They Wanted the House Without the Owner

This parable is used to teach one idea more than any other. The teaching says Yahuah finished with Israel and started over with the church. The verse used is verse 43.

The story does not allow it. There is one vineyard from the first verse to the last. The owner never destroys it, never plants another, and never trades it for a different field. Everything that moves in this story moves around the vineyard.

Every picture in the story came out of the Hebrew Scriptures. The men listening had Moses, the Prophets, and the Writings, and nothing else. The vineyard, the fence, the tower, the winepress, the fruit, the servants — each one already carried a fixed meaning in those books. Those meanings are what the parable is built from. They are not open slots for a pastor to fill with whatever suits this week’s message.

The Question That Started It

Yahushua was teaching in the temple. The chief priests and the elders walked up and asked him two questions.

By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority? — Matthew 21:23

They wanted to know what right he had to teach and act as he did, and who handed him that right. The parable is his answer, and it is a story about authority. An owner gives men the right to work his land. The story shows what the owner does when those men begin treating the land as their own.

The passage says plainly who he was talking about. When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard it, they knew he meant them (Matthew 21:45). They asked where his authority came from. He answered by showing them where their own authority came from, and how that authority was about to be handed to other men.

The Pieces, Named From the Old Testament

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. — Matthew 21:33

Husbandmen are renters — farmers working ground that belongs to someone else. Every other item in that verse is lifted straight out of Isaiah 5:2, in the same order, and each one already had a meaning in the Hebrew Scriptures.

• The fence is separation. It kept the field apart from everything around it. When Yahuah takes the hedge down, everyone passing by picks at the vine (Psalm 80:12).

• The tower is where a watchman stands. Yahuah told Ezekiel he was made a watchman to the house of Israel, set there to hear the word and warn the people (Ezekiel 3:17).

• The winepress is where the fruit is brought in and pressed. It is the place the crop is turned over and measured, and in the prophets it is the place of judgment (Joel 3:13).

So before a renter is mentioned, the story has already described a protected people, watched over, with a place set up to receive what they produce.

The Vineyard Is a People

For the vineyard of Yahuah of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. — Isaiah 5:7

The vineyard is the house of Israel. That phrase needs care, because people hear it and picture a country, or a temple, or a piece of ground. It means none of those. The house of Israel is the people Yahuah brought out of Egypt and bound to himself at Sinai.

Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it. — Psalm 80:8

A field cannot be dug up in Egypt and carried across a desert. A people can. The vine is people. Jeremiah uses the same picture: a good vine, planted with right seed, that turned into a strange vine (Jeremiah 2:21).

The Plant and the Renters Are Not the Same Men

Isaiah names two things in that verse. The vineyard is the house of Israel. The pleasant plant is the men of Judah.

The plant is not the workers. It is the choice stock growing in the field — people, like the rest of the vineyard. Judah is singled out because the house of Yahuah stood there. The temple was in Jerusalem, and Jerusalem was in Judah. When the northern tribes set up a worship of their own, the priests and Levites left their land and moved south into Judah, because the service they had been given could only be carried out where the house stood (2 Chronicles 11:13-14).

The renters are a different group entirely, and here is the part that is easy to miss. Isaiah’s version has no renters. Isaiah has an owner, a field, and vines that failed to produce. Yahushua adds men who were hired to work it.

That addition is the point of his version. Isaiah said the fruit failed. Yahushua names the men who were answerable for it, and they were standing in front of him.

Those men are the priests and elders. The Hebrew Scriptures state their job without any need for guessing. The priest’s lips are to keep knowledge, and people are to seek the law at his mouth (Malachi 2:7). Priests were commanded to teach the people all the statutes Yahuah gave through Moses (Leviticus 10:11). Ezekiel says the same in two parts: teach the people the difference between holy and unholy, and stand in judgment when there is a dispute (Ezekiel 44:23-24).

So the field is the people. The choice vines are Judah. The renters are the men placed over them.

What the Work Actually Was

The renters were not hired to own anyone. They were hired to produce something in the people, and Isaiah says what it was. The owner came looking for judgment and for righteousness. He found oppression and a cry for help instead (Isaiah 5:7).

That is the work. Teach the people the law, judge their cases rightly, and warn them from the tower when they drift. Do that, and the field grows righteous people. That is the only crop this vineyard was ever planted for.

So when the owner sent servants to collect the fruit, he was not asking for grapes or numbers or buildings. He was sending for righteousness in the people. There was none to bring to the press, because the men holding the work had not done it.

The Rent Was Righteousness

Righteousness is not left vague anywhere in Scripture. Moses defines it, and the Psalms repeat it.

And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before Yahuah our Elohim, as he hath commanded us. — Deuteronomy 6:25

My tongue shall speak of thy word: for all thy commandments are righteousness. — Psalm 119:172

The prophets keep the same books. Hosea tells the nation to sow in righteousness and reap in mercy (Hosea 10:12). Amos charges the leaders with turning the fruit of righteousness into poison (Amos 6:12). Solomon says the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life (Proverbs 11:30).

The apostles never changed the rent. They kept the same words. Believers are to be filled with the fruits of righteousness (Philippians 1:11). Correction produces the peaceable fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 12:11). The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace (James 3:18). The fruit of the Spirit is goodness, righteousness, and truth (Ephesians 5:9).

One rent, named the same way in both testaments. The parable adds only the timing. The fruit is brought in during its seasons, at the times the owner set, not at times the renters chose.

Nobody Owned the Vineyard

The owner rented the field out. He did not sell it. That is not an extra detail dropped into a story. It is a rule out of the law of Moses.

The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. — Leviticus 25:23

The land belonged to Yahuah, and everyone living on it lived there as a guest. The priesthood was held on the same terms.

I have given your priest’s office unto you as a service of gift. — Numbers 18:7

A gift of service can be taken back from the men holding it. Taking it back does not cancel the people, the land, or the agreement. It changes who is doing the teaching, the judging, and the watching.

The Office Had Moved Before

What verse 43 describes had already happened twice in plain history, with no parable involved.

The first is the house of Eli. The priesthood had been promised to that family. His sons corrupted the service, and the promise was pulled back.

Them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed… And I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart. — 1 Samuel 2:30, 35

Israel was not replaced. The nation stayed. The land stayed. The work moved to another house and went on.

The second is Malachi, and his charge is the one that matters most here.

The priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth… But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law. — Malachi 2:7-8

They handled the law in a way that made people trip over it, and they lost their standing for it. The people were not replaced. The priests were.

When the Priesthood Moves

Every time the service changes hands, one rule has to change with it — the rule about who is allowed to hold it. That is a rule of family and descent, and nothing more.

For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. — Hebrews 7:12

That verse is quoted constantly to teach that the law was cancelled. Read the next two verses and the subject is stated outright. Yahushua came out of the tribe of Judah, and Moses said nothing about priests coming from Judah (Hebrews 7:13-14). The rule that had to give way was the rule that limited the office to one family in one tribe.

Nothing there touches righteousness, and nothing there touches the fruit the owner comes for. The crop stayed the same. The men bringing it in changed, and the rule naming who may bring it in changed with them. That is the whole parable, stated in a letter.

The Servants and the Son

The owner sent servants at the time of the fruit, and they were beaten, killed, and stoned (Matthew 21:34-36). That is not invented. It is the record of the kingdom. Yahuah sent his messengers again and again, and they were mocked, despised, and abused (2 Chronicles 36:15-16). Men who would not hand over the fruit would not take correction about it either.

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. — Matthew 21:38

They say the reason out loud, and it is an authority reason. They do not want the vineyard gone. They want it without the owner’s rules over it. Kill the heir, and there is no one left with the standing to come collecting or to say how the work is to be done.

They threw him out of the vineyard, and then killed him (Matthew 21:39).

Who the Son Was

The parable never gives the son a name. The men listening did not need one. Isaiah had already written about a servant who would grow up before Yahuah as a tender plant out of dry ground, and be killed for wrongs that were not his own.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. — Isaiah 53:5

Isaiah does not leave him in the ground. After the offering is made, the servant sees his seed and his days are prolonged (Isaiah 53:10). David says it without a picture at all: Yahuah would not leave his soul in the grave, and would not let him see corruption (Psalm 16:10).

That is why the son belongs in a parable about fruit. A branch cut off from life produces nothing. The renters were charged with growing righteousness in the people, and no one grows it while he is still under his own guilt and still headed for the grave. The heir they threw out of the vineyard is the one who carried those wrongs and then broke death open, so that a man brought in is alive and able to bear the crop the owner comes for.

The order never reverses. Life comes first, through the son. The fruit comes afterward, and the fruit is still righteousness.

They Sentenced Themselves

Yahushua does not give the verdict. He asks for it, and the chief priests hand it to him. Nathan did the same thing to David, who passed sentence on himself before he understood the case was his own (2 Samuel 12:5-7).

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. — Matthew 21:41

This answer deserves a slow reading, because the men being judged answered the question the modern teaching gets wrong, and they answered it one verse before the verse everyone quotes.

They did not say the owner would burn the vineyard. They did not say he would buy a different field, or move to another country, or start over with a crop he liked better. They said he would destroy the men and rent the same vineyard to other men, who would bring in the same fruit at the same appointed times.

So the field survives, the fruit expected does not change, and the only thing that moves is the men. Verse 43 comes next and says the same thing in kingdom language. It cannot mean more than verse 41 already said, because verse 41 is the sentence the chief priests wrote themselves.

What Verse 43 Takes

The kingdom of Yahuah shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. — Matthew 21:43

He is speaking to the men who asked the question in verse 23, and the text says two verses later that they knew it.

What is taken is the work. Not the people, not the field, not the covenant — the job of teaching the law, judging the cases, watching from the tower, and bringing the fruit in at the appointed times. That work was a gift of service, and it was withdrawn from the men who would not do it.

The English word nation is where the modern teaching gets its footing. A reader sees it and pictures one country losing a religion and another country being handed it. The word underneath means a people — a body of people, with no borders or government attached. What the verse promises is that the work goes to a people who bring in the fruit.

Peter was standing there when this was said. Later he wrote to those new workers and handed them the words Yahuah had spoken to Israel at the mountain.

Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood… But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people. — 1 Peter 2:5, 9

That is Exodus 19:6, handed on without a word changed. Peter did not announce a new field or a new crop. He gave a new set of workers the same title and the same job, and he named the new address of the service while he did it. The work is no longer carried on in a building in Judah. It is carried in people, which is where Yahuah said he wanted to dwell from the beginning (Exodus 25:8).

The stone quoted in the middle of the parable makes the same point. The builders who threw the stone away were the men whose whole office was building the house — teaching, judging, running the service (Matthew 21:42, Psalm 118:22). A builder who throws out the main stone has failed at the one thing he was there to do. The charge is against the workmen, not the building.

Who Israel Is in the Apostles’ Writing

If the work moved to a people who bring the fruit, the obvious question is who that people is. The apostles answer it, and their answer is not a second nation.

At that time ye were without Messiah, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise… Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of Elohim. — Ephesians 2:12, 19

Paul does not tell them a new commonwealth was built for them. He tells them they were outside of Israel and have been brought inside it. Nobody was traded.

He says it again in the picture of a tree. Some branches were broken out for unbelief, and wild branches were grafted in and now draw from the same root. Paul warns the grafted branches against boasting, and says the natural branches can be grafted back into their own tree (Romans 11:17-24).

There is one tree, one root, and one owner deciding which branches stand in it. Paul never plants a second tree, and that is exactly what the parable refuses to do with the vineyard.

What the Modern Teaching Gets Wrong

Two teachings are built on verse 43, and the parable refuses both.

The first says the vineyard was taken from Israel and given to the church — one people swapped for another. The owner never touches the vineyard. He removes hired men. A field is not punished for what its renters did, and the grafted branches did not replace the tree they were put into.

The second says there are now two separate peoples running on two separate sets of terms. There is one field, one agreement, one crop, and one owner. Nothing in the story splits in two.

Both errors come from the same mistake. They read the parable as a question about which nation owns the religion. It is a question about which men are doing the work, and whether there is any righteousness to bring to the press.

The Verdict

An owner planted a people. He fenced them off, set a tower over them for a watchman, and dug a press to receive what they produced. He put men in charge of the work, and the work was teaching the law and judging rightly so that the people would grow righteous. He sent for the fruit at the times he had set. The men kept the place, beat the messengers, and killed the heir rather than answer to him. So he removed the men and gave the work to others.

A church that holds the office today, claims the inheritance, and teaches that the owner’s commands were cancelled is standing exactly where those men stood. It has the tower and it has the press. It has no righteousness to bring in, because it stopped teaching the standard that grows it.

The men who lost the work were the closest men to the vineyard. They lived inside the fence. They worked beside the press. They slept under the tower. Being close was their whole standing, and the owner would not take it in place of fruit.

One vineyard. One owner. One crop. The men over it were changed once, and can be changed again.