Matthew 21:40

21:40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

Matthew 21:34-35

21:34 When the harvest time was near, he sent his slaves ¹  to the tenants to collect his portion of the crop. ²  21:35 But the tenants seized his slaves, beat one, ³  killed another, and stoned another.

Matthew 21:41

21:41 They said to him, “He will utterly destroy those evil men! Then he will lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his portion at the harvest.”

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.

Matthew 21:38

21:38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and get his inheritance!’

[21:34]  ¹ tn See the note on the word “slave” in 8:9.

[21:34]  ² tn Grk “to collect his fruits.”

[21:35]  ¹ sn The image of the tenants mistreating the owner’s slaves pictures the nation’s rejection of the prophets and their message.

[21:33]  ¹ tn The term here refers to the owner and manager of a household.

[21:33]  ² 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.

[21:33]  ³ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[21:33]  ⁴ sn The leasing of land to tenant farmers was common in this period.