There is one particular line in this parable that cuts me to the quick. It is the rapid verbs and swift action against the son in verse 39. I can’t even imagine how Jesus could deliver that line and not wince or cringe at the violence coming his way. Yet he stood there and gave this lesson to people who had ears but did not hear, eyes but did not see.
This is the third of these parables I have translated. What I have below is the text followed by italicized notes on the translation. Following that, there are some comments and observations about the actual parable itself and its meaning. I do apologize as this is a rather lengthy post — but it is a lengthy parable!
A Translation with Textual Notes of Matthew 21:33-46
33. You must hear another parable. There was a man who owned an estate. He planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress, built a tower, leased it to growers then went away.
The verb ‘hear’ is imperative. That is why I have included ‘must’. If I were going completely colloquial I might translate the opening as ‘sit down and listen to another parable’.
The ‘owned’ is our old friend household despot from the parable about workers getting paid the same amount (Matthew 20:1-16, also link here).
34. He sent his servants to the growers at harvest time to take his fruit.
35. The growers seized his servants; they beat one, killed one, and stoned another.
Technically the language is ‘one they beat, one they killed, and one they stoned’ but the way Jesus sets up the phrase it is not about order or number but the random variety of it all. He is painting the growers as something like gangsters who terrorize. The only thing people can count on is their random violence. It would probably be better rendered ‘some they beat, some they killed, and some they stoned.’
36. He again sent other servants, more than the first time and they did the same thing.
Everything in me wants to add a clarifying ‘and they, the growers, did the same thing.’ But alas, I resisted that urge.
37. At last, he sent his son to them saying, ‘They will respect my son.’
38. But when the growers saw the son, they said amongst themselves, ‘Come on now, lets’ kill him and take his inheritance.’
You will forgive me adding a bit of flare to the grower’s conspiracy. The actual phrase should probably be literally rendered as ‘Here, come now!’ as if pointing at him as he walks up toward the vineyard’s gate. In my head I hear it in British English as though spoken by ruffians. But then again, I have an overactive imagination.
39. They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
The first verb, seized, is a participle, so it could be ‘seizing’ or ‘when they seized him’ but it reads better to make it aorist, simple past with the others. They seized. They threw. They killed.
Of course, in Mark’s telling of this same parable (Mark 12) the order is reversed. They kill him and then throw him out of the vineyard. And yes, that does make a difference if you’re thinking of a hermeneutic of the crucifixion.
40. Now then, when the master of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those growers?
There is a word shift here because earlier Jesus calls him that wonderful word – household despot – which I render here as landowner. We might even call him an entrepreneur of a start-up or a venture capitalist. Now, though, Jesus calls him the ‘kurios’ which is the word for lord. In the right context, it means the Lord and often refers to Jesus himself. Here it means bossman, el jefe, but is definitely designed to be nomenclature relevant to Jesus as Lord.
41. They said to him, ‘He will destroy those nasty evil people then lease the vineyard to different growers who will give him harvest in its season.’
So ‘nasty evil’ – kakous kakos – is a bit of fun. It is a double negative meant to convey these were odious, murderous, socially unacceptable people.
This is not a textual comment but a note on the response. Nothing is said about the loss of the son or of the servants for that matter. The audience Jesus shows their coldhearted and calloused condition by really only responding with a care about the harvest and investment return.
42. Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures, ‘The stone the builders rejected became the cornerstone, for this is from the Lord and it is amazing in our sight.’
The quote from Psalm 118:22-23 is directly from the Greek (LXX) Old Testament. The in some renderings, particularly the NIV, cornerstone is rendered as capstone, which is very unfortunate and confusing as these are not the same thing. The language in the Greek New Testament seems clear to me as it combines two words, ‘corner’ and ‘head’. If the language only had ‘head’ then I can see where it might be the capstone or keystone, but the deliberate use of ‘corner’ seems to rule that out.
43. This is how I say to you that the kingdom of God will be lifted from you and will be given to a people who will do the fruit of it.
Literally Jesus says the kingdom ‘will be lifted up from you’, which carries the image of a burden that is too heavy for them to carry so it is taken off their shoulders. They had failed, and therefore the ‘burden’ of bearing fruit shall be given to others. Of course, the import question is who is the ‘you’. I have some ideas, and those are below in the comments.
44. [And those who fall upon the stone will be crushed to pieces, and anyone upon whom it falls will be pulverized.]
This whole verse is in brackets because its authenticity here is in question. It is a certain authentic phrase in the Lucan account (Luke 20:18) but not all ancient manuscripts agree it should be in Matthew, and therefore may be a scribal error – a learned scribe no doubt who was familiar with the Lucan version and added it in here. Because the wording is not an exact copy of Luke, I feel like this has its own history. I tend to view it as authentic.
45. When the chief priests and the pharisees heard his parables, they knew he spoke about them.
It is plural, parables. There is a cumulative effect of these parables that Jesus delivers in the temple courts that has such an impression on the religious leaders. Any one parable could be dismissed, but the constant drumbeat from the lips of the Galilean, combined no doubt with turning over tables and chasing people around with whipcords, is what led to the events of Good Friday.
46. And even though they sought to arrest him, they feared the crowds for they held him as a prophet.
The opening of this verse is clunky, ‘and even though’ but Matthew doesn’t give a very solid transition to this thought in the text. Indeed, it feels to me like he missed a word in there somewhere, as it reads ‘And seeking him to arrest they feared the crowds’. It needs some cleaning up but the best I got is ‘even though’.
Comments and Random Thoughts
I have spent three weeks wit this parable, and I have more notes than I could ever possibly either here or in any context, really. It is quite the rabbit hole, if I may be allowed to refer to a scripture in that way, for once you go down it, you are indeed akin to Alice for every line and every word is an Wonderland of meaning and rich exposition. Nevertheless, there are a handful of things I wish to share.
First, this parable is found in the other two synoptic Gospels, Mark has it in chapter 12 and Luke has it in chapter 20. There are subtle differences in the telling of the parable, but not enough to change meaning. The biggest differences are the waves of servants sent to the vineyard’s growers and then at the end, where Luke and Matthew seemingly drag and allusion to Daniel 2 into the interpretation of exactly what the stone is doing. Most scholars favor Mark, as they always do, as being the oldest and the one upon which the others depend upon. As mentioned above, a theological difference is the difference between Matthew 21:39 and Mark 12:8 where they kill him and then throw him out of the vineyard. Matthew is obviously arranging the material to reflect the march out of Jerusalem to the place of execution on Good Friday.
Second, a lot of ink is spilled from various smart people about the world of this parable – is it a possible scenario that could actually happen or is Jesus speaking in hyperbole, as he is prone to do in parables. Let’s start with the set-up, would someone in the first century spend the kind of money and invest in a vineyard and then leave? Some say absolutely not and it is a set-up. Others say it absolutely is, and more to the point the very pharisees and scribes listening to Jesus would be the exact kind of people who this pointing to. They all would have had estates in the countryside while they themselves spent their lives in the city of Jerusalem. Jesus has their attention when he speaks of troublesome growers who don’t pay the proper percentage at harvest time. Another aspect is the grower’s actions. Are they psychotic to think that by killing the servants and then the heir the land could actually become theirs? We don’t normally think of land ownership as working that way, but if we see these growers as proto-communists who are revolting against the landed gentry of the day as a way of thumbing their nose at Rome’s empire, it suddenly becomes plausible. They have worked the land for at least four years, and see it as theirs, and reject the claim of private property and capitalism.
Third, there is no doubt the parable is Jesus’ commentary on Isaiah 5:1-7 and the Song of the Vineyard. I’ve got more on that to come, but here, let me think about the form of the exposition. Jesus starts with a clear allusion to Isaiah with the feverish set-up verbs in v. 33 — planted, put, dug, built, leased, and left. Luke doesn’t have that kind of set up in his version, but Matthew leans in hard on it. So the parable is set in the world of the Isaiah song, and then it finishes with a direct quotation from Psalm 118 and a possible allusion to Daniel 2. Now the sermon is beginning to sound a lot like a Jewish midrash, which was commentary on two or three passages but woven together in an a way to reinforce one idea. My suspicion is that Jesus’ sermon is picking up where someone else left off after the Isaiah scroll had been read publicly in the Temple.
Fourth, in the Isaiah 5 foundation story the problem was the fruit. The landowner, The Lord, is disappointed that his vineyard, Judah, had not produced good fruit. It was wild and useless rather than the good sweet grapes for wine. In Isaiah, he abandoned the vineyard and let it be overtaken and overgrown. He withdraws rain. He forgets about it, because the problem is the fruit. For Jesus, the problem is not the fruit, it is the growers. The fruit is good, so good the landowner wants it. But the growers are the problem.
And here is the problem for the modern interpreter, Jesus obviously promises that the vineyard will be given to others. Some have used this passage to promote a replacement theology or supercessionist ideas which in plain language mean the church has replaced Israel in all things – covenants and promises – and the church and only the church are the people of God. At first glance that idea seems right, but deeper reflection shows the fallacy of it, because it hinges upon texts like this, and Jesus is not saying the vineyard is replaced with another vineyard. He is saying the growers, which represent the priests, scribes, pharisees, and leaders of Israel are being rejected. Jesus is the fulfillment of so much of the promises and covenants to ancient Israel, but it strikes me as am major mis-reading of the Bible and of the gospel message to remove Israel from God’s plans. He has a plan. Not sure what it is, but he has one. I don’t view the church as a replacement, we are an addition, and that leads me to he next idea here.
Fifth, when leaders go bad, God takes action to remove them. It may take a while, and he will certainly attempt to bring them into line first, but he has no problem with removing leadership and starting over. I feel this is happening right now in our culture in the United States. Far too many churches have bad shepherds who do not believe, do not serve, do not care, and have zero interest in being transformed into the image of Christ. This is how you end up sexual abuse, manipulation, financial exploitation, and crass commercialism that sees evangelism as marketing, attendance as marketshare, and stewardship as revenue. I think God is cleaning house and it is painful, but he is removing bad leadership, and in my honest opinion (IMHO) he can’t move fast enough.
Sixth, and I will not belabor this, but the stone the builders rejected from Psalm 118 is fascinating. To start, as part of the Hallel it was something very well know by everyone who would have heard Jesus. The Hallel was recited at every major religious festival. Quoting it would be equivalent to quoting lyrics from ‘Amazing Grace’ or Casablanca. Second, Peter quotes this in Acts and in 1 Peter. My perception is this is one of several texts (along with Psalm 110, Habakkuk 2:4 and others) that were part of a list of Old Testament texts early Christians used to preach the gospel. In this parable, Jesus is the originator of this connection. Verse 44 pairs it the stone that crushes the idol in Daniel 2, which gives even more vivid imagery. Jesus is rejected by the Jewish leadership and he is the destroyer of the world systems.
Seventh, and this is the last one, I promise, although there is much more here. But this last idea is one of imagination. Textually this parable is linked to Isaiah 5, but we know the vineyard is a symbol of Israel, or Judah — the people of God. Here we see the inhabitants of the vineyard expelled. It reminds me of Eden, in which the inhabitants, the growers, rejected God and were expelled. There is a big picture issue in which any task, any vineyard, any work God gives us is to be done for him and according to his ways. When we fail to honor him or follow him, there are consequences. We all are growers who have leased things out for a little while. We own nothing. And when the Lord requires of us to provide his ‘cut’ or his ‘fruit’ of the harvest, well, now we see there is a financial stewardship aspect to this parable as well.
Eighth, okay, so one more will not hurt you. Jesus spoke this parable, referencing the stone, in the temple. Later his apostles would marvel at the stones and how beautiful the temple was (Matthew 24:1-2) and Jesus said not one stone will be left on another. It took a generation, but the words of Christ were fulfilled, and the vineyard was taken away from those leaders.
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