Matthew 21:39

“And they took him, and cast him forth out of the vineyard, and killed him.”

The result was that the servants rejected the son, expelling him from the vineyard and killing him. This illustration 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 might be seen as indicating that it was their intention for Jesus to 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 would eventually come to fruition. In the story it would be important that the son's death take place outside the vineyard, otherwise the vineyard would be seen as tainted.

Mark has ‘they killed him and cast him forth out of the vineyard'. But the ideas are not necessarily contradictory, for Mark probably meant ‘mortally wounded him and cast him out of the vineyard'. In each case it is rather a matter of where they wished the emphasis to be placed. For if the son was physically attacked and mortally wounded on entering the vineyard, retreating before the onslaught and collapsing dead outside the vineyard, either through loss of blood or under their final blows, either description would be true. (And why cast his body out if he was already dead? It would simply draw attention to their crime. All they had to do was bury him in the vineyard.). The difference is thus one of emphasis, not of chronological order. Each is emphasising the killing in their own way. Matthew and Luke are emphasising that he was killed. Mark's emphasis is on the blows that commenced the death throes of the son in the first place, the first initial, vindictive and murderous attack. ‘Killed him and cast him out' are simply therefore to be seen as two events that took place alongside each other. (And verbs in translation can often be translated in different orders, depending on the grammar, for the physical order of words in one language is not necessarily 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 reject, a renegade, and an excommunicate (compare Hebrews 13:12).

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

3). Simply a parabolic description of Him as rejected.

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.