THE TENANTS AND LANDOWNER ( MATTHEW 21:33-46; MARK 12:1-12; LUKE 20:9-19)

“This is one of the most significant, most discussed, and most complicated of all the parables.” 

(Snodgrass) So for simplicity sake, we will start with Matthew's account and mention some of the 

important variations found in the other versions. But first, we need to consider the fact that most liberal 

Bible critics deny that this parable originated with Jesus. Let's look at their objections in turn:

 

Objection #1: This is an allegory and Jesus did not teach in allegories, but in one-point parables.

 

In reply to this, as noted in the introduction to this study, that contention has been disproved for years 

but it continues to be stated as fact. Secondly, it is not exactly clear what literary category this story 

falls in, as evidenced by the following comments from recent scholars: It is an allegory (Overman); It 

has allegorical features (Nixon); an allegory but not a detailed one (Hill); a parable and not an allegory 

(Lane); an authentic parable with allegorical possibilities (Marshall); more allegorical than most 

parables (Geldenhuys); a parable interpreted allegorically (Craddock)

In terms of allegorical aspects, the following are obvious:

    landowner = God

    vineyard = Israel   Snodgrass thinks that Isaiah 5 is a crucial text in understanding this parable while 

others just see the use of similar elements in the description of the vineyard..

    tenants = Jewish leadership

    servants = prophets since that is their designation in the OT. Matthew's version has two waves of 

servants, which stand for the former and latter prophets. (Mann, Robinson) Others disagree whether 

that much is implied in this detail.

    only son = Jesus   However, a few commentators actually feel that the son =John the Baptist since he 

is the focus in the previous parable in Matthew.

 

Much more doubtful allegorical connections include: the hedge = the help of the angels, the tower = 

the Temple, and the wine vat = the altar. Most modern commentators feel that these details are only 

there to show the care exercised by the owner. 

 

Objection #2: There are too many improbable happenings for this to be called a parable. 

 

Most of Jesus' parables are based on familiar circumstances that the audience would have related to, 

but they also contain surprising elements, as mentioned in the introduction. In addition, Snodgrass 

points out that the lax judicial system at the time often led to repeated requests for justice. There is one 

parallel in U.S. history: the Green Corn Rebellion of several hundred poor sharecroppers in Oklahoma 

in 1917 who rallied partially under a Christian flag to rebel against the farm owners as well as the 

recently enacted draft for World War I. They dynamited a bridge and stockpiled weapons and 

strychnine in a grand plan to march to Washington with the many poor people they felt would join 

them along the way to overthrow the U.S. Government and set up a socialist state. This shows the real 

possibility of such action, no matter how far-fetched. For liberation theologists, the tenants are justified 

since the rich landowner probably took the land illegally. But Snodgrass says, “Attempts to read the 

parable against the background of class conflict will not work.”

 

If the tenants' final actions were irrational, they were acting as irrationally as the leadership had acted 

in rejecting Jesus. Just as irrational is the owner sending his son after the tenants have mistreated the 

servants. Hendricksen notes that this parable depicts “sin most unreasonable and love 

incomprehensible.” But there were plausible motives for killing the son: (1) whether or not the owner 

was dead, if there was no heir to a land then the law provided that under certain conditions the tenants 

could lay claim to it when he did die and (2) failure of a landowner to collect rent for 4 years in a row 

could legally allow the tenants to claim possession. (Marshall)

 

Objection #3: Jesus didn't call himself Son of God; that was added later by the Evangelists. It wouldn't 

have made any sense to the audience of the parable.

 

It would have been fairly obvious to the audience that the servants represent the OT prophets and that 

the son represented someone very godly, perhaps the Messiah. (Snodgrass) Son of God was already a 

term in Judaism associated with the Messiah. (Ellis) This may be Jesus' first public claim to be the son 

of God and could have formed the basis of Caiaphas' charge in Matthew 26:63. (Blomberg)

 

Objection #4: Details such as the fall of Jerusalem and Jesus being crucified outside the city were 

obviously not known to Jesus, but are after-the-fact prophecies. 

 

The most obvious objection to this objection is that this reasoning could be applied to all biblical 

prophecy and is in effect denying all of God's revelation of future events. In terms of the crucifixion, 

(1) that still doesn't explain away Mark's probably earlier account which has the son first killed and 

then thrown over the hedge, and (2) for the account to refer to the place of Jesus' death, the vineyard 

would have to equal Jerusalem, not Israel (and as shown below, that is a minority opinion).

From the point of view of the Sanhedrin members listening to this parable, they would have first been totally sympathetic to the plight of the landowner since it is probable that many of them were rich and were absentee landowners themselves. (France)  Notice that they are still cooperative with Jesus by giving the expected answer to his question at the end of the parable. But their attitude soon changes after Jesus has made his concluding comments. What was it that made them realize that they had just condemned themselves (much as David had when listening to Nathan's parable)? What made it clear was the “stone” quotation at the end due to the pun (in Hebrew or Aramaic) between son (ben) and stone (eban) and the fact that the rabbis referred to themselves as the “builders” of the nation. (Goldsworthy)

The shocked reaction of the crowd (only given in Luke 20:16) comes before any explanation by Jesus and is a little harder to explain. Craddock says it is because “they sense that they too will fall with the nation as God gives it over to others.” Snodgrass doubts this explanation since the crowd at this point would have turned against Jesus if that were true and not been an impediment for Jesus' arrest as explained in Matthew 21:46. By contrast, Marshall and Fitzmyer feel the crowd's reaction is only due to concern for their leaders. But that explanation assumes that the crowd caught on to the import of Jesus' parable before the religious leaders did. Of course, that is possible if the latter were blinded to their own faults. Reaction of people listening (in Matthew): they don't realize that they are the ones Jesus is talking about, but it becomes clear in v. 43 when he addresses them directly as “you.” (Hendricksen)

There is quite a division of opinion regarding the import of Jesus' final words. The five main trains of thought are shown below:

    1. It is a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD by the Gentiles. Snodgrass notes that this parable has an identical thought as found in the lament over Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37-39. Similar phrases in these two (which are found in parallel literary units) are “when the lord comes” (21:40) and “one who comes in the name of the Lord” (23:39). Several other scholarly sources agree with this interpretation.

    2. This is rejection of the Jewish religious establishment only, not Israel herself (Snodgrass; NRSV).

    3. It predicts the movement of the gospel from the Jews to the Gentiles. (Craddock) At least a later readership would understand this as the whole nation of Israel and the new occupants as the mainly Gentile church that constituted the New Israel. (Marcus)   However, the collective singular ethnos in Matthew = the church, not the Gentiles. If it referred to the Gentiles, the plural ethne would have been used (Hill).

    4. It describes turning over the kingdom to all those who follow Jesus, with no distinction between Jews and their leadership. (OT/NT) The Kingdom would be taken away from the people of God constituted as a national basis and given to those on a spiritual basis. (Nixon); transfer of leadership is to those who accept Jesus, not a reference to Gentiles. (Blomberg); “give” the vineyard to others (grace) vs. leasing it to tenants (works) (Fitzmyer).  Interestingly, a later rabbinical parable is quite similar but has the message that God will kick the Gentile rulers out of the vineyard and replace them with Jewish ones, (Marcus)

    5. A combination of 2 and 4.  Judgment is not only on the leadership but on the people themselves, who are being reconstituted (a growing consensus) (Novakovic)

Verse 38: Tenants' “Come! Let us kill him.” is identical to what Joseph's brothers said in Genesis 37:20 regarding Joseph (a type of Christ in many ways).

Only Mark and Luke add that the son was the “beloved” son. Snodgrass notes that the absence of "beloved" in Matthew's version is unusual and has no explanation since Matthew uses that term elsewhere (3:17; 12:18; 17:5) more than the other Synoptics. He states, “I have yet to see a convincing explanation why Matthew has omitted Mark's christological underlining.” I might suggest that this is the wrong question to ask. One should first be looking instead for the reasons that Mark and Luke actually included that term. The answer, I feel, lies in literary structure. By including “beloved” in his account at 20:13, Luke forms a symmetrical long-range word pattern which works whatever textual reading one chooses for 9:35.

    1. Jesus as beloved son (3:22)

            2. Another person as an only son (7:12)

                    3. Jesus as “my (beloved)” son (9:35)

            2'. Another person as an only son (9:38)

    1'. Jesus as beloved son (20:13)

Moving to Mark's account, it is found within the larger literary unit comprising 11:27-12:37 (see Mark: Introduction to the Literary Structure) which can be diagrammed as follows:

    1. On Jesus' identity (11:27-11:33)

        2. Parable of the Wicked Tenants (12:1-12)

            3. Controversy on taxes (12:13-17)

            3'. Controversy on the resurrection (12:18-27)

        2'. The Greatest Commandments (12:28-34)

    1'. On Jesus' identity (12:35-37)

Section 2 provides a thematic contrast with 2' in terms of hate vs. love and also in demonstrating that not all the scribes were opposed to Jesus' teachings. Both units use the word “son” twice. At the end of Section 2, the religious leaders “left him and went away.” By marked contrast, at the beginning of 2', the scribe “came near.” And finally the inclusion of agapetos (“beloved”) in Section 2 at 12:6 balances the four occurrences of agapao in Section 2'. Matthew did not include the description of “beloved” in his parable because to have done so would have disrupted the important literary pattern he had already set up using this word. Twice in Matthew's Gospel (3:17 and 17:5), God speaks from the heavens/clouds with identical pronouncements: “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” Sandwiched between these statements, Matthew has placed (at 12:18) the quotation from Isaiah in which the Suffering Servant is described in similar terminology. This identification of Jesus' ministry with that of the Servant permeates Matthew's Gospel (see R. T. France, p. 468). To have included “beloved” in this parable would have weakened that connection.

Snodgrass is also perturbed about the absence of “last” in Matthew's account compared to Mark's version (although Luke does not have the word either). Again, a structural explanation may be the best one. In the first place, by not including the word Matthew is left with seven other occurrences in his Gospel. This is in keeping with his concern for symbolically significant numbers. Secondly, by Mark adding eschatos (“last”), he creates a long-term word pattern such as evidenced by numerous examples elsewhere (see The Ending of Mark):

“The first shall be last and the last shall be first” (9:35)

“The first shall be last and the last shall be first” (10:31)

eschatos, meaning “finally,” in the context of a parable (12:6)

eschatos, meaning “finally,” in the context of a story (12:22)

Parenthetically, the story told by the Sadducees in Mark 12:20-23 could almost be called a parable itself.