Luke 20:9

- 19. The Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard.

9. to the people but still in the hearing of the priests and scribes who had only withdrawn a little into the background (Luke 20:19; Matthew 21:32; Matthew 21:45). St Luke here omits the Parable of the Two Sons (Matthew 21:28-32), in which, as in this Parable, the hidden meaning applicable in the first instance to Pharisees and the people, and in the second to Jews and Gentiles was hardly veiled.

a vineyard As in Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalms 80; Ezekiel 15:1-6 ;Jeremiah 2:21. St Luke omits the special isolation, &c. of the vineyard. Vines, grapes, and vineleaves were symbols of Palestine, on the coins of the Maccabees.

to husbandmen namely, (1) the Jewish nation; (2) their rulers and teachers.

for a long time The nearly two thousand years of Jewish History. Comp. Matthew 25:19. In this long time they learnt to say "the Lord hath forsaken the earth," Ezekiel 8:12; Psalms 10:5.