Matthew 20:1-16

CRITICAL NOTES

Matthew 20:1. For, etc.—The division of the Chapter s is here singularly unfortunate, as separating the parable both from the events which gave occasion to it and from the teaching which it illustrates. It is not too much to say that we can scarcely understand it at all unless we connect it with the history of the young ruler who had great possessions, and the claims which the disciples had made for themselves when they contrasted their readiness with his reluctance (Plumptre).

Matthew 20:2. A penny.—The foreign term ought to have been retained in English, as Matthew retained the Latin denarius in Greek. The English version is here peculiarly unfortunate, and makes a false impression on the common reader. A penny would be a poor reward indeed, but a denarius is worth more than seven English pence or fifteen American cents, and was a liberal day’s wages at that time. About two-thirds of a Roman denáry (not a full denáry, as generally stated) was the daily pay of the Roman soldier. Cf. Tacitus, Annal., i. 17. Polybius (ii. 15) mentions that the charge for a day’s entertainment in the inns of Cisalpine Gaul was only half an ass, or one-twentieth of a denarius. Shilling would be a far better popular equivalent for denarius than penny (Schaff). The purchasing power of the coin must be taken into account. I’lumptre says it may fairly be reckoned as equal to about half-a-crown of our present currency.

Matthew 20:3. The third hour.—The Jewish day began with the rising of the sun, and ended with sunset. It always consisted of twelve hours, whether the day was at its longest, as in midsummer, or at its shortest, as in mid-winter. Hence the hours varied a little in length at the different seasons of the year; and thus the “third hour”—the conclusion of the first quarter of the day—would correspond to nearly our eight or nine o’clock a.m., according as it might be summer or winter (Morison).

Matthew 20:6. The eleventh hour.—The various hours may he referred in the first instance to the call of a Paul, a Barnabas, or a Timothy, who adopted the cause later than the Twelve. In a secondary and less immediate sense they seem to indicate the successive periods at which the various nations were admitted to the church of Christ. Was it unjust that European nations should have equal privileges with the Jews in the church of Christ, or that Paul should be equal to Peter? (Carr).

Matthew 20:8. When even was come.—It was one of the humane rules of the Mosaic law that the day-labourer was to be paid by the day, and not made to wait for his wages (Deuteronomy 24:15) (Plumptre).

Matthew 20:11. The goodman of the house.—The householder (R.V.). Same word in the Greek as in Matthew 20:1.

Matthew 20:12. Heat of the day.—The scorching heat (R.V.). Workmen who live in so temperate a climate as that of Great Britain can have but little conception of the furnace-like fervour of heat to which workmen in Palestine are exposed when the sun is overhead. The eleventh hour workmen would be employed only in “the cool of the day”—the comparatively delightful coolness of the approaching evening (Morison).

Matthew 20:13. Friend.—Is almost too strong for the Greek ἑταῖρε (comrade, companion, fellow), while “fellow,” as now used, would be too disrespectful. It is here used as a term of cautious respect, with reproving import (Schaff). Cf. Matthew 22:12; Matthew 26:50.

Matthew 20:15. Is thine eye evil?—The belief in the evil eye still prevails in the East. The envious or malevolent glance is thought to have an injurious effect, Here the sense is: Art thou envious because I am just? (Carr).

Matthew 20:16. Many be called, etc.—See Matthew 22:14. Omitted here in better MSS. and R.V. “If we accept it as the true reading, it adds something to the warning of the previous clause. The disciples had been summoned to work in the vineyard. The indulgence of the selfish, murmuring temper might hinder their ‘election’ even to that work. Of one of the disciples, whose state may have been specially present to our Lord’s mind, this was, we know, only too fatally true. Judas had been ‘called,’ but would not be among the ‘chosen’ either for the higher work or for its ultimate reward” (Plumptre).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 20:1

The kingdom of grace.—Two things may help to guide us in attempting to deal with this confessedly difficult parable. One is of a negative kind. Those who have undertaken to explain and apply its many minutiæ differ from each other so widely and hopelessly as to warn us against ourselves attempting so apparently hopeless a task. The other is to be found in the fact that the parable as it stands is both headed and followed by the very same words (Matthew 19:30; Matthew 20:16). From this we see that the truth there expressed was in the Saviour’s mind both when He began and when He concluded this piece of instruction; and, therefore, apparently, was not far from it all the way through. We would use this inference as a probable key to its true meaning all the way through; and would apply it so, first, to those general terms of agreement of which it speaks, to begin; and, secondly, to that broad method of settlement of which it afterwards tells us.

I. The terms of agreement.—These, in the main, were but two. On the one hand, there was the agreement made with the labourers hired at the beginning of the day. This agreement was formal, legal, precise. The labourers on their part were to work for so long. The householder on his part was to pay them so much. Also, the exact amount both of time and wages was specified in each case (Matthew 20:2). Nothing could be at once clearer to, or more binding on, both. On the other hand, there were the agreements made with the different relays of labourers hired at later hours of the day. These, in substance, were all exactly alike. What the householder did in this matter of hiring with the third-hour labourers he is said to have done with the sixth-hour and the ninth-hour labourers too (Matthew 20:5). As much is implied, also, about those sent into the vineyard at the “eleventh hour” of the day. These successive agreements in substance were all similar to that made with those hired at the first. Practically, what was promised to the first labourers was a usual day’s wage (a penny a day) for a usual day’s work; in other words, such an amount as was felt, on all hands, to be “right.” Practically, also (see Matthew 20:4, etc.), this was what the house holder promised in all subsequent cases. The great difference, therefore, if not the only difference, between that earliest and these later agreements, lay in the matter of expression. What was clearly defined in the one case was only implied in the others. First a clear “compact”—then a succession of “understandings”—at the rate of so much a day.

II. The method of settlement adopted.—The great thing to be noted about this—looking at it in the same general way—is that it went beyond almost all the preceding agreements. This comes out, very clearly, in the case of those labourers who were last called but first paid; and it seems, indeed, to have been with the view of bringing this out thus plainly, that the order in question was decided on. These men, it is evident, according to that “which was right,” having only laboured for one hour in the day, had only earned something like one twelfth part of the stipulated denarius. Yet they each and all received the whole of it from the hands of the steward. So, also, of course, in varying proportion, of all except the first called. All of them in turn received more than they had actually earned. The same is shown, also, in a kind of back-handed way, by the very murmurs of those earliest-called ones when they came at last to be paid. What they murmured at, it seems very noticeable, was the bountifulness of their master. His justice, indeed, they could scarcely complain of. He had done nothing unjust—not even to them (Matthew 20:13). What they complained of was that he had paid so much in excess of their due to so many beside (Matthew 20:12). Even their very complaints, therefore, were an acknowledgment of the fact that he knew how to be liberal when he thought fit. Lastly, we see the same in the way in which the householder himself answered those who murmured against his way of proceeding. There is nothing injurious to thee in what I am doing. I am not giving less to thee because I give more to “this last” (Matthew 20:14). Neither is there anything “unlawful” or contrary to right in what I am doing. No one can complain if I take of “mine own” to give unto him (Matthew 20:15). Rather, in doing so, I am acting on a principle which is undoubtedly “good”; the principle, viz., of giving more than has been in any way earned. There is more than no injustice—there is kindness in this. Why shouldest thou complain of my showing “mercy” to any? Taken thus broadly, we seem to see here, in conclusion:—

1. A picture of Israel under the law of Moses.—Understood in the letter, very definite and precise was its compact with them. “This do, and thou shalt live” (Ezekiel 20:11). “The man that doeth these things shall live in them” (Romans 10:5). For his day’s work a day’s wage as it were,—permission to live. Nothing more formal, nothing more “legal,” could very well be. So we may understand, therefore, of those labourers “first called” into the vineyard.

2. A picture of the Gentiles under the law of nature.—“These having no law were a law, it is said, to themselves” (Romans 2:14). In one sense they were ἀνόμοι—men without law (Romans 2:14). They were without the advantage possessed, in this respect, by the Jew (Romans 3:1). But they had that in their consciences, and in the teachings, perhaps, of some of their teachers, which was a kind of unwritten law—an unspoken “call” to them to obey and serve God—a law which in its essence went on the same principle as the written law of the Jews, viz., that of obtaining righteousness by their works; in other words, shall we say, of being paid at the rate of a penny a day. These seem to correspond, therefore, to those various later labourers of whom we read here.

3. Of the church under the gospel.—How revolutionary its proceedings! (Matthew 20:16; Matthew 8:11; Matthew 21:31). How loud the complaints they give rise to! (Matthew 9:10; Luke 19:7, etc.). How blessed the principle by which they are justified! (Romans 4:4, etc.). These are the points which seem to come out in the settlement, points precious indeed to all those who know their true state before God!

HOMILIES ON THE VERSES

Matthew 20:1. The labourers in the vineyard.—

I. The hiring of the labourers.
II. The times of the hiring.

III. The payment which they receive.—W. Sanday, D.D.

First last and last first.—The parable is intended to show us the difference between work done in a bargaining spirit and work done in trust; between the reward given to work which in quantity may be very great, but in motive is mercenary, and the reward given to work which in quantity may be very small, but in motive is sound. That we are meant to see this difference of spirit in the labourers is obvious:—

I. From the terms of their respective engagements.—Those who were hired early in the day made an agreement to work for a stipulated sum. This sum was the usual day’s wage of the period; a fair wage, which of itself was sufficient inducement to work. These men were in a condition to make their own terms. They ruled in the market. But in the evening the tables are turned. The masters now have it all their own way. “Go ye also into my vineyard, and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.” In no condition to make a bargain, they most gladly trust themselves to one whose words have the ring of truth.

II. From the distribution of the wages.—Those who had barely got their work begun were first paid, and were paid a full day’s wage. There must, of course, have been a reason for this. It was not mere caprice, but was the result and expression of some just idea. We are thrown back for the explanation on the hint given in the hiring—viz., that those who wrought merely for the sake of pay received the pay they looked for, while they who came to the vineyard conscious that they had wasted their day, and not daring to stipulate for any definite wage, but leaving themselves confidently in the hands of a master they believed in, were gladdened by the unmerited reward of the fullest wage.

III. From the temper shown by the last paid men.—Peter must have felt himself gravely rebuked by the picture here drawn of the man who had listened to the first call of Christ, but who, after a full, honest day’s work, was found to be possessed of a selfish, grudging spirit that filled him with discontent and envy. It was now plain that this early-hired labourer had little interest in the work, and that it was no satisfaction to him to have been able to do twelve times as much as the last-hired labourer. He had the hireling’s spirit, and had bean longing for the shadow and counting his wages all day long. The difference in the spirit of the workers which is thus brought out in the parable will be found, says our Lord, in the church, and it will he attended with like results at the time of judgment and award. Here, also, “Many that are first shall be last.” This parable, read rightly, gives no encouragement to late entrance into the Lord’s service. To think of this service as that which we can add at any convenient time to the other work of life is to mistake it altogether. The service of Christ should cover the whole of life; and what is not done as a part of His work may, in some respects, as well not be done at all. All outside His vineyard is idleness.—M. Dods, D.D.

Matthew 20:1. The hiring of the labourers.—

I. Who hires them?—God is the great Householder, “whose we are, and whom we serve.” As a householder He has work that He will have to be done, and servants that He will have to be doing. God hires labourers, not because He needs them or their services, but as some charitable, generous householders keep poor men to work—in kindness to them.

II. Whence are they hired?—Out of the market-place, where, till they are hired into God’s service, they stand idle (Matthew 20:3), all the day idle (Matthew 20:6).

1. The soul of man stands ready to be hired into some service or other.
2. Till we are hired into the service of God we are standing all the day idle.
3. The gospel call is given to those who stand idle in the market-place.

III. What are they hired to do?—To labour in His vineyard.

1. The church is God’s vineyard; it is of His planting, watering, and fencing, and the fruit of it must be to His honour and praise.
2. We are called upon to be labourers in this vineyard. The work of religion is vineyard work—pruning, dressing, digging, watering, fencing, weeding. We have each of us our own vineyard to keep, our own soul; and it is God’s, and to be kept and dressed for Him. In this work we must not be slothful, not loiterers but labourers, working and working out our own salvation. Work for God will not admit of trifling. A man may go idle to hell, but he that will go to heaven must be busy.

IV. What shall be their wages?—Whatsoever is right. Never any lost by working for God.—M. Henry.

Matthew 20:1. Equality and differences.—The equality and the difference in the outward form of the kingdom of God:—

I. The equality and the difference of the labourers.—All are called to be servants in the kingdom; but one class consists of those who are merely called, or who are external and legal labourers, while the others are also chosen, their labour being internal and free.

II. The equality and the difference of their work.—Their service is one of simple obedience; but in the one case there was the advantage of priority, while at the same time some (not all of them) seem to have felt the service a burden. The others were engaged for a shorter period, but laboured in confidence and joy.

III. The equality and difference of the reward.—All received the shilling. The external blessing attaching to service in the kingdom of heaven remains the same. All have part in the church, in its fellowship and its privileges. But to some this appears a scanty hire, if not a kind of punishment; while to those who receive it in faith it is a sign of infinite grace.—J. P. Lange, D.D.

Matthew 20:6. The life of Christianity.—Idleness is a crime against the Christian conscience, against the laws of the kingdom, and is for several reasons peculiarly anti-Christian.

I. Idleness defeats the object of the kingdom here on earth.—For that kingdom is come here to sift and test us for our place in its further development hereafter, and that place is determined by one decisive standard—character—and character is evoked and proved and established only under the pres sure of work; character discloses itself in face of obligations that it has to satisfy, tasks that it must fulfil, responsibilities that it is bound to face.

II. Idleness is a sin against love.—Love perishes in inactivity; it cannot be love and not be busy, for love is the energy of service; it exists only in ministering. Love must go out of itself and spend itself in labour for others—only in work can it breathe freely and move in gladness. God is love. God therefore is the energy of work; God is the great workman.

III. Idleness is a sin against God and against the body of Christ, the body of the new manhood, of which the brotherhood of believers is the realised pledge of that prophetic first-fruit. In Christ we are all recognised as members one of another, through membership in Him who wore the flesh of all. And such membership involves us in endless intimacies of brotherly activity by the sheer necessity of our bond in Christ through the Spirit. We cannot be in Christ and not be implicated in these responsibilities. For every limb, organ, fibre, nerve of the body is concerned in the health and life of the whole; and if one of the members suffer, all the members suffer. If one member is idle, all feel it; his debt, due to the general well-being, is unpaid; his sluggishness is a weight of which others feel the burden.—Canon Scott-Holland.

Spiritual idleness.—Voluntary idleness or sloth is one of the most shameful of vices, so much so that the world censures and scorns it with more severity than it awards to some others which are essentially more heinous. Avarice, e.g. is more criminal, but sloth is usually treated with more contempt and reprobation.

I. I press the remonstrance of our text on the unconverted.—

1. Your idleness does not arise from your having no need of that wealth which spiritual industry secures.
2. Nor that you have no opportunity to work, or that it would be vain for you to begin now, since the day has declined so far and the night is so near—“the eleventh hour.”
3. The reason of your idleness cannot rationally be that there is yet plenty of time—that you need not be in a hurry—that you are young, with many hours for amusing yourself before the eleventh.
4. Your reason for persistent, reckless idleness would not be reasonable should you plead that you are not qualified, and through inveterate habits in sin and unescapable companionships which you cannot shake off, and various other circumstances, are disabled for such spiritual work. The effectual aid of the Holy Spirit is provided for every humble petitioner. Positive reasons for it:
(1) That you are so busy with other work that you have no time for this.
(2) That you do not relish the work, but have a strong dislike of it.

II. I turn to remonstrate with those who, although not entirely idle in the spiritual work, do it but partially and with no animation or zeal.—Why so slow?

1. It cannot be because you are finding much satisfaction in those worldly engagements which consume so much of your time and attention, and leave so little for the honour of God and the interest of your precious soul.
2. Nor because you think you have cultivated your heart already as much as is necessary.
3. Is it because you think you are doing enough for the Master?
4. It cannot be because you calculate that anything you might do Christward and heavenward above what you consider to be the measure of your necessity would be profitless. Why then so slow? I’ll tell you. It is because of an insidious unbelief; a want of a clear realisation of the heavenly hope; a seeing of the kingdom only dimly through the fog and haze of the cares and pleasures of this world; yea, in many cases, a secret misgiving of heart that after all there is any reality in this heavenly kingdom; a mingling with faith of suspicions, of myths and antiquated traditions, and fancies of enthusiastic prophets.—Wm. Anderson, LL.D.

Matthew 20:8. Eventide.—The signs of a sad evening-time:—

I. Murmuring on looking back on the labour and its results.

II. An evil eye with reference to our neighbour and his success.

III. Self-contradiction and the merited rebuke.

IV. The loss of the capacity of enjoying the blessing in peace and gratitude.—J. P. Lange, D.D.

Matthew 20:10. Spiritual rewards.—“And they likewise received every man a penny.” Observe:—

I. In the kingdom of God the work and the wages are the same thing.

II. In the kingdom of God there can be no such thing as competition. The enriching of one never impoverishes another.—D. Strong, M.A.

Matthew 20:12. The justice of the award.—Man does not here acquiesce in the Judge’s decision, as in the parable of the debtors

(18). What is just does not at first seem just, but, as in science many things that seemed untrue are proved to be true, what seems unjust will be proved just when we know all. Further, time is not the only element in service. An act of swift intelligence or of bravery wrought in the space of a single minute has saved an army or a people, and merited higher reward than a lifetime of ordinary service.—A. Carr, M.A.

Matthew 20:15. The evil eye.—

I. The nature of envy.—It is an evil eye. The eye is oftentimes both the inlet and outlet of sin (1 Samuel 18:9; 1 Samuel 18:15). What can have more evil in it? It is grief to ourselves, anger to God, and ill-will to our neighbour; and it is a sin that has neither pleasure, profit, nor honour in it.

II. The aggravation of envy.—It is “because I am good.” Envy is un-likeness to God, who is good, and doeth good, and delights in doing good; nay, it is an opposition and contradiction to God; it is a dislike of His proceedings, and a displeasure at what He doth and is pleased with. It is a direct violation of both the two great commandments at once; both that of love to God, in whose will we should acquiesce, and love to our neighbour, in whose welfare we should rejoice. Thus man’s badness takes occasion from God’s goodness to be more exceeding sinful.—M. Henry.

Matthew 20:16. The last first and the first last.—The meaning of the interpreting utterance, Matthew 20:16, is as follows:—

1. Those labourers in God’s kingdom to whom, by the peculiarity of their calling, only a relatively insignificant work was assigned on earth, will in God’s future kingdom be treated in the matter of reward as if the greatest work had been assigned them.
2. They who were above all the rest in respect of the magnitude and weight of the work assigned them on earth by Divine calling, will not on that account merely, be treated differently in the matter of reward from those standing farthest below them in this respect. This by no means implies that despite great diversity in service all labourers in God’s kingdom will, as respects reward, be placed on a level in the next world. On the contrary, the presupposition in the utterance of Jesus is that in God’s kingdom of the future there is a manifoldly diverse reward for service of diverse worth in this life. But, this presupposition being understood, it is affirmed that the standard for determining the difference in the reward will not be the difference among the labourers of God’s kingdom first striking the eye in this life, namely, the difference in the magnitude and weight of the different functions to which individuals are assigned in this life by a different Divine calling, and the consequent difference in the outward amount of service. Of those who in this respect were the last or first it is said that in the matter of future reward neither the one will be injured nor the other privileged by their position in this life. The future reward of grace, instead of being adjudged to each according to the difference in the outward amount of service, obvious to human eyes and open to human calculation, will rather, as may here be supplementarily added, be adjudged according to the difference in the inner worth of the service known only to God—i.e. according to the different degree of self-sacrificing fidelity with which every one has laboured in the function assigned to him, whether small or great, and has borne corresponding fruit within the sphere of influence, great or small, allotted to him.—S. Goebel.

The service that God regards.—One hour of trustful, humble service is of greater value to God than a lifetime of calculating industry and self-regarding zeal. A gift that is reckoned by thousands of pounds, an ecclesiastical endowment that makes a noise through a whole generation, a busy, unflagging, obtrusive zeal which makes itself seen and felt throughout a whole land, these things make a great impression upon men—and it is well if they do not make a great impression on the parties themselves who do them, and prompt them inwardly to say, “What shall we have therefore?”—but they make no impression upon God unless animated by a really devoted spirit. While men are applauding the great workers who ostentatiously wipe the sweat from their brows and pant so that you can hear them across the whole field, God is regarding an unnoticed worker, who feels he is doing little, who is ashamed that anyone should see his work, who bitterly regrets he can do no more, who could not name a coin small enough to pay him, but who is perfectly sure that the Master he serves is well worth serving. It is thus that the first become last and the last first.—M. Dods, D.D.

Unselfishness of true Christian service.—English sailors have been known to be filled with pity for their comrades whose ships only hove in sight in time to see the enemy’s flag run down or to fire the last shot in a long engagement. They have so pitied them for having no share in the excitement and glory of the day that they would willingly give them as a compensation their own pay and prize-money. And the true follower of Christ, who has listened to the earliest call of his Master and has revelled in the glory of serving Him throughout life, will from the bottom of his heart pity the man who has only late in life recognised the glory of the service, and has had barely time to pick up his tools when the dusk of evening falls upon him. It is impossible that a man whose chief desire was to advance his Master’s work should envy another labourer Who had done much less than himself. The very fact that a man envies another his reward is enough of itself to convict him of self-seeking in his service.—M. Dods, D.D.