That is the only correct title IMHO for Matthew 20:1-16. Most Bibles are wrong, because they title it ‘The Workers (Laborers) in the Vineyard’ but I think that misses the point. The lesson is not about the workers or their work. It is about the payment.

In September (September 20th, to be exact) I am dipping into the Revised Common Lectionary for my preaching texts because they include some delicious parables Jesus told from Matthew’s gospel. I don’t follow the lectionary often, and when I do it is usually only during holidays or the occasional one-off. But this fall I am following that old-fashioned tool because the subject material is exciting. I have begun translating these texts from the Greek New Testament as part of my daily devotions so as to let the parables work on my own heart long before I start thinking of them as sermon source material.

I share with you now my translation of Matthew 20:1-16 along with some translation notes after each verse. At the conclusion, I will make a couple of observations about the parable, but not many. You’ll have to come to worship service on September 20, 2026 to hear all my thoughts.

Matthew 20:1-16 With Textual Notes of Dubious Quality

1. For the kingdom of God is like a man who went out early in the morning to hire day-laborers for the vineyard he owned. 

It doesn’t say what time exactly, but the flow of the text feels like it was 6AM, because the time comes in three hour increments.

The word for vineyard owner is a fun word oikodespote – household despot! We once had a dog for whom this title would have been appropriate.

2. After negotiating with the workers to $200 for the day’s work, he sent them out to his vineyard. 

This was the biggest translation issue – what to do with the wages. In the story Jesus says ‘a denarius’ which is loosely equivalent to one day’s wages. We have no such coinage unless I were to use ‘one Bitcoin’. The problem with that is one Bitcoin is far too much for one days labor, and these wages are not meant to be understood as a lot of money. The man in the story agreed to pay normal rates for employment – not being too generous and also not being exploitative. I chose to think of $20 an hour for ten or eleven hours of work. In truth, the amount doesn’t matter, because the story is about how all get the same amount, regardless of what that is. 

3. When he went out again, around nine in the morning, he saw other workers in the marketplace without jobs. 

The word here, and again in verse 6 means ‘idle’, but I chose to emphasize work opportunity because idle, although I use it later in verse 6, has a negative connotation of laziness. These workers are not lazy, they just don’t have a job.  

4. He said to them, ‘Come on out into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is fair.’ 

The word for fair means ‘right’ and in the same word-family as righteousness. Nothing is negotiated and no set amount is promised, only that the salary will be fair to the worker.

5. So, those workers also went out to the vineyard. Then, he went out again around noon, and at three in the afternoon doing the same thing.

There is a lot of movement in this verse. The workers go in groups to the vineyard while the vineyard owner keeps going out into town to find more workers. 

6. Around five in the evening he went out and found other workers. He asked them, ‘Why have you stood here idle all day long?’

There is that word, ‘idle’, again. I use it here because it is possible the vineyard owner is accusing them of not being proactive in looking for work. In other words, maybe he is shaking his head as he asks, ‘Why are you still standing here and not working somewhere?’

7. They said to him, ‘No one hired us.’ Then he said to them, ‘Go out into the vineyard.’

With this recruitment there is a ‘go’ command. Those of us who have read the New Testament a time or two hear the phrase ‘go out’ with a different understanding than day laborers.

8. Now, when early evening came, this owner called his manager and said, ‘Pay the workers their wages; go from first to last.’ 

This is the first time we’ve seen the manager, who apparently is responsible for payroll. The fascinating bit here is the order to pay the last first. It is against common practice, and it also guarantees that those who were first will see how much those who are last receive. The landowner is guaranteeing the squabble that is coming. 

9. Those who started at five o’clock received $200. 

From the text, the settling of accounts seems like it is taking place at 6PM, so these workers have indeed worked an hour or less. 

10. Those who had come to work first assumed they would get more, but they received the same $200 as the others. 

Jesus drops into the mind of the workers and for the first time he tells us what they were thinking. The entire story up to this point has focused on the thinking and motivation of the vineyard owner. 

11. They took it, but complained to the vineyard owner,

            Verses 11 and 12 really should be one verse. I don’t know why they are separated.           

12. saying, ‘You gave those who started last, those who only worked an hour, the same you did to those of us who carried the burden all day in the heat!’

It was tempting to render their whining as ‘we worked like dogs all day in the scorching sun’ because that is the feeling in the words. The vocabulary emphasizes the weight of their work, carrying around heavy things and that they did this in the heat. The point of their argument is those who came later did not suffer the heat nor the burden. They probably just had clean-up duty. 

13. He answered one of them, ‘My friend, I have done no injustice to you. Did you not agree to $200 a day?

He didn’t answer all of them – he only answered one of them, probably the most vocal, the one who may have been the union rep. The word injustice is that same word, with a negation prefix as I translated ‘fair’ earlier. I could have rendered it, ‘I have not been unfair to you,’ however I think ‘injustice’ carries more pop.

14. ‘Take what is yours and leave. I want to give the same to the last as to the first.

What I can’t decide is if the ‘take what is yours and leave’ is only about this particular evening or is the vineyard owner parting ways forever with this batch of workers saying, ‘I will never hire you again, you little complainer who can’t mind his own business.’ 

15. ‘Is it not legal for me to do what I want with what is mine? Or is it evil in your eye that I am good?’

Legal here is lawful. It is certainly lawful for in this time period workers had zero protection in their workplace. Yet, it also has a moral feel to it in that the vineyard owner has done nothing wrong to anyone. 

‘Is it evil in your eye’ is often rendered as ‘envious’ or ‘greedy’ because the phrase is seen as an idiom of sorts. Maybe. I am not really buying that. I think Jesus is calling out the complainers worldview that wants ‘fairness’ rather than ‘grace’. This story is about the divine mercy and the grace of not being fair. 

16. In this way, those who are last will be first and those who are first will be last.’  

Now the challenge is this: what to do with this one verse proverb at the end? I feel like Jesus did not say it at the end of this parable. I think Matthew wrote it describing his understanding of what Jesus was teaching. Don’t be lulled to sleep by red-letter editions. Note that the same sentiment is repeated right before the parable begins in 19:30 to summarize what is often called The Rich Young Ruler.

Stray Thoughts On Payments Parable

My first thought is we must resist the urge to read into this parable anything close to what might have been actual labor practices in the first century. This is clearly a set up that begins with normal activity that then becomes absurd on purpose to prove a point. And this parable is absurd. No one who hires people on a regular basis would ever engage in this kind of behavior because it would reward laziness and create bitterness.

That leads me to the second stray thought which is the Kingdom of God is not fair. It is also not equal. It is good that it is not fair, because if I got what was fair then I would be much poorer, spiritually, physically, emotionally, and in all the ways that matter than I am. If the kingdom of God was equal, we would be bereft of the beauty of diversity. Sameness is bland banal tool of the devil and evil.

One more stray thought, and it pointed at my heart: why do we all want to be first when the kingdom emphasizes the last? I need to work at being the last one in line more often. Curiously, the ‘last’ business applies to both groups at various points in the narrative. The ‘last to come’ are blessed by receiving the same wages, while the ‘last to get paid’ have access to a deeper blessing if they are willing, the blessing of hard work and to hear, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant’ (Matthew 25:21).