Thoughts

Matthew 21:28-22:14 contains three consecutive parables in the context of Jesus’s teaching about the Kingdom and the eschaton describing the faithlessness of Israel as God’s chosen people and the resulting invitation to the gentiles to enter the Kingdom. The parable of the two sons shows the second son failing to live up to his promise to work the Father’s vineyard, and the first son entering into his Father’s work despite his initial refusal. The parable of the wicked tenants and the parable of the marriage feast heighten this contrast with the first tenants of the vineyard and guests of the feast refusing to heed the Master’s servants, after which they are ‘destroyed’ and the vineyard given to new tenants, and new guests invited to the feast in place of the original ones.

The parable of the wicked tenants is interesting for its use of the imagery of the ‘son’ – in contrast to the parable of the two sons where the sons stand for peoples, in this parable, the son is used in an absolute sense, as ‘heir’ and in contrast to the ‘servants’ (prophets). The ‘Son of God’ is a title for Jesus given particular significance in Matthew’s gospel (e.g. at the baptism 3:17, in the temptations 4:6, at the transfiguration 17:5, in Peter’s confession 16:16).

Green (p227) comments on how restrictive the ‘one point’ exegesis rule for parables would be in the case of the wicked tenants. Both Green and Chrysostom (LXVIII:1) consider it clear that there are many closer and uncontroversial allegories in this parable. Since the chief priests and Pharisees “perceived that He was speaking of them” after this parable, it is clear evidence that Chrysostom and Green are correct to take this approach in this case. The chief priests and Pharisees no doubt perceived that they were represented by the wicked tenants; that the servants that had been sent were the prophets, who had been treated badly as described in the parable. They also presumably perceived the implication that Jesus himself was to be seen as the ‘son’ and ‘heir’ (21:38) of the same Lord who had sent the prophets. Matthew has those hearing the parable themselves give the verdict that the wicked tenants be put to death, and Chrysostom draws the parallel from 2 Sam 12:1-7 of David’s condemning himself out of his own lips in response to Nathan’s parable which he did not perceive was about him. In Mark (12:9) and Luke (20:15-16) the verdict is given as the response to the rhetorical question, presumably by Jesus. Luke uses a hearers’ response “God forbid” (Lk 20:16)[1] to link Jesus’s comment about the ‘stone the builders rejected’ from Ps 118:22-23 and the effect of the stone on both those who stumble upon it, and those upon whom it falls.

The import of the parable is emphasized by the addition of this quotation from Ps 118, referring to Jesus as the stone and the whole context is clarified in Matthew (though not in Mark or Luke) by Jesus’s own explanation of the parable (21:43). Green gives some Old Testament context for Jesus’s comments about those who will stumble on the stone, in comparison to the image of God as both sanctuary and stumbling block (Is 8:14), and the stone that will crush those upon whom it falls, in comparison to the stone as the apocalyptic Kingdom that will destroy the empires of the world (Dan 2:34-45). The stone is also the foundation for life (cf. Is 28:16). He also notes the play on words in a Semitic context from ‘son’ to ‘stone’: Hebrew בֵּן or ben (Mt 21:33-41) becomes אֶבֶן or eben (Mt 21:42-44) – an interpretation of the Psalm text that was also made by the Aramaic targum: “the son which the builders rejected”[2]. Green (p230) notes that Jesus’s use of this Psalm text turns Israel’s understanding on its head: now it is Israel, instead of being rejected by the nations, which is doing the rejecting and thus heading towards a similar judgment. A parallel reversal was noted by Green in this same chapter of Matthew (p220 on Mt 21:12-17, the cleansing of the Temple) from the contemporary Psalms of Solomon speaking of God purging Jerusalem of gentile defilement, to the Son of God purifying the Temple’s Court of the Gentiles of Jewish defilement.

[1] Chrysostom insists that the hearers could have made both responses (LXVIII:2).

[2] Green’s quotation (p229) of the targum.