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Mat_20:16. The teaching of the parable: So,—just, as in the case here supposed, those who were the last to be sent into the vineyard received the same amount of wages as the first; so in the Messiah’s kingdom, the last will be on the same footing as the first, and the first as the last, without a longer period of service giving an advantage, or a shorter putting to a disadvantage. Comp. Mat_19:30.
ἔσονται ] that is, practically, as far as the reward they are to receive is concerned. The first will be last, inasmuch as the former receive no more than the latter (in answer to de Wette’s objection, as though, from the expression here used, we would require to suppose that they will receive less than a denarius). There is nothing whatever in the text about the exclusion of the πρῶτοι from the kingdom, and the admission of the ἔσχατοι (Krehl in the Sächs. Stud. 1843); and as little to favour the view, adopted by Steffensen: those who esteem themselves last shall be first, and those who esteem themselves first shall be last, for the labourers in the parable were in reality ἔσχατοι and πρῶτοι . The proposition: “that, in dispensing the blessings of the kingdom of heaven, God takes no account of human merit, but that all is the result of His own free grace” (Rupprecht, Bleek, Holtzmann, Keim), does not constitute the leading thought set forth in the parable, though, no doubt, it may be supposed to underlie it.
πολλοὶ γὰρ , κ . τ . λ .] Confirmation of what has just been said about the ἔσχατοι being put upon an equality with the πρῶτοι : “for although many are called to share in the future recompense for services rendered to the Messiah’s kingdom, yet those chosen to receive rewards of a pre-eminent and peculiarly distinguished character in that kingdom are but few.” These ἐκλεκτοί are not the ἔσχατοι (those, as Olshausen fancies, whose attitude toward the kingdom is of a more spontaneous nature, and who render their services from hearty inclination and love), but those who are selected from the multitude of the κλητοί . We are taught in the parable what it is that God chooses them for, namely, to be rewarded in an extraordinary degree (to receive more than the denarius). The train of thought, then, is simply this: It is not without reason that I say: καὶ οἱ πρῶτοι ἔσχατοι , for, from this equalizing of the first with the last, only a few will be excepted,—namely, those whom God has selected for this from among the mass of the called. Thus the parable concludes, and that very appropriately, with language which, no doubt, allows the Apostles to contemplate the prospect of receiving rewards of a peculiarly distinguished character (Mat_19:28), but does not warrant the certainty of it, nor does it recognise the existence of anything like so-called valid claims; for, according to the idea running through the parable, the ἐκλογή is to be ascribed simply to the purpose of God (Rom_9:11; Rom_9:15 f.) See Mat_20:15. Comp. also note on Mat_22:14.
REMARK.
The simple application of Mat_20:16 ought to warn against arbitrary attempts to trace a meaning in all the little details of the parable, many of which belong to the mere drapery of the story. The householder is God; the vineyard is the Christian theocracy, in which work is to be done in the interests of the approaching kingdom of the Messiah; the οἰχονόμος is Christ; the twelfth hour, at which the wages are paid, is the time of the second coming; the other hours mark the different periods at which believers begin to devote themselves to the service of God’s kingdom; the denarius denotes the blessings of the Messianic kingdom in themselves, at the distribution of which the circumstance of an earlier entrance into the service furnishes no claim to a fuller measure of reward, however little this may accord with human ideas of justice; hence the πρῶτοι are represented as murmuring, whereupon they are dismissed from the master’s presence. Calvin appropriately observes: “hoc murmur asserere noluit ultimo die futurum, sed tantum negare causam fore murmurandi.” But there is nothing to warrant the view that, inasmuch as they consented to be hired only for definite wages, the πρῶτοι betrayed an unworthy disposition, while those who came later exhibited a more commendable spirit in being satisfied simply with the promise of ὃ ἐὰν ᾖ δίκαιον . It can only be of service in the way of edifying application, but it is not reconcilable with the historical sense of the passage, to explain the different hours as referring to the different stages of life, childhood, youth, manhood, and old age (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus), inasmuch as they are meant to represent various periods between the time of Christ and the close of the αἰὼν οὗτος , at which the second coming is to take place, and are therefore to be regarded as exhibiting the time embraced by the generation then existing (Mat_16:28) under the figure of a day with its various divisions. Origen supposed that the allusion was to the leading epochs of history from the beginning of the world (1) till the flood; (2) till Abraham; (3) till Moses; (4) till Christ; (5) till the end of the world. This view is decidedly forbidden by Mat_19:29 f. Yet similar explanations, based upon the history of the world, are likewise given by Theophylact and others. No less foreign is the reference to the Jews and Gentiles, which Grotius, but especially Hilgenfeld, following Jerome, has elaborated, so that the first of the labourers are taken to represent the Jews, whose terms of service, so to speak, are distinctly laid down in the law, and subsequently re-affirmed, at least, in an indefinite form; while those who come last are supposed to represent the Gentiles, who, in accordance with the new covenant of grace, receive, and that before all the others, precisely the same reward as those who were the first to be called. Scholten is disposed to think that the parable was also intended to expose the pretensions of the Jews to precedence and distinction in the kingdom.