The Vineyard and the Husbandmen: The Parable Read Through

This is a companion to the study They Wanted the House Without the Owner. Nothing here is argued; it is argued there. The bracketed notes are not part of the text — each one carries a meaning the Hebrew Scriptures had already given the image beside it.

MATTHEW 21:33–46 — KJV

Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, [Yahuah, who owns the ground and everyone standing on it — the land is mine, and ye are strangers and sojourners with me] which planted a vineyard, [the house of Israel, and a people rather than a place — a vine brought up out of Egypt and planted by hand] and hedged it round about, [the separation that holds them apart from the nations; when Yahuah takes the hedge down, everyone passing by picks at the vine] and digged a winepress in it, [where the crop is brought in and pressed — the place what they grew is turned over and measured] and built a tower, [the watchman’s post — hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me] and let it out to husbandmen, [renters, never owners; Isaiah’s vineyard has no renters at all, and these men are what Yahushua adds to the picture — the priests and elders set over the people to teach the law and judge their cases] and went into a far country. [absence, not abandonment; nothing in it moves the title]

And when the time of the fruit drew near, [the owner’s season, not the renters’] he sent his servants [the prophets] to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. [judgment and righteousness — the crop Isaiah named, and Moses defined it: it shall be our righteousness if we keep the commandments he commanded us]

And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise. [the plain record of the kingdom — he sent his messengers, rising up early and sending, and they mocked them and misused his prophets; men who would not hand over the fruit would not take correction about it either]

But last of all he sent unto them his son, [Isaiah’s servant, the tender plant grown up out of dry ground, wounded for our transgressions and not left in the grave to see corruption — no vine bears anything without his life in it] saying, They will reverence my son. 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. [they are not mistaken about him; they know exactly who he is, and that is the reason — the motive is authority, because they want the vineyard without the owner’s rules standing over it]

And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. [thrown out first, then killed, by men who had decided the ground was theirs to police]

When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? They say unto him, [the men being judged are handed the verdict and write it themselves, the way David did when Nathan told him a story] He will miserably destroy those wicked men, [the men, and only the men] and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, [the same field, rented out again; they never say he burns it, replants it, or buys another] which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. [the same crop at the same appointed times — and this is said one verse before the verse everyone quotes]

Yahushua saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, [the men whose whole office was building the house — teaching the law, judging the cases, running the service] the same is become the head of the corner: this is Yahuah’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? [their verdict on the stone changed nothing about the stone]

Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of Yahuah shall be taken from you, [from the men who had just demanded to know by what authority he acted; what is taken is their work — teaching, judging, watching, and bringing the fruit in on time, given to them as a gift of service and now withdrawn] and given to a nation [a people; there are no borders and no government in the word, and the English is where the modern church gets its doctrine] bringing forth the fruits thereof. [the fruit still belongs to the kingdom rather than to the new renters — the standard did not change hands with the lease]

And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. [the stone is not moved by what the builders decided about it]

And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them. [no interpretation is needed on who the renters are; the men in the room settled that] But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet. [and they proved the parable in the same hour, by reaching for the son]

Put together, the parable says one thing. The vineyard is Yahuah’s people, and it never moves. What he hands out, and what he takes back, is the work over them — teaching the law, judging rightly, standing in the tower, and bringing in a crop of righteous people at the times he set. That work was given as a gift of service, and it had been pulled out of men’s hands before. It came out of the house of Eli, and it came out of the priests Malachi charged with making people stumble at the law. Neither time was the nation replaced.

The men who lost it were the closest men to the field. They lived inside the fence, worked beside the press, and slept under the tower. They kept the title and the office right up to the hour the owner came for what was owed. But the owner does not come for nearness. He comes for fruit, and there was none in the vineyard to bring him.

And the heir they threw over the wall is the one who carried their wrongs and came up out of the grave, so that the field would have life in it and a crop to bring.