Exodus 12:25

12:25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give to you, just as he said, you must observe ¹  this ceremony.

Isaiah 5:2

5:2 He built a hedge around it, ²  removed its stones,

and planted a vine.

He built a tower in the middle of it,

and constructed a winepress.

He waited for it to produce edible grapes,

but it produced sour ones instead. ³ 

Matthew 21:33

The Parable of the Tenants

21:33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner ⁴  who planted a vineyard. ⁵  He put a fence around it, dug a pit for its winepress, and built a watchtower. Then ⁶  he leased it to tenant farmers ⁷  and went on a journey.

Hebrews 9:3

9:3 And after the second curtain there was a tent called the holy of holies.

Hebrews 9:10

9:10 They served only for matters of food and drink ⁸  and various washings; they are external regulations ⁹  imposed until the new order came. ¹⁰ 

¹ tn The verb used here and at the beginning of v. 24 is שָׁמַר (shamar); it can be translated “watch, keep, protect,” but in this context the point is to “observe” the religious customs and practices set forth in these instructions.

² tn Or, “dug it up” (so NIV); KJV “fenced it.’ See HALOT 810 s.v. עזק.

³ tn Heb “wild grapes,” i.e., sour ones (also in v. 4).

⁴ tn The term here refers to the owner and manager of a household.

⁵ sn The vineyard is a figure for Israel in the OT (Isa 5:1-7). The nation and its leaders are the tenants, so the vineyard here may well refer to the promise that resides within the nation. The imagery is like that in Rom 11:11-24.

⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

⁷ sn The leasing of land to tenant farmers was common in this period.

⁸ tn Grk “only for foods and drinks.”

⁹ tc Most witnesses (D¹ Ï) have “various washings, and external regulations” (βαπτισμοῖς καὶ δικαιώμασιν, baptismoi" kai dikaiwmasin), with both nouns in the dative. The translation “washings; they are… regulations” renders βαπτισμοῖς, δικαιώματα (baptismoi", dikaiwmata; found in such important mss as Ì⁴⁶ א* A I P 0278 33 1739 1881 al sa) in which case δικαιώματα is taken as the nominative subject of the participle ἐπικείμενα (epikeimena). It seems far more likely that scribes would conform δικαιώματα to the immediately preceding datives and join it to them by καί than they would to the following nominative participle. Both on external and internal evidence the text is thus secure as reading βαπτισμοῖς, δικαιώματα.

¹⁰ tn Grk “until the time of setting things right.”