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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Matthew 21:33 - 21:33
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Hedged it round about (φραγμὸν αὐτῷ περιέθηκεν)
Rev., more literally, set a hedge about it; possibly of the thorny wild aloe, common in the East.
Digged a wine-press (ὤρυξεν ληνὸν)
In Isa 5:1, Isa 5:2, which this parable at once recalls, the Hebrew word rendered by the Septuagint and here digged, is hewed out, i.e., from the solid rock. “Above the road on our left are the outlines of a wine-fat, one of the most complete and best preserved in the country. Here is the upper basin where the grapes were trodden and pressed. A narrow channel cut in the rock conveyed the juice into the lower basin, where it was allowed to settle; from there it was drawn off into a third and smaller basin. There is no mistaking the purpose for which those basins were excavated in the solid rock” (Thomson, “Land and Book”).
A tower (πύργον)
For watchmen. Stanley (“Sinai and Palestine”) describes the ruins of vineyards in Judea as enclosures of loose stones, with the square gray tower at the corner of each. Allusions to these watching-places, temporary and permanent, are frequent in Scripture. Thus, “a booth in vineyard” (Isa 1:8). “The earth moveth to and fro like a hammock” (so Cheyne on Isaiah; A. V., cottage; Rev., hut), a vineyard-watchman's deserted hammock tossed to and fro by the storm (Isa 24:20). So Job speaks of a booth which the keeper of a vineyard runneth up (Job 27:18), a hut made of sticks and hung with mats, erected only for the harvest season on the field or vineyard, for the watchman who spreads his rude bed upon its high platform, and mounts guard against the robber and the beast. In Spain, where, especially in the South, the Orient has left its mark, not only upon architecture but also upon agricultural implements and methods, Archbishop Trench says that he has observed similar temporary structures erected for watch men in the vineyards. The tower alluded to in this passage would seem to have been of a more permanent character (see Stanley above), and some have thought that it was intended not only for watching, but as a storehouse for the wine and a lodging for the workmen.
Let it out (ἐξέδετο)
“There were three modes of dealing with land. According to one of these, the laborers employed received a certain portion of the fruits, say a third or a fourth of the produce. The other two modes were, either that the tenant paid a money-rent to the proprietor, or else that he agreed to give the owner a definite amount of the produce, whether the harvest had been good or bad. Such leases were given by the year or for life; sometimes the lease was even hereditary, passing from father to son. There can scarcely be a doubt that it is the latter kind of lease which is referred to in the parable: the lessees being bound to give the owner a certain amount of fruits in their season” (Edersheim, “Life and Times of Jesus”). Compare Mat 21:34, and Mar 12:2, “that he might receive of the fruits” (ἀπὸ τῶν καρπῶν).