The Wicked Tenants
Read the parable
- Matthew 21:33-46 Primary account
- Mark 12:1-12 Parallel account
- Luke 20:9-19 Parallel account
Context
Absentee landlords leasing vineyards to tenant farmers for a share of the crop were a familiar and often resented feature of first-century Galilee and Judea. The vineyard imagery deliberately echoes Isaiah 5:1-7, where the vineyard is the house of Israel — a connection the temple leadership could not miss. Jesus told it in the temple during his final week, days before those same leaders handed him over to be killed; Matthew notes they perceived he spoke of them.
Meaning
The parable is a compressed history of Israel's leadership: God's servants the prophets were repeatedly rejected and abused, and last of all God sent his Son — whom the tenants cast out of the vineyard and killed, as Jesus would be crucified outside the city. Jesus is consciously foretelling his own death and identifying himself as the beloved Son and the rejected stone of Psalm 118:22 that becomes the head of the corner. Matthew adds that the kingdom will be given to a nation bringing forth its fruits (Matthew 21:43); many read the judgment as falling on the faithless leaders rather than on Israel as a people, since the chief priests perceived that he spoke of them. The parable warns all entrusted stewards of God's house against rejecting the Son.
Go deeper
Two free lessons walk through the parables as a whole: The Parables of Jesus and Interpreting the Parables.