Tuesday, Parable of the Tenants

Jesus and His disciples were in Jerusalem in the temple courts, and Jesus was teaching the people. Jesus was still speaking with the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people (the elders being the Sanhedrin; the Jewish council). And Jesus had just told them the parable of the two sons.

Jesus told them another parable and the details may have reminded the listeners of a similar story spoken by the prophet Isaiah.

Jesus said, “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, he dug a winepress and vat, and he built a watchtower. Then he rented it out to some tenants and went away on a journey. And he was gone for a long time.

“When harvest time drew near, the landowner sent a servant to the tenants to collect his share of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants seized the servant, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed.

“So, the landowner sent another servant, but the tenants struck him over his head, beat him, treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed.

“The landowner sent a third servant, and the tenants killed that one.

“The landowner sent many other servants, but the tenants did the same to them. Some servants they beat and other servants they killed.

“‘What will I do?’ asked the landowner. Then he thought, ‘I will send my son, whom I love. Perhaps they will respect my son.’

“But when the tenants saw the son coming, they discussed it among themselves and said, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him and take his inheritance. So, the tenants seized the son, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

“Therefore,” Jesus asked, “when the owner of the vineyard returns, what will he do to those tenants?”

“He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and will rent out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his share of the fruit at harvest time.”

And when the people heard this, they said, “May such a thing never happen!”

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

“Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Everyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but the one on whom it falls will be crushed.”

When the chief priests and Pharisees heard these parables of Jesus, they knew that He was speaking against them. And they sought to arrest Jesus, but instead, they left because they were afraid of all the people, who regarded Jesus as a prophet.

See Matthew 21:33-46; Mark 12:1-12; Luke 20:9-18; Isaiah 5; Psalm 118:22–23

Notes:

1. “a winepress”: A device for pressing grapes that also included a vat to hold the juice.

2. The tenant arrangement was similar to that described in Song of Solomon 8:11.

3. The treatment of the servants by the tenants, and the number of servants sent by the landowner, differ slightly between the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But the point of this section of the story is to demonstrate that the tenants had no respect for the landowner or his representatives.