some grand building. The tradition sometimes repeated that such a thing actually occurred in building the temple, doubtless grew out of this passage and is worthless. The corner stones of ancient buildings were often of enormous size, and therefore very costly, ’precious.’ (1Pe 2:6) Thus even now at the southeast corner of what was the temple area is seen above ground a stone nearly 24 x 5 x 3 feet, and at the southwest corner one about 32 x 3 x 2 feet (compare on Mat 24:1). The same is become, or simply became.[1] The head of the corner does not show clearly whether it stands as the foundation, or as the topmost stone, or elsewhere. It seems to be called ’head’ simply from its prominence and importance. This was[2] from the Lord, is the literal translation. Tyndale’s paraphrase, ’This is the Lord’s doing,’ is very pleasing. In the Psalm, the date of which is uncertain, but probably after the captivity, Israel seems to be the stone, conquered, carried away, and flung aside as of no use, but divinely destined to a future of importance and grandeur. But there is atypical relation between the history of Israel and the Messiah (see on "Mat 2:15"), and our Lord shows us in this passage a prophecy at the same time of himself.
[1] It is very doubtful whether the aorist passive of this verb is anywhere perceptibly different in force from the aorist middle.—’The stone’ in Greek is an accusative, by an unusual, but not unnatural nor wholly unexampled form of attraction.
[2] ’This’ and ’marvellous’ are feminine in the Greek, and might grammatically refer to kephale, ’head’ (Origen, Meyer); but Matt. only follows the Sept., and the feminine seems there a mere literal rendering of the Hebrew, which having no neuter, uses the feminine for general ideas, so that ’this’ means this thing or this occurrence, as it would naturally be taken in English. There are other examples in Sept., as Psa 26:4, Psa 102:9, Psa 119:36 Jdg 15:7. So our passage is understood by Buttm., Jelf, most commentators; Win. and Alex. hesitate.
Mat 21:43. This is given by Matt. only, being of special moment to his Jewish readers. The kingdom of God, the Messianic reign (see on "Mat 8:2"), with its privileges and benefits. Shall be taken away from you. This was fulfilled partly in the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jewish State, and partly in the fact that most Jews through their unbelief failed of the Messianic salvation. And given to a nation shows distinctly that it was to be taken away not merely from the Jewish rulers, whom our Lord has been principally addressing, but from the Jewish people in general—though, as we learn otherwise, with many individual exceptions, and with a prospect in the far future, (Romans 11) which our Lord does not here indicate. This other nation will be the spiritual Israel, called by Peter "a holy nation." (1Pe 2:9) Compare Act 13:46, Act 18:5. Bringing forth the fruits thereof, (compare Mat 3:8, Mat 7:16 ff.) living as is required of Messiah’s subjects. The image changes from that of paying the owner’s share of the fruits, to the more familiar one of producing the fruits. Or perhaps it is meant that the husbandmen were not only unwilling to pay the owner’s share, but had failed to make the vineyard duly productive.
Mat 21:44 is here of doubtful genuineness,[1] as it is wanting in some documents, and might easily have been brought in from Luk 20:18, where there is no variation at all, while, on the other hand, we can see no reason for its omission here if originally present. It is at any rate a real saying of our Lord on this occasion, as we know from Luke. The passage evidently refers to Isa 8:14 f., which is borrowed in 1Pe 2:8, along with the quotation from Psalms 118, which has here just preceded. Broken, Rev. Ver., broken to pieces, the Greek being stronger than the mere ’broken.’ Will grind him to powder. So Tyndale, Gen., and K. James. This would strike any one at first sight as being what the image calls for. But the Greek word nowhere has that meaning. By etymology and general use, it signifies to ’winnow,’ to separate the chaff from the wheat; and derivatively to ’scatter,’ like chaff or dust. Memph. and Peshitta both here render ’scatter.’ There is doubtless an allusion to Dan 2:35, "Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors, and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them" (Rev. Ver.), in reference to which passage a little later (Dan 2:44) the Sept. (Theodotion) uses the Greek word here employed by Matt. and Luke. The idea then is not simply that of crushing, but of scattering into nothingness. What then is the thought of our passage? He who in unbelief finds this stone an obstacle, smites against it and falls (compare on Mat 11:6, Mat 5:29), will not only be bruised by the fall, but broken to pieces. (Isa 8:14, 1Pe 2:8.) If he stumbles over Jesus as unfit to be a Saviour, all his religious hopes will be utterly destroyed. In the second clause the image is somewhat changed. The stone is here conceived not as the foundation stone, but as placed higher up in the corner, perhaps at the top, and some one tries to pull it down from its place; but it falls upon him, and scatters him like a puff of dust. Jesus came to be the Messiah; the Jews reject him, and thereby utterly lose the Messianic felicity. He is notwithstanding placed by God as the corner stone of salvation; the Jews try to pull him down, to defeat the divine plan by putting him to death, but in falling he will scatter like chaff their schemes and themselves. They will have not only the loss which comes from stumbling at him, but the terrible destruction which comes from pulling him down on their heads; while he, divinely replaced, will forever remain the corner-stone of human salvation.
[1] Wanting in D, 33, several copies of the old Latin, and passed without mention in Origen’s copious ’commentary on this passage. Eusebius and Irenaeus copy v. 33-43, and would hardly have failed to add so striking a concluding sentence. Yet as the authorities for omission are few, and represent mainly the, "Western", group, which has so much arbitrary alteration of the text, the question must be left doubtful. The sentence is only bracketed In Lachm., Treg. (margin), and Westcott Hort, and see margin of Rev. Ver.
Mat 21:45 f. he chief priests and Pharisees, correspond to the chief priests and the elders of Mat 21:23. The chief priests, certainly at this period, were for the most part Sadducees, compare on Mat 26:57, Mat 27:62. As to the Pharisees, see on "Mat 3:7". Had heard his parables, this and that of Mat 21:28 ff., and perhaps others not recorded. Mark and Luke, having only given this one, say ’parable.’ That he spake of them, not of them as distinguished from the people at large, but especially of them as being the leaders. (Compare on Mat 21:43.) When they sought. This would cover not merely actual efforts, but plans and wishes. The Sanhedrin had some weeks before formed the purpose to kill Jesus. (Joh 11:47-53) They feared the multitudes, just as with reference to John the Baptist. (Mat 21:26, Mat 14:5) Took him for a prophet, the expression being, in the correct text, a little different from that of Mat 21:26.
Homiletical And Practical
Mat 21:37. Reverencing the Son of God. (1) He deserves to be reverenced by all mankind. (2) He came to men, and his own chosen people (Joh 1:11) rejected and killed him,
Mat 21:39. (3) He is now rejected and dishonoured by many who ought most to admire and revere him. (4) He is crucified afresh (Heb 6:6) by some who have professed to show him reverence. (5) Yet, though rejected and slain, he is risen and ascended and reigning, and multitudes do reverence and serve him. (6) In the great day every tongue will confess that he is Lord. (Php 2:9-11)
Mat 21:41. Henry: "Many can easily prognosticate the dismal consequences of other people’s sins, that see not what will be the end of their own."
Mat 21:42."Did ye never read in the Scriptures’?" (1) If we had read the Scriptures aright, they would solve for us many a now perplexing question of truth and duty. (2) If we had read the Scriptures aright, we should clearly perceive that they condemn us. (3) If we had read the Scriptures aright, we should see in them Jesus Christ the corner-stone of human salvation.
Mat 21:43. Origen: "The kingdom of God is not given to any one that is reigned over by sin."
Mat 21:44. Use and misuse of the corner-stone. (1) God gave his Son to be the corner-stone of salvation to all who will accept him. (Isa 28:16, 1Pe 2:6 Eph 2:20) (2) Many stumble against that stone instead of building upon it, (Isa 8:14 Rom 9:31, 1Pe 2:8) and are broken to pieces by the fall. (a) Some believe nothing in the Bible. (b) Others do not believe that Christ is the foundation of salvation by his atonement. (c) Others think the vicious may build on Christ, but they can build on themselves. (3) On many that stone will fall and utterly destroy them. (a) He will destroy by his providence their plans of opposition to his kingdom. (b) He will destroy themselves to all eternity. (Mat 25:46 Heb 6:2, 2Th 1:9) Calvin: "This teaching partly instructs us that with tender and flexible heart we may gently yield ourselves to be ruled over by Christ; partly also confirms us against the contumacy and furious assaults of the ungodly, for whom at last a fearful end is waiting."
Mat 21:45. Henry: "A guilty conscience needs no accuser, and sometimes will save a minister the labour of saying ’Thou art the man.’ When those who hear the reproofs of the word perceive that it speaks of them, if it do not do them good it will certainly do them hurt."
Mat 21:45 f. Calvin: "The Evangelists show us how little Christ accomplished, in order that we may not wonder if to-day the gospel does not constrain all to obey God."
John A. Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (American Baptist Publication Society, 1886) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard.
Mat_21:33-41
There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard.
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The wicked husbandmen
I. A representation of the jewish church as regards its privileges and obligations. There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, etc.
1. The comparison employed. Palestine abounded in vineyards. This was planted; there was not one on the spot previously. He had to expend capital to bring it under cultivation.
2. The engagement entered into-Let it out to husbandmen.
3. The returns anticipated-Receive the fruits of it.
II. Their unprincipled disposition and the monstrous brutality they manifested.
1. The messengers sent to them, and the manner in which they were treated.
2. The crowning act of clemency on the one hand, and of cruelty on the other.
III. The awful retribution with which their abominable conduct was at length visited.
1. A striking prediction quoted-Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the Scriptures, etc.
2. The important inference declared-Therefore I say unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, etc.
3. A solemn warning uttered-And whosoever shall fall on this stone, etc. (Expository Outlines.)
The wicked husbandmen
1. The greatest privilege a man can enjoy is to have the kingdom of God entrusted to him.
2. The greatest sin a man can commit is to reject Christ.
3. The darkest doom is that of those who are guilty of this greatest sin. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
The wicked husbandmen
I. Their mercies.
1. They were in the vineyard-Israel-and in no heathen land. No small mercy that we live in a Christian country.
2. They were husbandmen-men of office and influence, entrusted with an honourable work under a wise and good master. A great mercy to be not only in the vineyard, but called to work for God there.
3. They were paid for their work.
4. Though unfaithful, they had been long borne with. Divine forbearance a great mercy.
5. Special messengers were sent to them from time to time to stimulate and encourage them, etc.
II. Their conduct.
1. They neglected their work.
2. They missed the purport of their office, which was spiritual.
3. They had killed the messengers.
4. At last they filled up the measure of their iniquity by killing the heir. Being servants, they had come to regard themselves as the owners and lords of Gods heritage. Under their husbandry the vineyard had become a scene of moral ruin.
III. Their punishment.
1. God, though merciful, was not unobservant of their conduct.
2. He had often inflicted minor and temporal punishments on themselves and the nation.
3. Now they were to be wholly extinguished.
4. The punishment was unexpected; they despised its cause.
5. It was complete. They lost their place and nation, and were scattered abroad.
Learn-
1. To consider and value Gods mercies (Psa_106:12-14; Rom_12:1).
2. To study our reception and use of them.
3. To reflect specially on the greatest of all (2Co_9:15).
4. To remember that we too must give account. (J. C. Gray.)
The Son of God must be reverenced
What is said of Israel may be said of men in all ages-It might have been presumed that they would treat kindly the Son of God. From
(1) the divinity and glory of His nature;
(2) the perfect excellence of His character as a man;
(3) the reasonableness of His claims;
(4) the condescending kindness of His intentions;
(5) His known ability to save;
(6) His ability to destroy as well as to save;
(7) their necessities.
Conclusion-
1. The sinners final ruin is unnecessary.
2. His ruin will be self-induced.
3. Wanton. (D. A. Clark, A. M.)
The figure of letting out the vineyard
I. Show what letting out doth imply or denote.
1. Negatively. This letting the vineyard doth not denote that any people have a lease sealed to them of their church state, church ordinances, and church privileges: no, all are but tenants at will. We hold all our spiritual privileges at the will and pleasure of the Lord of hosts, who may give us warning and turn us out of all when He pleaseth. And it doth not imply that any people buy and pay for any spiritual blessings and good things which they possess; no, we have all freely, church and church privileges, the gospel, ordinances, and promises, without money and without price. We have no rent, no tribute to pay, but the tribute of praise, thanksgiving, and fruitfulness unto God.
2. Negatively.
a. Letting denotes Gods entrusting a people with the great blessing of the legal Church.
b. Letting implies that a Church, the Word of God, and ordinances, are not mans own proper or natural right or inheritance. We are but stewards entrusted with these things,
c. Letting out to husbandmen signifies a mighty trust is committed to such.
d. Letting out implies that if men do not bring forth unto God that holy fruit which He expecteth, they must be called to an account for it.
II. To whom may the Church or vineyard of Christ be said to be let?
1. Principally to the pastors, teachers, and such who are, or ought to be, helps of government.
2. In some sense it may be said to be let also to every member; for every member is a hired servant of Christ, and all have their proper work appointed by Him.
3. In a remote sense it is let to all that accept the invitations of the gospel.
III. What fruit is it that God expecteth?
1. The fruit of faith and conversion.
2. The fruit of good works.
3. Fruits good in quality anal quantity.
4. Fruit according to the cost and pains God hath been at.
5. Fruit according to the time of the vineyard being planted.
6. Fruit in due season.
7. Fruit according to gifts and grace received.
8. Fruit according to the places and stations wherein God hath set us. (Benj. Keach.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 33. Hear another parable. Compare Mark 12:1–12; Luke 20:9–19.…
33. Hear another parable. Compare Mark 12:1–12; Luke 20:9–19. The second parable is also a rebuke of the ruling classes that were seeking his death. There was a certain householder. The head of a family is here selected to represent God. In what follows is portrayed the blessings he had bestowed and the care he had taken of Israel. Which planted a vineyard. Our Lord draws, as was his wont, his illustration from common life and familiar objects. Palestine was emphatically a vine-growing country. And hedged it round about. God in his care not only planted Israel, but hedged the nation around by the law which separated it from the Gentiles. Digged a wine-press in it. The wine-press consisted of two parts: (1) the press, or trough, above, in which the grapes were placed and there trodden by the feet; (2) a smaller trough, into which the expressed juice flowed through a hole. Here the smaller trough, which was “digged” out of the earth or rock and then lined with masonry, is put for the whole apparatus, and is called a wine FAT. Built a tower. Towers were erected in vineyards for the accommodation of keepers, who defended the vineyards from thieves and from troublesome animals. The hedge and wine-press and tower represent the various advantages conferred by God upon the Jewish people (Rom. 9:4). Let it out to husbandmen. Representing the rulers of the Jews, and also the people as a whole, a nation, are included. Went into a far country. Better, “into another country,” as in the Revised. “For a long while” (or time), adds Luke. It means that God left Israel to itself to see what use it would make of the favors he had bestowed.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Mat_21:33. A vineyard.—Was regarded as the most valuable plantation,…
CRITICAL NOTES
Mat_21:33. A vineyard.—Was regarded as the most valuable plantation, which yielded the largest harvest, but required also the most constant labour and care (Schaff). A winepress.—The winepress was often dug or hewn out of the limestone rock in Palestine. There were two receptacles or vats. The upper one was strictly the press or ληνός (Matthew), the lower one the winefat or ὑπολήνιον (Mark) into which the expressed juice of the grape passed. The two vats are mentioned together only in Joe_3:13, “The press (gath) is full, the fats (yekabim) overflow” (Carr). A tower.—Which would serve partly as a watch-tower, and partly as a storage for the wine, and partly, also, as a residence for the workmen, in the season when their attendance would be required (Morison). Let it out to husbandmen.—This kind of tenancy prevails in many parts of Europe. It is known as the metayer system, the arrangement being that the occupier of the land should pay to the landlord a portion—originally half—of the produce (Carr).
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Mat_21:38. Let us seize on his inheritance.—This would be impossible in real life, but not more impossible than the thought of the Pharisees that by the death of Jesus they would gain the spiritual supremacy (ibid.).
Mat_21:44. Grind him to powder.—Scatter him as dust (R.V.). Literally, it will winnow him. The Saviour’s idea is compressed and pregnant. If the stone fall on anyone, it will pound him into atoms, and thus dissipate him as effectually as if he were the dust of the threshing-floor that needed to be driven away (Morison).
Mat_21:46. When they sought to lay hands on Him.—The Sanhedrin aimed at two things:
1. To seize Jesus quickly, for the Passover (during which no hostile measures could be taken) was close at hand; and because Jesus might be expected to quit Jerusalem after the feast.
2. To seize Him apart from the people; for the Galilæans would suffer no one to lay hands on their King and Prophet. Treachery alone enabled the Jews to secure their end (Carr).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mat_21:33-46
Further answers.—It is one mark of a well-equipped teacher to exhibit variety in his teaching. So this Greatest of teachers had previously taught His disciples (Mat_13:52). So He exemplifies here. In dealing further with those who had just questioned His authority (Mat_21:23), He first tells them of that which is “new”—“hear another parable.” In the prophecy which He afterwards quotes as being one with which His hearers ought long ago to have been acquainted (Mat_21:42), He tells them of that which is “old.” But in both we shall find He refers to the same subject as that of which He had been previously speaking, viz., the character and destiny of that body of teachers and religious leaders of whom His present opponents were representatives and samples.
I. The parable.—This, although here spoken of as “another,” was not fresh in every respect. In its general character, on the contrary, and in some of its leading features, there was much that was “old.” Long before, e.g. the church and people of Israel had been compared, as here, to a “vino” (Mat_21:33; Psalms 80; Isa_5:1; Isa_5:7, etc.). Something had been said also before of the measures taken for their separation and protection under the figure of a “hedge” (Mat_21:33; Isa_5:2; Isa_5:5). And something also, of an expectation on the owner’s part of finding “fruit” on this vine (Isa_5:2; Isa_5:4). On the other hand, in this “version” of the similitude, there was much that was new. Such was the idea of “letting out” this vineyard to certain of the owner’s servants and leaving it in their charge. Also, the idea of a certain proportion of its “fruits” being his clearly recognised due (end of Mat_21:34, R.V.). Also, the refusal of those in charge to pay this, and their subsequent ill-treatment in various ways, and to the extremest lengths and that several times over, of those commissioned to ask it (Mat_21:35-36). Also, and above all, the introduction of the owner’s son on the scene (Mat_21:37), of the hopes that that introduction seemed fitted to encourage (ibid.), and of the robber-like conspiracy, with its murderous sequel, which it led to instead. Nor was there less, finally, of the previously unheard of in that which we may speak of as the verdict of this parable. In the quarter, first, from which it was elicited; those who heard the parable and of whom it was speaking, being just those, through the question asked of them, to declare its result. In the tone of certainty, next, with which they speak of it. To the question asked there is but one answer to give (Mat_21:41). In the manifest equity, lastly, which they recognise in it. In was only right that such “miserable” men should be thus “miserably” destroyed (R.V.). It was only right that there should be others to “render” what had been “withheld” by themselves.
II. The prophecy quoted.—How this is connected with what has gone before may be seen by considering, first, in what respects the prophecy tallies with the parable and its verdict. It does so, e.g. in the prominence given by it to the same persons as before, the “builders” and “stone” of the one corresponding closely with the “husbandmen” and the “heir” of the other. Also, in the kind of action attributed to the persons so named; the “rejection” of the “stone” in the one case corresponding exactly to the “killing and casting out” of the “heir” in the other. Also, once more, to a certain extent, in regard to the punishment inflicted, and the reason given for it, in the two cases referred to (cf. Mat_21:41; Mat_21:43). The connection in question may be seen next, by observing in what respects the teaching of the prophecy follows up that of the parable. How it tells, on the one side, of the wonderful subsequent glorification of that which had been “rejected” by the builders and cast out by the “husbandmen,” the once despised “stone” becoming nothing less, in the end, than “the head of the corner,” and that in so “marvellous” a way, as only to be accounted for by the direct operation of God (Mat_21:42). How it tells on the other, of a singularly discriminating and so confirmatory fate as being reserved for these rejecters thereof—those who merely “stumble” at that Divine stone being “broken” thereby, but not necessarily (so it appears) in an irrecoverable manner, whilst those who go further and wilfully cause others besides to stumble at it, are broken thereby beyond hope (Mat_21:44). And how this brings us, therefore, to that final catastrophe which the Lord then had in His mind, even the utter approaching destruction of those persons who were opposing Him then. Something of all this, indeed, with all their blindness, they appear to have understood at this time (Mat_21:45).
The words thus addressed to them may teach us in our turn:—
1. The true nature of the sin of the world.—It is opposing God’s will. It is doing so, more especially, in regard to His Son. Casting out and killing the appointed “Heir.” Rejecting the “chosen Stone.” (See Psalms 2 passim; Joh_16:9; Joh_15:22-23; Joh_6:29; 1Jn_3:23, also Mat_25:40; Mat_25:45).
2. The true secret of the life of the church.—Recognising the “Only begotten” as at once the foundation and consummation of all, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last. Had these men “known this they would not have crucified, the Lord of glory” (1Co_2:7-8; Act_3:17; see also Joh_17:3; Joh_1:1, etc.; Heb_1:1, etc.; Col_2:3).
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Mat_21:33-46. The vineyard and its keepers.—This parable was apparently spoken on the Tuesday of the Passion week. It was a day of hand-to-hand conflict with the Jewish authorities and of exhausting toil, as the bare enumeration of its incidents shows. It included all that Matthew records between Mat_21:20 of this chapter and the end of the twenty-fifth chapter. What a day! What a fountain of wisdom and love which poured out all this! The pungent severity of this parable, with its transparent veil of narrative, is only appreciated by keeping clearly in view the circumstances and the listeners. They had struck at Him with their question of His authority, and He parries the blow. Now it is His turn, and the sharp point goes home.
I. The first stage is the preparation of the vineyard, in which three steps are marked.—
1. It is planted and furnished with all appliances needful for making wine, which is its great end. The direct Divine origin of the religious ideas and observances of “Judaism” is thus asserted by Christ. The only explanation of them is that God enclosed that bit of the wilderness, and, with His own hands, set growing there these exotics. Neither the theology nor the ritual is of man’s establishing.
2. Thus furnished, the vineyard is next handed over to the husbandmen, who, in Matthew, are exclusively the rulers, while in Luke they are the people. No doubt it was “like people, like priest.”
3. Having installed the husbandmen, the owner goes into another country. Centuries of comparative Divine silence followed the planting of the vineyard. Having given us charge, God, as it were, steps aside to leave us room to work as we will, and so to display what we are made of. He is absent in so far as conspicuous oversight and retribution are concerned. He is present to help, love, and bless.
II. Then comes the habitual ill-treatment of the messengers.—
1. These are, of course, the prophets, whose office was not only to foretell, but to plead for obedience and trust, the fruits sought by God. There is no more remarkable historical fact than that of the uniform hostility of the Jews to the prophets. That a nation of such a sort as always to hate, and generally to murder, them should have had them in long succession throughout its history, is surely inexplicable on any naturalistic hypothesis. Such men were not the natural product of the race, nor of its circumstances, as their fate shows. No “philosophy of Jewish history” explains the anomaly except the one stated here, “he sent his servants.”
2. The hostility of the husbandmen grows with indulgence. From beating they go on to killing, and stoning is a specially savage form of killing. The more God pleads with men, the more self-conscious and bitter becomes their hatred; and the more bitter their hatred, the more does He plead, sending other messengers, more, perhaps, in number, or possibly of more weight, with larger commission and clearer light. Thus the antagonistic forces both grow, and the worse men become, the louder and more beseeching the call of God to them. That is always true; and it is also ever true that he who begins with “I go, sir,” and goes not, is in a fair way to end with stoning the prophets.
3. Christ treats the whole long series of violent rejections as the acts of the same set of husbandmen. The class or nation was one, as the stream is one, though all its particles were different; and the Pharisees and scribes, who stood with frowning hatred before Him as He spoke, were the living embodiment of the spirit which had animated all the past.
III. The mission of the Son and its fatal issue (Mat_21:37-39).—Three things are here prominent.
1. The unique position which Christ claims.
2. The owner’s vain hope in sending his son. Christ knew Himself to be God’s last appeal, as He is to all men, as well as to that generation. He is the last arrow in God’s quiver. When He has shot that bolt, the resources even of Divine love are exhausted, and no more can be done for the vineyard than He has done for it.
3. The vain calculation of the husbandmen. Christ puts hidden motives into plain words, and reveals to these rulers what they scarcely knew of their own hearts. With what sad calmness does Jesus tell the fate of the son, so certain that it is already as good as done! It was done in their counsels, and yet He does not cease to plead, if perchance some hearts may be touched, and withdraw themselves from the confederacy of murder.
IV. The self-condemnation from unwilling lips.—Our Lord turns to the rulers with startling and dramatic suddenness, which may have thrown them off their guard, so that their answer leaped out before they had time to think whom it hit.
V. Then comes the solemn application and naked truth of the parable.—Who can venture to speak of the awful doom set forth in the last words here? It has two stages: one a lesser misery, which is the lot of him who stumbles against the stone, while it lies passive, to be built on; one more dreadful, when it has acquired motion and comes down with irresistible impetus.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Mat_21:33-41. The efforts of mercy to redeem.—
I. Abundant.—Vineyard planted, fenced, guarded, tilled.
II. Outraged.—Messengers despised, ill-treated, slain.
III. Persevering.—One messenger after another, and last of all the greatest, wisest, best—“His Son.”—J. C. Gray.
Mat_21:37.Christ the Messenger of His own gospel.—
I. The dignity of the person whom God employed to preach the gospel. “His Son.”—
1. A superior person to Moses, the prophets, and infinitely superior to every other messenger of God.
2. The sublimest titles are bestowed on this person both in the Old and New Testaments.
II. That this is the final interposition of God in our favour.—“Last of all.”
1. As He is infinitely superior to all that were before Him, so it may well be presumed that none will come after Him; and that the message He brings seals and finishes God’s revelation to the children of men.
2. This is the reason why the predictions relating to the Messiah, refer His coming to the last days (Isa_2:2).
III. Our duty in relation to this sacred Messenger of heaven.—To reverence Him.
1. By attending to the proofs of His Divine mission. This He requires (Joh_5:31-38).
2. By receiving Him in that capacity with gratitude, love, hope, joy.
3. By embracing the holy errand on which He was sent, and complying with the practical purposes of His mission: “God raised up His Son to bless us.” How? “In turning us from our iniquities,” and teaching us “to deny ungodliness,” etc. (Tit_2:12).
4. By forming ourselves according to that sacred model He exhibited to mankind.
5. By receiving pardon and sanctification through that awful method which God has appointed, the blood of His Son (Col_1:14; 1Jn_1:7).
6. By daily acts of worship and adoration; honouring the Son as we honour the Father (Joh_5:23; Rom_14:11).—Anon.
Mat_21:42. Christ, rejected of men, exalted of God.—Biblical scholars and critics are of opinion that the words in Psa_118:22 refer to an historical event, a literal transaction. “There is every presumption,” says one of them, “that the Psalmist here refers to a stone that was rejected by the builders of the temple, and which was afterwards made the chief stone of the corner. The presumption is supported by what is stated in the fifth and sixth chapters of the first Book of Kings.” All the stones of the temple were prepared at a distance from the temple, and so prepared that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the building on Mount Moriah. Before the builders could say that their work was done they had to lift the stone which they had rejected and place it in the corner for which it had been designed. They then admitted that it was indeed the chief stone of the corner and the glory of their seven years’ labour. The truths suggested by the words of the text may be considered in at least four aspects:—
I. The metaphorical aspect.—A stone has a unity of substance, a solidity and durability of character, which give it incomparable renown as a foundation, or as a thing of strength and resistance. There are rocks and stones of which it may be said, Who hath declared their generation? Whatever mystery there may be connected with the stone which the builders rejected, it is most certain that Jesus Christ is the all-sufficient foundation of the church, the supreme reason of her continued existence and power in the world. He is to the church, past and present, visible and invisible, what the keystone is to the bridge, and the corner-stone to a building.
II. The doctrinal aspect.—The doctrine of the text is that of might against right in a stern and continuous struggle. We see the tiny beginnings of might against right in the histories of Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, and we see evidences of it all through the ages. But what are all these but the faint glimmerings of the more awful conflict referred to in the text? That conflict was not the result of mere ignorance or mental inertia. It was the outcome of direct repugnance to the Holy One of Israel.
III. The historical aspect.—There is nothing, perhaps, so remarkable in the history of nations as the difference made by the presence or the absence of Christianity. “Where is that place,” says a distinguished statesman (Russell Lowell), “where age is revered, infancy respected, womanhood honoured, and human life held in due regard; where is that place, ten miles square in this globe, where the gospel of Christ has not gone and cleared the way and laid the foundation?” We challenge the sceptical world to show us such a place. From the day that the Jews rejected Christ, Christianity has been to us Gentiles as life from the dead.
IV. The practical aspect of the text suggests the doctrine of man’s responsibility to Christ. All men are builders. Every building must rest on some foundation, or have some reason, good or bad, for its existence. That Jesus Christ is the only and all-sufficient foundation of the church is beyond dispute. The rulers of a nation are also builders, and are equally responsible to Him by whom all things consist. Of church and state He is emphatically the chief corner-stone.—Dr. J. Kerr Campbell.
Mat_21:43. Privileges forfeited.—
1. The gospel, or the means of grace in a visible face of a church, is God’s kingdom on earth, and the greatest benefit that can be bestowed on a land.
2. The nation which doth not bring forth the fruits of the gospel may justly be deprived of that privilege, as here is threatened, “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you.”
3. The church may be flitted from one nation to another, but shall not cease to be among some people; for, “It shall be given to another,” saith Christ. Thus, He foretelleth them of the rejection of the Jews and the in bringing of the Gentiles.—David Dickson.
Mat_21:44. Neglecting and opposing Christ.—I. The first case is that in which Christ is a stone of stumbling to those to whom He is presented. God lays this stone everywhere in our way that we may build upon it or set it high in the place of honour, and we cannot simply walk on as if God had done no such thing. Whatever else Christ is, He is substantial, a reality as solid as the stone against which your foot is jarred. The gospel once heard is “henceforward a perpetual element in the whole condition, character, and destiny of the hearer.” No man who has heard can be as if he had not. Though he may wish to pass on as if he had not seen Christ at all, he is not the same man as he was before, his spiritual condition is altered, possibilities have dawned upon his mind, openings into regions which are new and otherwise inaccessible; he is haunted by unsettled perplexities, doubts, anxieties, thoughts. This attitude of mind must have been very common in Christ’s own time, many persons must have shrunk from the responsibility of determining for themselves what they ought to think of Him. Many now do the same. They wish to overlook Him and pass on into life as if He were not in their path. But how foolish if He be the one foundation on whom a life can safely be built. Those who thus overlook Christ and try to pass on into life as if He were not, damage their own character because they know He is there, and until they make up their minds about Him, life a mere make-believe. It is thus they are bruised on this stone of stumbling. This bruised condition, however, is remediable.
II. The second action of the stone on the builder is described as final.—At once slain and buried, those who determinedly opposed Christ lie oppressed by that which might have been their joy. Their dwelling and refuge becomes their tomb. Every excellence of Christ they have leagued against themselves. It is their everlasting shame that they were ashamed of Him. The faithfulness, truth, and love of Christ, that is to say, the qualities whose existence is all that any saved man ever had to depend upon, the qualities in the knowledge and faith of which the weakest and most heartless sinner sets out boldly and hopefully to eternity, these all now torment with crushing remorse those who have despised them. Do not suppose this is an extravagant figure used by our Lord to awe His enemies, and that no man will ever suffer a doom which can be fairly represented in these terms. It is a statement of fact. Things are to move on eternally in fulfilment of the will of Christ. He is identified with all that is righteous, all that is wise, all that is ultimately successful. To oppose His course, to endeavour to defeat His object, to attempt to work out an eternal success apart from Him is as idle as to seek to stop the earth in its course, or to stand in the path of a stone avalanche in order to stem it.—M. Dods, D.D.
Mat_21:45-46. Understanding but not profiting.—
1. Threatenings profit not, but rather do irritate desperately wicked men, as here they desire to lay hands on Him.
2. Christ’s most malicious adversaries, though they be set for blood, yet can do no more than God will suffer them to do.
3. As long as the body of the people do favour Christ’s cause, persecutors will not vent all their designs against Christ and His followers.
4. The least good opinion of Christ will serve for some use; albeit not to the parties’ salvation, yet to the advantage of Christ’s cause, as here it served for some use, that they took Him for a prophet.—David Dickson.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain Mat 21:33-46; Mar 12:1-12; Luk 20:9-19. Matthew: “Hear another…
THE WICKED HUSBANDMAN
Mat 21:33-46; Mar 12:1-12; Luk 20:9-19. Matthew: “Hear another parable: A man who is a landlord planted a vineyard, and placed a hedge round it, and dug a wine-trough in it, and built a tower.” The dense thorn-hedge was to protect it from the intrusion of animals as well as thieves. The wine-trough was located deep down beneath the press, in order to catch the sweet juice of the delicious grapes expressed and running into it. The tower was for rest and recreation, and especially for vigilance against thieves, who might stealthily intrude into the vineyard and spoliate the fruit. It is difficult for Occidentals to conceive the paradoxical abundance of grapes produced by a Palestinian vineyard. I have seen the whole earth burdened with the great clusters of grapes, almost sweet as honey. I could not forbear making myself sick eating them. American grapes, with the exception of California, have no such flavor and sweetness. Truly, the land abounds in corn and wine.
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“He gave it out to husbandmen, and went away. But when the time of the fruits drew nigh, he sent his servants to the husbandman to receive his fruits; and the husbandmen, taking his servants, beat one, slew one, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did unto them likewise.” These servants were the prophets. Isaiah was cut in two with a cruel saw; Jeremiah, imprisoned in a deep well to starve to death; King Ahab ordered the imprisonment and starvation of the prophet Micaiah; John the Baptist, the greatest of the prophets, was beheaded by King Herod.
“And afterward he sent unto them his own son, saying, They will reverence my son. But those farmers, seeing the son, said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and take possession of his inheritance.” This is precisely what they did. The leading preachers and official laymen regarded him as a competitor, who, if successful, would deprive them of their fat offices. Consequently they conspired against him, and slew him, thus taking possession of the Church, to conduct it in their own way, and receive the emoluments of office. “Having taken him, they cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.” They actually arrested Him at midnight of the ensuing day, and on the following morning cast Him out of the city, and nailed Him to the cross on Calvary.
“Then, when the lord of the vineyard may come, what will he do to those farmers? They say to Him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and give out the vineyard to other farmers, who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.” This was literally done very quickly. God the Father has no incarnation, and is consequently invisible to mortal eyes. He actually came in those vast and formidable Roman armies, who slew a million of Jews with sword, pestilence, and famine, doubtless every one who had been guilty of the above crimes falling in the awful death-harvest that rolled over the city. Then, you see, the Church was turned over to the Gentiles — the new people becoming the cultivators of the vineyard during the time of their fidelity to the Proprietor. Otherwise, the same awful calamity awaits them. Here you see clearly that the gospel Church is not a de novo institution, but substantially identical with the Church organized in the house of Abraham, and perpetuated nearly two thousand years under the prophetical and Mosaic economy. You see that the vineyard was not destroyed, but, surviving, was given into the hands of other husbandmen; showing clearly and demonstratively that the identical Church of the patriarchs and prophets, in which Jesus lived and died, was perpetuated and given to the Gentiles. Precisely as those wicked farmers, who met the awful fate, were not the vineyard, so the carnal, self-righteous priests, elders, and Pharisees who killed the prophets and Jesus were not the Church. God has had a holy people in all ages, who have eaten the delicious grapes and drunk the sweet wine of His spiritual kingdom.
“Jesus says unto them, Have you not read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner: this was wonderful with the Lord, and was marvelous in our eves? Therefore I say unto you, that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given unto a nation bringing forth the fruit of the same. The one falling on this rock shall be dashed to pieces; and on whomsoever it may fall, it will grind him to powder. [Psa 118:22; Isa 8:14; Zec 12:3; Dan 2:34-44] And the chief priests and Pharisees hearing His parables, knew that He was speaking concerning them. And seeking to arrest Him, they were afraid of the multitudes, since they had Him as a prophet.” The impression that the Jewish people killed Jesus is a slander on them which they do not deserve. You see here, the leading preachers and Church officers were anxious to arrest Him, and were only restrained through fear of the people. Jesus was an exceedingly popular preacher with the common people, but awfully unpopular with the higher clergy and ruling elders, because they looked upon Him as an official rival, feeling satisfied that if He succeeded, deposing all of them, He would promote His friends to office. You see in the above Scriptures that Jesus is that Chief Corner-stone rejected by the builders — i.e., the Jewish officials rebut by the power of the Holy Ghost becoming the Head of the corner. All houses in that country are stone. At the corner a great, solid, and elegantly-dressed stone is laid, with both walls built on it, and thus held together: as they both rest on this one corner-stone, and consolidate the house, since the wonderfully tenacious calcareous cement of that country actually unifies the different stones of the wall into one grand conglomeration. Thus Jesus, the Chief Corner-stone of the gospel Church, not only unites Jews and Gentiles, but all sects, races, and nationalities. How momentous the awful responsibility of dealing with this Stone, since if you fall on it, you are dashed to pieces; and if it falls on you, you are ground to powder! People may be saved, if sincere and true, despite multitudes of heresies. Meanwhile heresy on the Christhood of Jesus, as here you see, is necessarily fatal. O the infinite importance of preaching Christ, as all are necessarily lost who have the misfortune, through Satanic intrigue, to assume position either antagonistical to Him or depreciative of Him. Let us take the alarm. Unitarianism is rapidly, though occultly, everywhere stealing into the Protestant Churches. It bears blight and desolation in its wake.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Mat 21:33 - Mat 21:46.
Matthew
THE VINEYARD AND ITS KEEPERS
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Mat 21:33 - Mat 21:46.
This parable was apparently spoken on the Tuesday of the Passion Week. It was a day of hand-to-hand conflict with the Jewish authorities and of exhausting toil, as the bare enumeration of its incidents shows. It included all that Matthew records between Mat 21:20 of this chapter and the end of the twenty-fifth chapter-the answer to the deputation from the Sanhedrin; the three parables occasioned by it, namely, those of the two sons, this one, and that of the marriage of the king’s son; the three answers to the traps of the Pharisees and Herodians about the tribute, of the Sadducees about the resurrection, and of the ruler about the chief commandment; Christ’s question to His questioners about the Son and Lord of David; the stern woes hurled at the unmasked hypocrites; to which must be added, from other gospels, the sweet eulogium on the widow’s mite, and the deep saying to the Greeks about the corn of wheat, with, possibly, the incident of the woman taken in adultery; and then, following all these, the solemn prophecies of the end contained in Mat 24:1 - Mat 24:51 and Mat 25:1 - Mat 25:46, spoken on the way to Bethany, as the evening shadows were falling. What a day! What a fountain of wisdom and love which poured out such streams! The pungent severity of this parable, with its transparent veil of narrative, is only appreciated by keeping clearly in view the circumstances and the listeners. They had struck at Jesus with their question as to His authority, and He parries the blow. Now it is His turn, and the sharp point goes home.
I. The first stage is the preparation of the vineyard, in which three steps are marked.
It is planted and furnished with all appliances needful for making wine, which is its great end. The direct divine origin of the religious ideas and observances of ‘Judaism’ is thus asserted by Christ. The only explanation of them is that God enclosed that bit of the wilderness, and with His own hands set growing there these exotics. Neither the theology nor the ritual is of man’s establishing. We need not seek for special meanings for wall, wine-press, and tower. They simply express the completeness of the equipment of the vineyard, as in Isaiah’s song, which lies at the foundation of the parable, and suggest his question, ‘What could have been done more?’ Thus furnished, the vineyard is next handed over to the husbandmen, who, in Matthew, are exclusively the rulers, while in Luke they are the people. No doubt it was ‘like people, like priest.’ The strange dominion of the Pharisees rested entirely on popular consent, and their temper accurately indexed that of the nation. The Sanhedrin was the chief object at which Christ aimed the parable. But it only gave form and voice to the national spirit, and ‘the people loved to have it so.’ National responsibilities are not to be slipped out of by being shifted on to the broad shoulders of governments or influential men. Who lets them be governments and influential?
‘Guv’ment ain’t to answer for it,
God will send the bill to you.’
Christ here teaches both rulers and ruled the ground and purpose of their privileges. They prided themselves on these as their own, but they were only tenants. They made their ‘boast of the law’; but they forgot that fruit was the end of the divine planting and equipment. Holiness and glad obedience were what God sought, and when He found them, He was refreshed as with ‘grapes in the wilderness.’
Having installed the husbandmen, the owner goes into another country. The cluster of miracles which inaugurate an epoch of revelation are not continued beyond its beginning. Centuries of comparative divine silence followed the planting of the vineyard. Having given us our charge, God, as it were, steps aside to leave us room to work as we will, and so to display what we are made of. He is absent in so far as conspicuous oversight and retribution are concerned. He is present to help, love, and bless. The faithful husbandman has Him always near, a joy and a strength, else no fruit would grow; but the sin and misery of the unfaithful are that they think of Him as far off.
II. Then comes the habitual ill-treatment of the messengers.
These are, of course, the prophets, whose office was not only to foretell, but to plead for obedience and trust, the fruits sought by God. The whole history of the nation is summed up in this dark picture. Generation after generation of princes, priests, and people had done the same thing. There is no more remarkable historical fact than that of the uniform hostility of the Jews to the prophets. That a nation of such a sort as always to hate and generally to murder them should have had them in long succession, throughout its history, is surely inexplicable on any naturalistic hypothesis. Such men were not the natural product of the race, nor of its circumstances, as their fate shows. How did they spring up? No ‘philosophy of Jewish history’ explains the anomaly except the one stated here,-’He sent His servants.’ We are told nowadays that the Jews had a natural genius for religion, just as the Greeks for art and thought, and the Romans for law and order, and that that explains the origin of the prophets. Does it explain their treatment?
The hostility of the husbandmen grows with indulgence. From beating they go on to killing, and stoning is a specially savage form of killing. The opposition which began, as the former parable tells us, with polite hypocrisy and lip obedience, changed, under the stimulus of prophetic appeals, to honest refusal, and from that to violence which did not hesitate to slay. The more God pleads with men, the more self-conscious and bitter becomes their hatred; and the more bitter their hatred, the more does He plead, sending other messengers, more perhaps in number, or possibly of more weight, with larger commission and clearer light. Thus both the antagonistic forces grow, and the worse men become, the louder and more beseeching is the call of God to them. That is always true; and it is also ever true that he who begins with ‘I go, sir, and goes not, is in a fair way to end with stoning the prophets.
Christ treats the whole long series of violent rejections as the acts of the same set of husbandmen. The class or nation was one, as a stream is one, though all its particles are different; and the Pharisees and scribes, who stood with frowning hatred before Him as He spoke, were the living embodiment of the spirit which had animated all the past. In so far as they inherited their taint, and repeated their conduct, the guilt of all the former generations was laid at their door. They declared themselves their predecessors’ heirs; and as they reproduced their actions, they would have to bear the accumulated weight of the consequences.
III. Mat 21:37 - Mat 21:39 tell of the mission of the Son and of its fatal issue.
Three points are prominent in them. The first is the unique position which Christ here claims, with unwonted openness and decisiveness, as apart from and far above all the prophets. They constitute one order, but He stands alone, sustaining a closer relation to God. They were faithful ‘as servants,’ but He ‘as a Son,’ or, as Mark has it, ‘the only and beloved Son.’ The listeners understood Him well enough. The assertion, which seemed audacious blasphemy to them, fitted in with all His acts in that last week, which was not only the crisis of His life, but of the nation’s fate. Rulers and people must decide whether they will own or reject their King, and they must do it with their eyes open. Jesus claimed to fill a unique position. Was He right or wrong in His claim? If He was wrong, what becomes of His wisdom, His meekness, His religion? Is a religious teacher, who made the mistake of thinking that He was the Son of God in a sense in which no other man is so, worthy of admiration? If He was right, what becomes of a Christianity which sees in Him only the foremost of the prophets?
The next point marked is the owner’s vain hope, in sending his Son. He thought that He would be welcomed, and He was disappointed. It was His last attempt. Christ knew Himself to be God’s last appeal, as He is to all men, as well as to that generation. He is the last arrow in God’s quiver. When it has shot that bolt, the resources even of divine love are exhausted, and no more can be done for the vineyard than He has done for it. We need not wonder at unfulfilled hopes being here ascribed to God. The startling thought only puts into language the great mystery which besets all His pleadings with men, which are carried on, though they often fail, and which must, therefore, in view of His foreknowledge, be regarded as carried on with the knowledge that they will fail. That is the long-suffering patience of God. The difficulty is common to the words of the parable and to the facts of God’s unwearied pleading with impenitent men. Its surface is a difficulty, its heart is an abyss of all-hoping charity.
The last point is the vain calculation of the husbandmen. Christ puts hidden motives into plain words, and reveals to these rulers what they scarcely knew of their own hearts. Did they, in their secret conclaves, look each other in the face, and confess that He was the Heir? Did He not Himself ground His prayer for their pardon on their ignorance? But their ignorance was not entire, else they had had no sin; neither was their knowledge complete, else they had had no pardon. Beneath many an obstinate denial of Him lies a secret confession, or misgiving, which more truly speaks the man than does the loud negation. And such strange contradictions are men, that the secret conviction is often the very thing which gives bitterness and eagerness to the hostility. So it was with some of those whose hidden suspicions are here set in the light. How was the rulers’ or the people’s wish to ‘seize on His inheritance’ their motive for killing Jesus? Their great sin was their desire to have their national prerogatives, and yet to give no true obedience. The ruling class clung to their privileges and forgot their responsibilities, while the people were proud of their standing as Jews, and careless of God’s service. Neither wished to be reminded of their debt to the Lord of the vineyard, and their hostility to Jesus was mainly because He would call on them for fruits. If they could get this unwelcome and persistent voice silenced, they could go on in the comfortable old fashion of lip-service and real selfishness. It is an account, in vividly parabolic language, not only of their hostility, but of that of many men who are against Him. They wish to possess life and its good, without being for ever pestered with reminders of the terms on which they hold it, and of God’s desire for their love and obedience. They have a secret feeling that Christ has the right to ask for their hearts, and so they often turn from Him angrily, and sometimes hate Him.
With what sad calmness does Jesus tell the fate of the son, so certain that it is already as good as done! It was done in their counsels, and yet He does not cease to plead, if perchance some hearts may be touched and withdraw themselves from the confederacy of murder.
IV. We have next the self-condemnation from unwilling lips.
Our Lord turns to the rulers with startling and dramatic suddenness, which may have thrown them off their guard, so that their answer leaped out before they had time to think whom it hit. His solemn earnestness laid a spell on them, which drew their own condemnation from them, though they had penetrated the thin veil of the parable, and knew full well who the husbandmen were. Nor could they refuse to answer a question about legal punishments for dishonesty, which was put to them, the fountains of law, without incurring a second time the humiliation just inflicted when He had forced them to acknowledge that they, the fountains of knowledge, did not know where John came from. So from all these motives, and perhaps from a mingling of audacity, which would brazen it out and pretend not to see the bearing of the question, they answer. Like Caiaphas in his counsel, and Pilate with his writing on the Cross, and many another, they spoke deeper things than they knew, and confessed beforehand how just the judgments were, which followed the very lines marked out by their own words.
V. Then come the solemn application and naked truth of the parable.
We have no need to dwell on the cycle of prophecies concerning the corner-stone, nor on the original application of the psalm. We must be content with remarking that our Lord, in this last portion of His address, throws away even the thin veil of parable, and speaks the sternest truth in the nakedest words. He puts His own claim in the plainest fashion, as the corner-stone on which the true kingdom of God was to be built. He brands the men who stood before Him as incompetent builders, who did not know the stone needed for their edifice when they saw it. He declares, with triumphant confidence, the futility of opposition to Himself-even though it kill Him. He is sure that God will build on Him, and that His place in the building, which shall rise through the ages, will be, to even careless eyes, the crown of the manifest wonders of God’s hand. Strange words from a Man who knew that in three days He would be crucified! Stranger still that they have come true! He is the foundation of the best part of the best men; the basis of thought, the motive for action, the pattern of life, the ground of hope, for countless individuals; and on Him stands firm the society of His Church, and is hung all the glory of His Father’s house.
Christ confirms the sentence just spoken by the rulers on themselves, but with the inversion of its clauses. All disguise is at an end. The fatal ‘you’ is pronounced. The husbandmen’s calculation had been that killing the heir would make them lords of the vineyard; the grim fact was that they cast themselves out when they cast him out. He is the heir. If we desire the inheritance, we must get it through Him, and not kill or reject, but trust and obey Him. The sentence declares the two truths, that possession of the vineyard depends on honouring the Son, and on bringing forth the fruits. The kingdom has been taken from the churches of Asia Minor, Africa, and Syria, because they bore no fruit. It is not held by us on other conditions. Who can venture to speak of the awful doom set forth in the last words here? It has two stages: one a lesser misery, which is the lot of him who stumbles against the stone, while it lies passive to be built on; one more dreadful, when it has acquired motion and comes down with irresistible impetus. To stumble at Christ, or to refuse His grace, and not to base our lives and hopes on Him is maiming and damage, in many ways, here and now. But suppose the stone endowed with motion, what can stand against it? And suppose that the Christ, who is now offered for the rock on which we may pile our hopes and never be confounded, comes to judge, will He not crush the mightiest opponent as the dust of the summer threshing-floor?
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CVIII. C. The…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [CVIII. C. The Wicked Husbandmen].
CVIII. IN REPLY TO THE QUESTIONS AS TO HIS AUTHORITY, JESUS GIVES THE THIRD GREAT GROUP OF PARABLES. (In the Court of the Temple. Tuesday, April 4, A. D. 30.) Subdivision C. PARABLE OF THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. aMATT. XXI. 33-46; bMARK XII. 1-12; cLUKE XX. 9-19.
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b1 And he began to speak unto them cthe people [not the rulers] bin parables. cthis parable: a33 Hear another parable: There was a man that was a householder [this party represents God], who planted a vineyard [this represents the Hebrew nationality], and set a hedge about it, and digged a bpit for the awinepress in it [The winepress consisted of two tub-shaped cavities dug in the rock at different levels, the upper being connected with the lower by an orifice cut through from its bottom. Grapes were placed in the upper cavity, or trough, and were trodden by foot. The juice thus squeezed from them ran through the orifice to the trough below, from which it was taken and stored in leather bottles until it fermented and formed wine], and built a tower [a place where watchmen could be stationed to protect the vineyard from thieves as the grapes ripened for the vintage], and let it out to husbandmen [the rulers are here [590] represented; and the rental was, as usual, a part of the fruits], and went into another country. cfor a long time. [Jesus frequently refers to this withdrawal of the visible presence of God from the world, always bringing out the point that the withdrawal tests faithfulness. God had come down upon Mt. Sinai, given the law and established the Hebrew nation, after which he had withdrawn. That had indeed been a long time ago; and for four hundred years before the appearance of John the Baptist, God had not even sent a messenger to demand fruit. Some think the hedge refers to the manner in which Palestine was protected by sea and desert and mountain, but the hedge and the winepress and the tower are mere parabolic drapery, for every man who planted a vineyard did all three.] a34 And when cat the season aof the fruits drew near, che sent unto the husbandmen a servant, ahis servants i. e., the prophets] cthat they should give him bthat he might receive ato receive from the husbandmen of the ahis bfruits of the vineyard. [ Luk_3:8--He expected the children of Israel to bring forth joy, love, peace, and all the other goodly fruit of a godly life. And he looked to those in authority to bring forth such results, and the prophets were sent to the rulers to encourage them to do this.] 3 And { cbut the husbandmen btook him, and beat him, and sent him away empty, 4 And again he sent unto them cyet another servant: him also they beat, bwounded in his head, and handled shamefully. cand sent him away empty. b5 And he sent cyet banother; ca third: and him also they wounded, band him they killed: cand cast him forth. band many others; beating some, and killing some. a35 And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them in like manner. [For the treatment of the prophets, see such passages as 1Ki_18:13, 1Ki_22:24-27, 2Ki_6:31, 2Ch_24:19-22, 2Ch_36:15, 2Ch_36:16. For a summary of the treatment of the prophets or messengers of God, [591] see Heb_11:35-38.] 37 But b6 He had yet one, a beloved son: aafterward bhe sent him last unto them, c13 And the lord of the vineyard said, bsaying, cWhat shall I do? [ Isa_5:4.] I will send my beloved son; it may be they will reverence him. bThey will reverence my son. [The lord of the vineyard was thoroughly perplexed. The conduct of his husbandmen was outrageous beyond all expectation. He had no better servants to send them unless his only son should take upon him the form of a servant and visit them ( Phi_2:5-8). Being tender and forgiving, and unwilling to resort to extreme measures, the lord of the vineyard resolved to thus send his son, feeling sure that the son would represent the person, authority and rights of the father so much better than any other messenger ( Heb_1:1-5, Heb_2:1-3), that it would be well-nigh impossible for the husbandmen to fail of reverence towards him. In striking contrast, however, with this expectation of the Father, the rulers, or the husbandmen, had just now harshly demanded of the Son that he tell by what authority he did anything in the vineyard.] a38 But the bthose ahusbandmen, when they saw chim athe son, cthey reasoned one with another, asaid among themselves, csaying, aThis is the heir; come, let us kill him, and take his inheritance. cthat the inheritance may be ours. band the inheritance shall be ours. [In thus bringing the story down to the immediate present, and stating a counsel which his enemies had just spoken privately in each other's ears, Jesus must have startled them greatly. He showed them, too, that those things which made them deem it necessary to kill him were the very things which proved his heirship. They regarded the Jewish nation as their property, and they were plotting to kill Jesus that they might withhold it from him ( Joh_12:19, Joh_11:47-50). That men might hope by such high-handed lawlessness to obtain a title to a vineyard seems incredible to us who have always been familiar with the even-balanced justice of constitutional government; but in the East the looseness of governments, the selfish apathy and lack [592] of public spirit among the people, and the corrupt bribe-receiving habits of the judges makes our Lord's picture even to this day, though rather exceptional, still true to life. At this point Jesus turns from history to prophecy.] 8 And they took him, c15 And they cast him forth out of the vineyard, and killed him. [After two intervening days the Jews would fulfill this detail by thrusting Jesus outside the walls of Jerusalem and crucifying him there.] a40 When therefore the lord of the vineyard shall come, what will he do unto those husbandmen? 41 They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those miserable men, and will let out the vineyard unto other husbandmen, who shall render him the fruits in their seasons. c16 [Jesus said] He will come and destroy these { bthe husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others. cAnd when they heard it, they said, God forbid. [Part of the multitude, hearing only the story, pronounced unhesitatingly the judgment which ought to be inflicted upon such evil-doers, and Jesus confirmed their judgment. But others, perceiving the meaning underlying the parable, shrank from accepting what would otherwise have been to them a very proper ending, and said, Mee genoito, which means literally, Be it not so, and which might properly be paraphrased by our emphatic "Never!" but which the revisers in translating have, with small warrant, seen fit to paraphrase by using the semi-profane expression, "God forbid." There are fourteen such mistranslations in the epistles of Paul according to the King James version and only one of them ( Gal_6:14) is corrected in the Revised version. In defense of these translations it is asserted that the phrase is an idiomatic invocation of the Deity, but the case can not be made out, since the Deity is not addressed.] 17 But he looked upon them [Thus emphasizing the fact that they had repudiated a most just decree. His look, doubtless, resembled that of a parent surprised at the outspoken rebellion of his children], and a42 Jesus saith csaid, aunto them, cWhat then is this that is written, b10 Have ye not read even this scripture: aDid ye never [593] read in the scriptures, cThe stone which the builders rejected, The same was made the head of the corner? aThis was from the Lord, And it is marvellous in our eyes? [The quotation is from Psa_118:22, Psa_118:23, which is here by Jesus applied as a prophecy to the Pharisees, who, in their treatment of him, were like unskilled builders who reject the very corner-stone of the building which they seek to erect. The Pharisees were eager enough in their desire to set up a Messianic kingdom, but were so blindly foolish that they did not see that this kingdom could not be set up unless it rested upon Christ Jesus, its corner-stone. They blundered in constructing their theory of the coming kingdom, and could find no room for one such as Jesus in it.] 43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. 44 And he { c18 Every one athat falleth on this cthat astone shall be broken to pieces: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as dust. [The stone, of course, represents Jesus, and the two fallings set forth his passive and active state. In the day when he passively submitted to be judged, those who condemned him were broken ( Mat_27:3-5, Luk_23:48, Act_2:37); but in the great day when he himself becomes the acting party and calls his enemies to judgment, they shall prefer, and pray, that a mountain fall upon them-- Rev_6:15-17.] 45 And when the chief priests and Pharisees, c19 And the scribes aheard his parables, they csought to lay hands on him in that very hour, bfor they perceived that he aspake of them. bspake the cthis parable against them. a46 And when they sought to lay hands on him, cthey feared the people: bmultitude; amultitudes, because they took him for a prophet. band they left him, and went away. [Despite the warning which Jesus gave them that they were killing the Son and would reap the consequences, and despite the fact that he showed that the Psalm which the people had used so recently with regard to him foretold a great rejection which would prove to be a [594] mistake, yet the rulers persisted in their evil intention to take his life, and were only restrained by fear of the people, many of whom were Galilæans, men of rugged courage, ready to draw swords on Jesus' behalf. Since they could neither arrest nor answer him, they withdrew as a committee, but returned again in the person of their spies.]
[FFG 590-595]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen.
The Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen.
v. 33. Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a wine-press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country.
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v. 34. And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen that they might receive the fruits of it.
v. 35. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
v. 36. Again, he sent other servants, more than the first; and they did unto them likewise.
Without giving the Jews an opportunity to remonstrate, Jesus, with great emotion, and with the deliberate intention of making them see their malice and wickedness, introduces another lesson. The picture He draws was one with which His hearers were very familiar, and He knew that they could also see the meaning at once, since the Old Testament speaks so often of the vineyard of the Church. Christ gives a detailed description of the pains taken by the ruler, the owner of the estate. See Isa 5:1-7; Psa 80:9-11. His object was to obtain not merely fruitfulness, but fruit of the very best kind. He planted a hedge round about to keep out the wild beasts that might root up and tear down the vines. He built a wine-press, where the grapes could be trodden out, and a vat, where the juice could be stored. He erected a watch-tower against thieves among man and beast. In short, he did all that could be expected of the careful owner of a vineyard. He now rented out the vineyard on shares, since he was obliged to make a long journey. But the renters were wicked. Instead of paying the share of the fruit which belonged to the lord, they despitefully entreated and even killed the servants that were sent to bring the rent to the lord. Christ purposely pictures the wickedness with dramatic intensity.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
To rebuke the religious leaders and illustrate their unbelief, Jesus tells a parable about rebellious servants. (See: Parables)
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a landowner
"a person who owned a piece of property"
a hedge
"a wall" or "a fence"
dug a winepress in it
"dug a hole in the vineyard in which to press the grapes"
rented it out to vine growers
The owner still owned the vineyard, but he allowed the vine growers to take care of it. When the grapes became ripe, they were to give some of them to the owner and keep the rest.
vine growers
These were people who knew how to take care of vines and grapes.
translationWords
parable
vineyard
winepress
watchtower
fruit
harvest
servant
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 21:33-46 In this story Jesus draws on Isa 5:1-7.…
21:33-46 In this story Jesus draws on Isa 5:1-7. The people of Israel who rejected God’s Messiah forfeited the privilege of being God’s people. The Christian community, comprised of both Jews and Gentiles, has now been called to be the people of God (cp. Rom 9:4-8; 11:1-12).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.