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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadBob Utley You Can Understand the Bible - Matthew 21:33 - 21:41
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat_21:33-41
33"Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. 34When the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his produce. 35The vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. 36Again he sent another group of slaves larger than the first; and they did the same thing to them. 37But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.'38But when the vine-growers saw the son. they said among themselves, 'This is the heir; come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.'39They took him, and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?" 41They said to Him, "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons."
Mat_21:33 "listen to another parable" The parable is paralleled in Mar_12:1-12; Luk_20:9-19. This is the strongest parable on God's rejection of Israel and her leaders!
▣ "who planted a vineyard" This has an obvious connection to Isaiah 5. The vineyard has always been a symbol for the nation of Israel. This parable is the most allegorical of the three. The slaves represent the prophets. The son represents the Messiah (notice there is a son in each of the parables in this chapter, but used in different senses). The tenants represent the nation of Israel or at least her leaders.
In the immediate context the new tenants refer to the common people of the land, but in the larger context it referred to the Gentiles (cf. Mat_28:18-20; Luk_24:46; Act_1:8).
Mat_21:41 The crowd answers the question and seals their own doom. There is a word play which is translated "those wretches (kakous) to a wretched (kakôs) end."