Luke 20:9-19

3. The Parable of the Husbandmen: Luke 20:9-19. This parable, in Matthew, is preceded by that of the two sons. If, as the terms of the latter suppose, it applies to the conduct of the chiefs toward John the Baptist, it is admirably placed before that of the husbandmen, which depicts the conduct of those same chiefs toward Jesus.

Vers. 9-12. We have just attested the accuracy of the introduction, and especially that of the words to the people, Luke 20:9. Holtzmann judges otherwise: “A parable inappropriately addressed to the people in Luke,” says he. Is it possible to pronounce a falser judgment? The vine denotes the theocratic people, and the husbandmen the authorities who govern them. Luke speaks neither of the tower meant to receive the workmen's tools and to guard the domain, which perhaps represents the kingly office; nor of the wine-press, the means of turning the domain to account, which is perhaps the image of the priesthood (comp. Matthew and Mark). The absence of the proprietor corresponds to that whole period of the O. T. which followed the great manifestations by which God founded the theocracy the going out of Egypt, the giving of the law, and the settlement of Israel in Canaan. From that moment Israel should have offered to its God the fruits of a gratitude and fidelity proportioned to the favour which it had received from Him. The three servants successively sent represent the successive groups of prophets, those divine messengers whose struggles and sufferings are described (Hebrews 11) in such lively colours. There is a climax in the conduct of the husbandmen: Luke 20:10, the envoy is beaten; Luke 20:11, beaten and shamefully abused; Luke 20:12, wounded to death and cast out of the vineyard. In this last touch, Jesus alludes to the fate of Zacharias (Luke 11:51), and probably also to that of John the Baptist. In Mark, the climax is nearly the same: ἔδειραν (to beat), ἐκεφαλαίωσαν (here, to wound in the head), ἀπέκτειναν (to kill). Mark speaks also of other messengers who underwent the same treatment; it is perhaps this last description which should be applied to John the Baptist. Matthew speaks only of two sendings, but each embracing several individuals. Should we understand the two principal groups of prophets: Isaiah, with his surrounding of minor prophets, and Jeremiah with his? The Hebraistic expression προσέθετο πέμψαι (Luke 20:11-12) shows that Luke is working on an Aramaic document. No similar expression occurs in Matthew and Mark.

Vers. 13-16. The master of the vineyard rouses himself in view of this obstinate and insolent rejection: What shall I do? And this deliberation leads him to a final measure: I will send my beloved son. This saying, put at that time by Jesus in the mouth of God, has a peculiar solemnity. There is His answer to the question: By what authority doest thou these things?

Here, as everywhere, the meaning of the title son transcends absolutely the notion of Messiah, or theocratic king, or any office whatever. The title expresses above all the notion of a personal relation to God as Father. The theocratic office flows from this relation. By this name, Jesus establishes between the servants and Himself an immeasurable distance. This was implied already by the question, What shall I do...? which suggests the divine dialogue, Genesis 1:26, whereby the creation of inferior beings is separated from that of man. ῎Ισως, properly, in a way agreeable to expectation; and hence, undoubtedly (E. V. improperly, it may be). But does not God know beforehand the result of this last experiment? True; but this failure will not at all overturn His plan. Not only will the mission of this last messenger be successful with some, but the resistance of the people as a whole, by bringing on their destruction, will open up the world to the free preaching of salvation by those few. The ignorance of the future which is ascribed to the master of the vineyard belongs to the figure. The idea represented by this detail is simply the reality of human liberty.

The deliberation of the husbandmen (Luke 20:14) is an allusion to that of the chiefs, Luke 20:5 (διελογίζοντο or σαντο; comp. with συνελογίσαντο). Jesus unveils before all the people the plots of their chiefs, and the real cause of the hatred with which they follow Him. These men have made the theocracy their property (John 11:48: our place, our nation); and this power, which till now they have turned to their advantage, they cannot bring themselves to give up into the hands of the Son, who comes to claim it in His Father's name.

At Luke 20:15, Jesus describes with the most striking calmness the crime which they are preparing to commit on His person, and from which He makes not the slightest effort to escape. Is the act of casting out of the vineyard, which precedes the murder, intended to represent the excommunication already pronounced on Jesus and His adherents (John 9:22)? In Mark the murder precedes; then the dead body is thrown out.

The punishment announced in Luke 20:16 might, according to Luke and Mark, apply only to the theocratic authorities, and not to the entire people. The ἄλλοι, the other husbandmen, would in this case designate the apostles and their successors. But the sense appears to be different according to Matthew. Here the word to others is thus explained, Matthew 21:43: “The kingdom of God shall be given to a nation (ἔθνει) bringing forth the fruits thereof.” According to this, the point in question is not the substitution of the chiefs of the N. T. for those of the Old, but that of Gentile peoples for the chosen people. What would our critics say if the parts were exchanged, if Luke had expressed himself here as Matthew does, and Matthew as Luke? Matthew puts the answer of Luke 20:16 in the mouth of the adversaries of Jesus, which on their part could only mean, “He shall destroy them, that is evident; but what have we to do with that? Thy history is but an empty tale.” Yet, as it is said in Luke 20:19 that it was not till later that His adversaries understood the bearing of the parable, the narrative of Luke and Mark is more natural. The connection between ἀκούσαντες and εἶπον is this: “they had no sooner heard than, deprecating the omen, they said...”

Vers. 17-19. ᾿Εμβλέψας, having beheld them, indicates the serious, even menacing expression which He then assumed. The δέ is adversative: “Such a thing, you say, will never happen; but what meaning, then, do you give to this saying...?” Whether in the context of Psalms 118 the stone rejected be the Jewish people as a whole, in comparison with the great world-powers, or (according to Bleek and others) the believing part of the people rejected by the unbelieving majority in both cases, the image of the stone despised by the builders applies indirectly to the Messiah, in whom alone Israel's mission to the world, and that of the believing part of the people to the whole, was realized. It is ever, at all stages of their history, the same law whose application is repeated.

The acc. λίθον is a case of attraction arising from the relative pron. which follows. This form is textually taken from the LXX. (Psa 118:22). The corner-stone is that which forms the junction between the two most conspicuous walls, that which is laid with peculiar solemnity.

A truth so stern as the sentence of Luke 20:18 required to be wrapped up in a biblical quotation. The words of Jesus recall Isaiah 8:14-15, and Daniel 2:44. In Isaiah, the Messiah is represented as a consecrated stone, against which many of the children of Israel shall be broken. Simeon (Luke 2:34) makes reference to this saying. The subject in question is the Messiah in His humiliation. A man's dashing himself against this stone laid on the earth means rejecting Him during the time of His humiliation. In the second part of the verse, where this stone is represented as falling from the top of the building, the subject is the glorified Messiah crushing all earthly oppositions by the manifestations of His wrath. In Dan 2:44 the word λικμᾲν is also found (λικμήσει πάσας τὰς βασιλείας), strictly: to winnow, and hence to scatter to the wind. It is therefore dangerous to encounter this stone, either by dashing against it while it is yet laid on the ground, as Israel is doing, or whether, when it shall be raised to the top of the building, men provoke it to fall on their own head, as the other nations shall one day do.

A new deliberation among the rulers follows this terrible shock (Luke 20:19). But fear of the people restrains them. There is a correspondence between the two καί before ἐφοβήθησαν and before ἐζήτησαν. The two feelings, fearing and seeking (to put Him to death), struggle within their heart. The for at the end of the verse bears on the first proposition; and the πρὸς αὐτούς signifies, with a view to them (Luke 20:9; Luke 19:9).

In Matthew there occurs here the parable of the great supper. It is hardly probable that Jesus heaped up at one time so many figures of the same kind. The association of ideas which led the evangelist to insert the parable here is sufficiently obvious.