Luke 20:15

“And they cast him forth out of the vineyard, and killed him. What therefore will the lord of the vineyard do to them?”

The result was that the servants rejected the son, expelling him from the vineyard and killing him. This was a clear warning to the Jewish leaders that both God and Jesus were fully aware of their murderous intentions. The expulsion from the vineyard indicated that it was their intention that Jesus be seen as excommunicated and cut off from Israel (the vineyard is Israel, not Jerusalem), and the killing simply described what was in their minds. And then He gave His warning, “What therefore will the lord of the vineyard do to them?” Let them think well of the consequences of what they were doing.

Mark has ‘they killed him and cast him forth out of the vineyard'. The ideas are not necessarily contradictory. It is rather a matter of where they wish the emphasis. For if the son was physically attacked and mortally wounded on entering the vineyard, retreating before the onslaught and collapsing dead outside the vineyard under their final blows, either description would be true. The question would then be, is someone killed when they are first mortally wounded, or when they finally collapse and die? The difference is thus one of emphasis, not of chronological order. Luke is wanting to lay stress on the son as being like the One Who is numbered among the Gentiles in His death, as well as on His being killed, Mark's emphasis is on the blows that commenced the death throes of the son in the first place, the fist initial, vindictive and murderous attack. ‘Killed him and cast him out' are simply two events that took place together. The verbs in translation can therefore be in any order that fits the grammar, for the physical order of words in one language is never the same as the physical order in another.

‘Cast him forth out of/from the vineyard.' This could signify:

1) The expulsion of Him from Israel by being cut off from among the people and ‘branded' a renegade, and an excommunicate

2) The expulsion of Him to take His place among the Gentiles, the greatest humiliation that the Jews could place on a homeborn Israelite.

3) Simply a parabolic description.

As with all Jesus' parables that were not explained the actual application was left to the listener and the reader, so that different ones could take it in different ways which were not exclusive.