01.24. Chapter 4. The Wicked Husbandmen

Chapter 4.
The Wicked Husbandmen Or, the Iniquity of Israel’s Leaders Exposed and Their Doom Declared. In continuance of His prophetic discourse, Jesus addressed to His captious hearers another parable of judgment, saying:

Hear another parable: There was a man, a householder, who planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and dug in it a winepress, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went abroad. And when the fruit season drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen to receive its fruits.[1] And the husbandmen took his servants and beat one, and killed another, and stoned (to death) another. Again he sent other servants more than the first,[2] and they did unto them likewise. But afterwards he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But the husbandmen, when they saw the son, said among themselves; This is the heir; come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance. And laying hold of him, they cast him out of the vineyard and slew him. When therefore the lord of the vineyard shall have come, what will he do to those husbandmen? They say unto Him, He will miserably destroy those miserable men,[3] The play of words in the Greek has been variously done into English by commentators. The attempt of the R. V. adopted above is good enough. and will let out the vineyard to other husbandmen who shall render him the fruits in their seasons.—Mat 21:33-41 (Mark 12:1-9; Luk 20:9-17).

[1] Or his, the αὐτοῦ may refer either to the vineyard or to the owner.

[2] πλείονας might refer to quality as well as to number, and is so understood by some. Vide Exposition.

[3] Κακοὺς κακῶς ἀπολέσει. The abrupt, imperative manner in which the parable is introduced betrays the emotion of the Speaker. He is aware what deep offence the words last spoken have given, and proceeds to reveal His knowledge by foreshadowing His own fate. He is aware also that insincerity never stands alone, that when pressed by moral earnestness to cease trifling and become real it resents the demand as an impertinence; and He proceeds with stern resolution, and at all hazards, to show the triflers the truculent side of their character. Yet again He regards the inquiry concerning His authority as a mere affectation, one more manifestation of the Pharisaic vice of insincerity; and He proceeds to show how little His interrogators and their predecessors cared for authority insisting in God’s name on anything being done which they did not feel inclined to do. The parable rises to the sublime height of that sacred passion of prophetic indignation which animated the soul of Jesus during the days immediately preceding His crucifixion. It is by no means a pleasant parable to read, the tragic history to which it relates appearing too clearly through the parabolic veil. But the fault is not the Speaker’s, it is that of those whose conduct and doom He describes. It may be a question whether the parabolic form is of much use in such a case; whether when it comes to speaking so plainly as is done here, it were not better to speak more plainly still, and to describe in undisguised, unfigurative terms the repulsive facts of the past, and the not less repulsive events about to happen; as Stephen did in after days, whose speech before the Sanhedrim, as has been remarked, is but the commentary and development of the parable before us.[1] One unavoidable result of the adoption of the parabolic form is improbability in the fictitious narrative; for who ever heard of husbandmen, even in the worst governed countries, behaving as these vinedressers? The parable is true to Israel’s history, but it is not true to natural probability; and for the reason stated in connection with the parable of the Great Supper, to which the same observation applies, viz. that the conduct animadverted on is itself thoroughly unnatural. But why speak in parables when by the nature of the case probability is excluded? Is it that men whose self-complacency will prevent them from seeing the drift of the story may be led on to condemn themselves? We can hardly lay much stress on that, especially when we consider that in the narratives of Mark and Luke the answer to the question, What shall be done to these men? is not ascribed to the audience.[2] Or is it that the Speaker shrinks from referring to Himself without disguise as the Son of God? There is more force in this consideration, for such delicacy and reserve was characteristic of the Son of man, and suitable to the state of humiliation. But perhaps the true explanation is that in this instance Jesus did not so much invent a new parable as use an old one whose words were familiar to Jewish ears, and its meaning generally understood—that, viz., contained in Isaiah’s song of the vineyard.[3] At most, 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 vinedressers were, and who the servants sent for the fruits. These phrases belonged to the established religious dialect of Israel as much as the words pastor, flock, lambs of the flock, Zion, &c., do to ours, used by us all without consciousness that we are speaking in figures. In adopting this form of presentation, therefore, Jesus was not so much speaking in parables as using the recognised authority of written prophecy against His opponents, a most appropriate procedure when the question at issue respected His personal authority. It was saying in effect, Let me take Isaiah’s familiar parable of the vineyard and expand it a little that I may show you how it stands with you as regards this matter of authority, that we may see whether ye have as much respect for the ascertained will of God as ye pretend, so that ye should be sure to submit to Me if only ye were satisfied that I was an accredited messenger of God.

[1] Sabatier, ’L’Apôtre Paul.’

[2] Mark 12:9; Luk 20:16.

[3] Isa 5:1. The parable, it will be observed, does more than show what amount of respect the parties to whom it was addressed had for prophetic authority. It shows that disregard for authority going counter to inclination had been a characteristic of Israel’s leaders and representative men all through her history. This does not indeed appear from the mere structure of the parable, for the events described might all fall within the compass of a single fruit season, the servants being sent one after another to demand the produce due in one and the same year, for anything that is said to the contrary; though the number of messengers sent seems hardly compatible with the brief period of a single fruit season, and suggests as the more natural hypothesis a succession of seasons, when the demand for fruit was renewed as the time came round. But the self-evident interpretation of the parable as referring to the prophets under the servants, makes it certain that the intention of the Speaker was to characterise the behaviour of Israel throughout her long history towards God’s messengers. And this broadening of the charge of iniquitous dealing so as to include the misbehaviour of the past, was well fitted to serve Christ’s purpose to bring home such a charge to the consciences of His hearers. It raised a strong presumption against these hypocritical inquirers after His authority to show that they belonged to a race whose habit it had all along been to treat authority with contempt, except when it chimed in with their own wishes. In the parable of the Children in the Market-place Jesus had spoken of this generation. He now speaks of all the generations of Israel’s headmen as one generation morally, with rebellion in its blood, the original sin transmitted from sire to son. The fact as to the past representatives of this moral generation was indubitable, and the onus probandi lay on the present representatives to show that they were free from;the taint. The likelihood was all the other way, viz. that they would consummate the iniquity of their fathers by committing a greater offence of the kind denounced than any previously committed, and so, filling up the measure of their sin, serve themselves heir to their guilt, and bear its bitter penalty. That this would be the actual fact it is the aim of the latter part of the parable to declare, the reference being to the approaching crucifixion of Jesus, the Christ, and the Son of God, and the subsequent ruin which overtook the Jewish nation. A very noticeable feature in the parable is the dark picture it presents of the behaviour of the vinedressers towards the servants sent to demand the fruit. The most violent acts are selected as typical. One is flayed by stripes, another is slain, by the sword, a third is put to death by stoning[1]—the three instances forming an ascending series of atrocities. So in Matthew’s version, and similarly in Mark and Luke, the conduct of the criminals advances from bad to worse, though the stages are not so distinctly marked.[2] In this description Christ’s audience would not recognise their own likeness; for as yet they had been guilty of nothing so truculent, though they were on the point of committing even greater atrocities. They had not treated the ’servant’ of their time, John the Baptist, in so barbarous a fashion. He had indeed been beheaded, but not by them. All they had done was to look on him as a madman, and so excuse themselves for disregarding his summons to repentance. The triflers had not found John’s ministry sufficiently provoking or formidable to carry their opposition beyond depreciatory speech and cold neglect The implied allegation of the parable is that they would have gone greater lengths had they been forced to it by circumstances. The direct assertion is that their predecessors had gone greater lengths; had actually beaten, insulted, and killed their prophets. They had also committed offences of a less aggravated character. They too had manifested their hostility to the prophetic order under the minor forms of evil speaking, mockery, and ridicule. The drunkards of Ephraim mocked Isaiah’s reiterated warnings and expostulations by comparing him to a teacher of children, with his everlasting tsav-la-tsav, tsav-la-tsav, kav-la-kav, kav-la-kav.[3] But they had often shown themselves capable of worse things than banter and blasphemy; even of down-right brutality, as in the case of Zechariah stoned to death in the court of the house of the Lord.[4] And acts of this more aggravated character are singled out for mention to show what the spirit of religious insincerity tends to and culminates in. This is what ultimately comes of that temper which begins by saying politely, "I go, sir," and not going. Press insincerity a little, and the politeness gives place to rudeness; press it still more, and rudeness in word gives place to rudeness in act; press it still further, and minor indignities, such as smiting with the hand, spitting, pulling off the hair, give place to more serious forms of violence, such as the inflicting of wounds with lethal weapons; press it yet further, and violence culminates in murder. Behold the polite but false-hearted gentleman, transformed by degrees into a ruffian. Who could have believed it? yet how natural it all is. "Is thy servant a dog?" asked Hazael of the prophet, quite sincerely possibly, and yet he did all the atrocious acts specified. History supplies ample material for illustrating the strange transformation, and proving the humbling truth that refinement and savagery do not lie far apart in human nature. The most startling example is supplied in the case of the very men to whom this parable was addressed. In their ordinary relations with their fellow-men, the religious heads of Israel were, without doubt, courteous and gentle, pleasant, if not sincere, in speech, and duly attentive to all social proprieties. Yet these same men were responsible for all the indignities, iniquities, and brutalities of the crucifixion and its accompaniments.

[1] Vide Lightfoot, ’Horæ Hebraicæ.’

[2] Especially is this true of Luke, whose version is somewhat toned down throughout.

[3] Isa 28:10. Vide remarks on this passage at p. 23.

[4] 2Ch 24:21.

Another significant feature in the parable is the particularity with which the details connected with the construction of the vineyard are specified. For the general purpose of the story it might have been enough to have said, A certain householder planted a vineyard, and let it out to husbandmen. The introduction of the processes of hedging, digging a winepress, hewing out a place for a vat,[1] and building a tower, is not a mere affair of word-painting for picturesque effect; considering the circumstances and the mood of the Speaker, such merely literary play was very unlikely. The design is to signalise the contrast between the spirit of the owner and that of the men to whom the vineyard was entrusted. The owner has an eye to fruit; the details depicting the construction of the vineyard all point towards fruit as the chief end, and they are enumerated for no other reason. There is a hedge that the vines may not be spoiled by wild beasts; a press and vat that the grapes may be squeezed and the juice preserved; a tower that the ripe fruit may not be stolen. The didactic significance of these particulars is not, as in the original form of the allegory in Isaiah, that all has been done that could be done for the vineyard, so as to make the owner free from blame, but that all has been done with one object in view, viz. the production of fruit. In keeping with this emphasising of fruitfulness as the reason of the existence of the vineyard fully equipped for the purpose, is the reiterated persistent demand for the fruit when the season came round, as also the intimation of the owner’s purpose, on conclusively ascertaining that no fruit was to be forthcoming, to entrust his vineyard to other husbandmen, who should render the fruits in their seasons.[2] On the other hand, what was the temper of the vinedressers? Was it that of men who wished to keep the fruit to themselves instead of giving it to the owner? No; but rather that of men who never thought of fruit, but only of the honour and privilege of being entrusted with the keeping of the vineyard. They were triflers—men utterly devoid of earnestness, and the practical purpose of the property committed to their charge they habitually forgot. The hedge and the press and the tower might as well not have been there. When the servants came for the fruit they were simply surprised. "Fruit, did you say? we have occupied the position of vinedressers, and duly drawn our wages; what more do you want?" Such was the actual fact in regard to the spiritual heads of Israel. They had been entrusted with a valuable institution; an elect nation furnished with good laws, and meant to be a holy nation, a people to God’s praise. And speaking generally they had lost sight of the end of Israel’s calling, and had made no use of the means provided for its attainment. They had occupied their position for their own glory; taken pay and done no work. They had neglected the vineyard, so that it brought forth no grapes, or at least only wild grapes. In a word, they had committed the sin to which privileged classes have ever been prone, that of thinking only of privilege and forgetting duty. All through Israel’s history her spiritual guides, priests, scribes, and elders, not to speak of her princes, had been saying, "I go, sir," without going, professing to keep a vineyard which they did not keep.[3]

[1] Mark speaks of a ὑπολήνιον, which signifies the vat for receiving the juice running into it from the press above.

[2] In the following similitude of the Rejected Stone, these ’others’ are called a ’nation,’ which seems to point to the rejection of Israel, and the call of the Gentiles; the nation being the true, spiritual Israel of God in every land. (So Olshausen.) Keim (’Jesu von Nazara,’ iii. 119) thinks that a reference to the Gentiles is not in keeping with the scope of the parable which animadverts on the sin, not of Israel, but of her rulers; and that the ’others’ are Messiah’s faithful followers in Israel.

[3] The view above given excludes the idea that the vinedressers were engaged on the metayer system of paying rent with part of the produce. On our view there was no produce. The sin of the husbandmen was not dishonesty, but neglect

Nothing is more remarkable in the history of Israel than the constant co-existence within her pale of two entirely opposite classes of men—that of the moral triflers, too numerously represented among those exercising official influence, and that of the men of consuming zeal for righteousness, that is, the prophets. It is strange indeed that a people so prone to baseness should have so many noble men, who made it their duty to remonstrate with it for its baseness, and summon it to a better life. The parable accentuates this fact in order to show the enormity of Israel’s guilt and the justness of her doom. In the versions of Matthew and Mark the multitude of servants sent is very expressly alluded to. After stating, by way of sample, how these were treated, the first Evangelist adds, "Again he sent other servants, more than the first." Mark in like manner uses the significant phrase, "and many others." Luke’s version is defective at this point, making mention only of three, and giving no hints that more were sent. There can be no doubt as to which account is most in keeping with the didactic drift of the parable. It has been suggested that the expression πλείονας in Matthew refers not to number but to quality, and that the purpose is to set forth an enhancement of Israel’s guilt, by exhibiting her as treating with indignity a higher order of prophets sent subsequently to those first spoken of. On this view the parable would specify three stages or degrees of criminality: first, evil treatment of a certain number of servants; second, similar treatment of servants of higher grade; third, the same misconduct towards one who was not a servant, but a son. Now, it is perfectly true that the word πλείονας might mean, not more in the numerical sense, but more respectable, of higher rank. Nor is the objection to this view insuperable that no such distinction as is implied existed between the earlier and later Old Testament prophets,[2] for the reference might be to John the Baptist,[1] or even to John and Jesus together; for the latter, though referred to as the son, might also be referred to as one of the prophets, and on a level with John, as in the earlier parable of the Children in the Marketplace. The contemporaries of Jesus sinned against Him as a prophet, as well as in His higher capacity as the Messiah, and they committed the one offence earlier than the other. But the interpretation in question, nevertheless, is not to be approved. It is uncertain at the best, and it is not required by the didactic drift of the parable. To aggravate Israel’s guilt, it was enough to refer to the number of her prophets without insisting on any distinction between them as to rank or importance, which, though real, might not be apparent to the parties concerned; as indeed, if John, or even Jesus, be referred to, it was not, for their contemporaries did not see in them greater prophets than Elijah, or Isaiah, or Jeremiah. They thought they paid them very great respect in putting them on a level with the great prophets of the olden time.

[1] So Goebel, who, like Bengel, Campbell, &c., takes πλείονας as an adjective of quality.

[2] So Morrison. The last point in the parable is the mission of the son, in connection with which the guilt of the vinedressers reaches its highest measure. In the narratives of Mark and Luke the value set upon this son by the owner, his father, is emphasised. Luke represents the father as calling him ’beloved’; Mark adds that he was an only son. These particulars are not added to enhance the criminality of the occupants of the vineyard, but to show the intensity of the owner’s desire for fruit. He has found by many experiments that the tenants are utterly regardless of his claims, but before arriving at the conclusion that to bring them to their senses is hopeless, he resolves to try once more, in the most effective way possible, by the mission of his son. He is aware of the risk run; for the probability is that the men who have habitually treated his messengers with disrespect will not be restrained by any feeling of reverence from repeating their misbehaviour towards his son, and in case they do, his sorrow will be great for the loss of a beloved and only son. Nevertheless, there is a possibility, and he will run the risk, so anxious is he to bring them to reason. But the result, as was to be expected, is unhappy. The mission of the son only brings a new opportunity of outrage, and a temptation to more audacious and complete acts of rebellion than any hitherto perpetrated. Seeing this last messenger, and discovering somehow that he is not a servant but a son, the vinedressers say to each other, "This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and seize his inheritance;" and forthwith proceed to carry the nefarious scheme into effect, casting him out of the vineyard as a place he had no right to enter, and putting him ruthlessly to death.[1] Their calculation is that they will be no longer troubled with messages about fruit; they will now enjoy their position without molestation, and be practically not tenants, but landlords. Their presumption is based upon long experience of impunity in connection with their habitual insubordination. They make the natural and common mistake of imagining that because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily it will never be executed at all; and so their heart is fully set in them to do evil.[2] But the truth is that they have only exhausted the patience of their employer, and his resources for bringing them to repentance, and filled up the measure of their iniquity by committing an unpardonable offence; and in accordance with the laws by which the moral order of the world is regulated, condign punishment must speedily overtake them. This, accordingly, is what is announced in the closing sentence of the parable, in which it is declared that he who has sent so many messengers will at length come himself, and inflict on the criminals a punishment closely answering to their offence—consisting in their ejection from the vineyard which they thought to make their own, and their utter destruction.

[1] In Mark the act of murder precedes the casting out.

[2] Ecc 8:11. The representation is in accordance with the facts of Israel’s subsequent history, however improbable it may appear in the parable. Certainly it does strike one as strange that the owner of a vineyard should act as represented—coming to judge and visit with doom unfaithful servants, acts which seem appropriate not to a landowner, but to a king. On this account this part of the parable has been regarded as an allegorising addition by the evangelists.[1] But if we are to be guided by such considerations then the authenticity of the whole parable must be called in question. For everything in it is improbable: the behaviour of the vinedressers, the long patience of the owner under a series of unparalleled outrages, not less than the ultimate judicial rigour with which the offenders are visited by the same person, he being merely a landowner and not a king. Throughout, the natural probabilities of the story are sacrificed to the requirements of its moral interpretation.

[1] So Weiss, ’Das Markus-Evangelium.’ The account given in the parable of the mission of the son has an important bearing on two topics, viz. the personal self-consciousness of Christ, and the knowledge possessed by the Jews of His peculiar claims. The son is described as the only and well-beloved son of his father, and it is natural to suppose that as that son represents the Speaker, He claims for Himself all that he ascribes to the former. In that case this text must be associated with the remarkable one in the eleventh chapter of Matthew as vindicating for Jesus a unique position in relation to God. The vinedressers are represented as knowing the son and heir. Is it implied that the men to whom the parable is addressed knew the Speaker to be the Christ, the Son of the living God? In that case Jesus virtually charges them with being on the point of putting to death one whom they admitted to be Divine, or at least invested with Messianic dignity. But probably all that is strictly implied is that they might have known who the Speaker was, and would have known had their hearts been pure. In asking Him as to His authority they affected not to know who He was, and perhaps it was not a mere affectation, for prejudice and passion had blinded their eyes. But they were not on that account without blame, for they had resisted evidence and crushed down rising conviction. Had they been sincere and single-minded, their hearts would have yielded to the force of truth, and hailed Jesus as their king. They were not, therefore, sinning in ignorance simply against the Son of man, they were sinning against light, and dangerously near the mortal sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Hence the severity of tone in the sentences appended to our parable concerning the Rejected Stone, which might be regarded as forming another parable. Availing Himself of a well-known text in a psalm, Jesus happily describes His own fortunes and those of His hearers in terms borrowed from the art of house-building. The men who have just been compared to vinedressers now become builders, and the heir cast out of the vineyard and murdered is now a stone thrown aside as useless. But the new figure enables the Speaker to give a glimpse of what is to happen to Himself after evil men have wrought their worst. The text from the psalm declares that the stone which the builders refused is to become the head of the corner. The reference is to despised Israel, restored to her former glory, by God’s grace, a marvel to all beholders. But Jesus, appropriating the prophecy to Himself, thereby intimates to His hearers that in killing Him they will not be done with Him: He will be raised to a place of power, an object of admiration to friends, a source of dismay to foes. Woe, then to the builders who had scornfully rejected Him. Then their case would not be that of men stumbling against a stone, as many had done in ignorance, sinning against the Son of man to their hurt and loss, but not unpardonably. It would be that of men on whom a great stone falls, descending in judgment to grind them to powder.