Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen
The Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, also known as the Parable of the Bad Tenants, is a
A common Christian interpretation is that this parable was about the chief priests and
The parable
33 Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:
34 And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it.
35 And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
36 Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise.
37 But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.
38 But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.
39 And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.
40 When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?
41 They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.
42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
44 And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
45 And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.
46 But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet. – [1] Matthew 21:33–46] (King James Version)
Source tradition
The parable, according to the
Interpretation
Here is the version of this parable that appears in Thomas (Patterson–Meyer Translation):
65. He said, "A ... person owned a vineyard and rented it to some farmers, so they could work it and he could collect its crop from them. He sent his slave so the farmers would give him the vineyard's crop. They grabbed him, beat him, and almost killed him, and the slave returned and told his master. His master said, 'Perhaps he didn't know them.' He sent another slave, and the farmers beat that one as well. Then the master sent his son and said, 'Perhaps they'll show my son some respect.' Because the farmers knew that he was the heir to the vineyard, they grabbed him and killed him. Anyone here with two ears had better listen!"
66. Jesus said, "Show me the stone that the builders rejected: that is the keystone."
Verse 66 is a quote from
This could be seen as referring to the new Church's belief that they had superseded Judaism through Jesus' death, resurrection and role as the messiah. Others think it might be a reference to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem as seen by Christians as God's punishment for Jesus' death and their assumption that their new communities were the new Temple.
Seeing Jesus as a "stone" to build on precedes Jerusalem's destruction, however.
Matthew's version states the method of killing the third servant, stoning, which the other versions lack. Stoning might be a reference to Christian
All the synoptic versions of the parable state that the priests of the Sanhedrin understood that Jesus' parable was directed against them, and thus that they are the husbandmen. The term husbandman is translated as tenant or farmer in the New International Version and as vine-grower in the New American Standard Bible. Workers often tended absentee estates and if the owner had no heirs the workers would have the first right to the land.[7] The tower and the winepress have been interpreted as "sanctuary" and "altar", respectively.[8]
The description of the vineyard is from
The owner of the vineyard is God and the son is Jesus. The traditional interpretation about the owner leaving the vineyard is expressed by Erasmus to argue that God leaving humans the free will to act, as is said by Bede the Venerable: "He seems to leave the vineyard so as to leave the keepers of the vineyard free choice of action."[11][12]
A common interpretation of the servants is that of the
The possibility of tenants as greedy commercial farmers vs. poor farmers
Craig Evans surveys the use of "tenant" (γεωργοὶ cf. Matt 21:38) in lease agreements in antiquity to contextualize how these tenants should be viewed. He concludes that:
Interpreters should not assume that these farmers would necessarily have been understood as poor sharecroppers who out of desperation for land resorted to theft and murder. The farmers who entered into a legal agreement with the owner of the vineyard could very well have been understood by Jesus’ hearers as commercial farmers hungry for profits. Hence, their equation with the ruling priests would have been readily perceived. There is no reason to assume that the γεωργοὶ would necessarily have been understood as impoverished or marginalized. Their high-handed actions against the servants and son of the owner parallel Jeddous’ rough treatment of the emissaries of Zenon’s associate, while the owner’s military response parallels the action taken against the Senators of Salamis. These parallels from history are consistent with an interpretation of the parable that identifies the tenant farmers as the ruling priests.[13]
Muslim view
Muslim scholars like
Narrated
Abu Huraira:
Allah's Apostle said, "My similitude in comparison with the other prophets before me, is that of a man who has built a house nicely and beautifully, except for a place of one brick in a corner. The people go about it and wonder at its beauty, but say: 'Would that this brick be put in its place!' So I am that brick, and I am the Seal of the Prophets."[17]
See also
- Life of Jesus in the New Testament
- Luke 20
- Mark 12
- Matthew 21
- Ministry of Jesus
Notes
- ^ Kilgallen 227
- ^ a b Brown et al. 621
- ^ Brown et al. 713
- ^ a b Brown et al. 665
- ^ Matthew 21:41: New Century Version
- ^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, Book 4, Chapter 36 Archived 2006-06-19 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b Kilgallen 225
- ISBN 90-04-09921-2.
- ^ a b Kilgallen 226
- ISBN 0-8020-2631-1.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: others (link - ^ The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; First Published by the English College at Rheims, A.D. 1582. A. Fullarton and Co. 1852. p. 539.
He went into a far country, not by a change of place, for he is every where, but by leaving the workmen the power of free-will, either to work or not work; in the same manner as a man in a far country cannot oversee his husbandmen at home, but leaves them to themselves. Ven. Bede.
- .
- ^ Rahmatullah Kairanawi (1989). ملكاوي Malkawi, محمد أحمد (Mohammad Ahmed) (ed.). إظهار الحق (Izhar ul-Haqq "The Demonstration of the Truth"). Saudi Arabia: Council of Senior Scholars (Saudi Arabia). pp. 1178–1180.
- ^ Rahmatullah Kairanawi (1989). ملكاوي Malkawi, محمد أحمد (Mohammad Ahmed) (ed.). إظهار الحق (Izhar ul-Haqq "The Demonstration of the Truth"). Saudi Arabia: Council of Senior Scholars (Saudi Arabia). pp. 1178–1180.
- ISBN 977-289-127-1.
- ^ Sahih al-Bukhari, Book of Virtues and Merits of the Prophet and his Companions, Chapter: The Seal of all the Prophets, Hadith number: 44
Further reading
- Kloppenborg, John S. The Tenants in the Vineyard : Ideology, Economics, and Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine / John S. Kloppenborg. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006.
- Kloppenborg, John. “The Growth and Impact of Agricultural Tenancy in Jewish Palestine (III BCE-I CE).” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 51, no. 1 (2008): 31–66. https://doi.org/10.1163/156852008X287549.
- Applebum, Shimon. Royal and Imperial Estates in the Sharon and Samaria. In Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity, vol. 40: Judaea in Hellenistic and Roman Times: Historical and Archaeological Essays. Leiden: E.J. Brill: 97-110
- Rowlandson, Jane. 1996. Landowners and Tenants in Roman Egypt: The Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press.
References
- Brown, Raymond E. et al. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary Prentice Hall 1990 ISBN 978-0-13-614934-7
- Kilgallen, John J. A Brief Commentary on the Gospel of Mark Paulist Press 1989 ISBN 978-0-8091-3059-7
- Ameri, Sami (2006). محمد رسول الله في الكتب المقدسة [Muhammad, the Apostle of God, in the Holy Scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism and Buddhism] (in Arabic) (1st 2006 ed.). Tanweer Publishing center. ISBN 977-289-127-1.
- Abdullah, Misha'al. What Did Jesus Really Say? (PDF) (1995 ed.).
- Kairanawi, Rahmatullah. Waq32899Waq إظهار الحق [Izhar ul-Haq (Truth Revealed)] (in Arabic) (1989 ed.). Council of Senior Scholars (Saudi Arabia).
- Ünal, Ali; Gültekin, Harun (25 April 2014). The Prophet Promised In World Scriptures (2013 ed.). USA: Tughra Books. ISBN 978-1-59784-271-6.