The Wicked Tenants
33 “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. 34 When the season for the fruit came near, he sent his servants to the farmers to receive his fruit. 35 The farmers took his servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again, he sent other servants more than the first; and they treated them the same way. 37 But afterward he sent to them his son, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But the farmers, when they saw the son, said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and seize his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard, then killed him. 40 When therefore the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?” 41 They told him, “He will miserably destroy those miserable men, and will lease out the vineyard to other farmers who will give him the fruit in its season.” 42 Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected was made the head of the corner. This was from the Lord. It is marvelous in our eyes’? 43 “Therefore I tell you, God’s Kingdom will be taken away from you and will be given to a nation producing its fruit. 44 He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it will fall, it will scatter him as dust.” 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he spoke about them. 46 When they sought to seize him, they feared the multitudes, because they considered him to be a prophet.
Tenants beat the servants and kill the heir — and the men listening pronounce the sentence themselves before they see who it is on.
“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.
The opening is a quotation before it is a story. Isaiah's song of the vineyard has the same planting, the same hedge, the same press and tower, and every hearer knew how that song ended: the vineyard of Yahweh of Armies is the house of Israel Isaiah 5:1–7. The audience knows what the vineyard is from the first sentence.
What is changed is the target. In Isaiah the vines themselves are at fault; here the vineyard is fine and the tenants are the problem. This is not a parable against a people. It is a parable against a management.
The parable is told in the earlier account Mark 12:1–27. The sending of servants, beaten and killed in waves, is the history of the prophets stated as a business dispute — and it is Israel's own record of it 2 Chronicles 36:15–16 Matthew 23:37.
But afterward he sent to them his son, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’
The owner's reasoning is either naive or something else, and the story does not explain it. What it does is put the son in a different category from every servant sent before.
But the farmers, when they saw the son, said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and seize his inheritance.’
The tenants' logic is the strange part: killing the heir does not transfer the deed. It only makes sense as the reasoning of people who have stopped believing the owner will ever come back — which is what all long tenancy does to a tenant who wants to be an owner.
"When therefore the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?" Matthew 21:40. The question is put to the chief priests, and they answer it without hesitation and without recognizing themselves. "He will miserably destroy those miserable men, and will lease out the vineyard to other farmers" Matthew 21:41. They have passed the sentence, which is what Nathan did to David with a story about a lamb 2 Samuel 12:5–7.
"The stone which the builders rejected was made the head of the corner" Matthew 21:42 Psalms 118:22. The quotation comes from the same psalm the crowd sang at the gate two days earlier, and it changes the picture from tenants to builders — men whose profession is judging materials, who examined this stone and threw it on the pile.
“Therefore I tell you, God’s Kingdom will be taken away from you and will be given to a nation producing its fruit.
This verse is Matthew's, and the criterion in it is worth reading exactly. What transfers is a stewardship, and it transfers on the basis of fruit — the same test the fig tree failed the previous morning. Nothing here makes any group's tenure unconditional; a management that produces nothing loses the vineyard, and that is the standing rule the sentence states.
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he spoke about them.
They understood, which is worse than not understanding, and their response is to look for a way to arrest him — proving the parable true in the act of resenting it.
settled What this mark means