21:28–32 The first parable is transparent.359 Jesus asks the priests and elders to assess a father and his two sons. Contrary to all custom in that day, one son flatly refuses to work in his father’s vineyard, then changes his mind and goes. The second says, “I go, sir,” but does nothing. So then, “which of the two did the will of his father?” (vv. 28–31). The answer is obvious, since deeds count more than words—performance outweighs promises.

The lesson is easy to decipher. The son who refuses to obey, then changes his mind, represents all who reject God but then believe. This might signify repentant Israelites, repentant Gentiles, or both. The son who offers to serve but fails to do so symbolizes Israel’s religious leaders.360 The leaders seemed willing to serve, but when Jesus came, they refused him, breaking their promise to serve God.

Jesus concludes that “the tax collectors and the prostitutes” are entering (at that very time) “the kingdom of God before you” (v. 31). The categories of taxmen and prostitutes sound less negative today than they did then. Tax collectors got rich by betraying their people; prostitutes lived in perpetual sin—both embody chronic sin. But these outcasts repent, believe, and enter God’s kingdom.

The failure of the leaders is all the worse since they have also received John’s testimony. But they disbelieved in him, even though he came “in the way of righteousness,” which should have appealed to them (v. 32). When they saw sinners believing John’s message, they were unmoved, and culpably so.

21:33–46 The second parable draws on Isaiah 5 and possibly Psalm 80. Isaiah tells the history of Israel from a prophet’s perspective. In the beginning, God called Israel to life, represented by a well-provisioned vineyard. He gave his nation all it needed, but it bore only wild grapes, so the Master let it fall into disrepair (Isa. 5:1–7).

The well-prepared vineyard in Jesus’ parable represents God’s providing for Israel, while the rest of the story describes Israel’s response. The land, hedge-wall, winepress, and tower are everything a farm needs (Matt. 21:33). In the real world, the Lord gave Israel their deliverance from Egypt, a covenant, laws, land, and love, as well as kings and prophets to protect and instruct them. They had all they needed.

This parable appears in all three Synoptics in the same location (Matthew alone has the parable of the two sons). The parables display many minor differences between them, but three seem weighty. First, in Matthew and Luke, the tenants cast the son out of the vineyard, then kill him, while the order is reversed in Mark. So in Matthew and Luke they dispossess the heir before murdering him. Second, Israel’s leaders pronounce judgment on themselves in Matthew 21:40–41. Third, Matthew alone records Jesus’ word to Israel’s leaders, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits” (v. 43). In each case, Matthew’s account accents the culpability of Israel’s leaders and the justice of their punishment.

In the parable, a landowner establishes a vineyard with fence, winepress, and watchtower, rents it to trusted tenant farmers, and departs (v. 33). The rent would be a portion of the harvest, which would grow plentifully after a few years with light harvests. By law, the owner sends agents to collect rent to confirm his interest and ownership (v. 34). The parable does not specify that the tenants refuse to pay their due, but given their violence to the master’s emissaries, it is assumed. When the owner’s servants come, they “beat one, killed another, and stoned another” (v. 35). The master sends additional servants, more than the first time, but the tenants do “the same” as before (v. 36).

At this point, the story abandons verisimilitude and shifts to allegory, for a landowner would not send his son into such danger. In the parable, the master sends his son, thinking, “They will respect my son” (v. 37). Alas, the sight of the son does not lead them to reconsider. They provoke one another to additional violence, saying, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance” (v. 38). This behavior is outrageous in its violation of every law, every form of decency. “Come” (Gk. deute) is hortatory: “Come on!” These wicked men rouse each other to evil, then approve it, plan it, and execute it by dispossessing and killing the heir (cf. Rom. 1:32). Until this point, the owner has shown astonishing patience, but the tenants draw the wrong lesson from this. The owner will come, and, Jesus asks, “what will he do to those tenants” when he does?

Here Jesus’ telling of the parable ends and his interpretation begins, so our interpretation may begin too. The parable has allegorical elements. The owner represents God, the tenants signify Israel’s leaders or Israel at its worst, the servants stand for the prophets, and the son is Jesus, God’s Son.

The story recapitulates Israel’s history. God established a new nation and supplied everything essential to it. But when he sent his servants—the prophets—to collect the fruit of righteousness, they abused and killed them. The next element of the story moves from review to forecast. As Jesus foretells in the parable, the leaders of Israel first throw out Jesus, God’s beloved Son and heir, then kill him. There are two elements here to their impending treatment of Jesus: a charge of blasphemy (Matt. 26:65) and expulsion from the city. When the farmers throw the son out, they assert control of the vineyard. This resembles the moment when the priests ask Jesus who has given him authority to act in their temple. Israel’s leaders soon behave as the parable predicts, bringing their rebellion to a head by killing God’s Son.

Returning to the parable, we see the tenants imagining that they have jurisdiction over the vineyard once the heir is dead. But the owner is resolute and comes against the tenants in force. Jesus lets the leaders draw the conclusion: “When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” (21:40). Caught up in the story, they condemn themselves: “He will put those wretches to a miserable361 death and let out the vineyard to other tenants” (v. 41). Jesus here says what he previously showed when he closed the temple and cursed the fig tree: judgment is coming.

The leaders draw the correct conclusion but fail to move from theory to practice. So Jesus asks again, “Have you never read . . . ?” (v. 42). To paraphrase, “Do you not get it? Do you not see that you are fulfilling the Scriptures that have foretold your wretched end?”

Jesus concludes, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes” (v. 42, citing Ps. 118:22–23). This image is of stonemasons searching a pile of large stones, seeking one with the shape and weight required for a cornerstone. The builders examine and reject stone after stone and ultimately discard the one they should have used.

The image is alien to Western cultures, who might think rather of someone bypassing succulent fruits and picking rotten ones instead. “Cornerstone” (Gk. kephalē gōnia) is also a riddle. It means either a cornerstone for a foundation or a capstone that joins the ascending halves of an arch. It can fall on people, suggesting a capstone, yet people can stumble over it, evoking a cornerstone (Matt. 21:44). Certainty is elusive, and while the evidence favors “cornerstone,” it is an important stone either way. Clearly, the builders will pay for their incompetence when the right stone, the stone they have rejected, crushes them.

As the parable says, Israel’s leaders examine Jesus. Could he be the Messiah? No, they conclude; he is a sinner, but since he draws crowds, he is dangerous. Since he also threatens their leadership, they resolve that he must die.

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” quotes Psalm 118:22, a psalm that celebrates God’s steadfast love and aid in the face of adversity. The psalm sounds royal, possibly Davidic. The author knows need and rejection; God has come through before, and the author needs the Lord again (Ps. 118:10–25). The quotation is apt, since Jesus has been rejected and needs the Father’s deliverance, which will come.

Meanwhile, Jesus’ foes will face a reckoning: “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits” (Matt. 21:43). The Jewish leaders will lose their stewardship of the covenant. It is not anti-Semitic to point out that the rulers of Israel lead the effort to kill Jesus—almost every role in the Gospels goes to Jews. The kingdom is taken from Israelites who reject Jesus and is given to Jewish apostles and to a church composed of Jews and Gentiles.

At length, the priests and Pharisees realize that Jesus is “speaking about them” (v. 45). To preserve their status, they hope to arrest Jesus, although they consider his popularity with the crowds to be an obstacle. Still, this passage includes glimpses of hope. The crowds still “held him to be a prophet” (v. 46). Further, the citation of Psalm 118 reminds us that Jesus is and will be recognized as the cornerstone of God’s house. As Psalm 118 says, God’s love “endures forever” (Ps. 118:4, 29). Paradoxically, the rejection of this stone—and its subsequent acceptance—becomes the hope of Israel. The rejection of Jesus inaugurates the kingdom of God, which offers God’s blessings of Israel to the world. This is visible in the book of Romans, where Paul cites numerous promises that God made previously to Israel and declares them to belong now to the church by faith in Jesus. For example, Paul offers justification by faith (Gen. 15:6) and forgiveness of sins (Psalm 32) in Romans 4:1–8. And he promises peace with God (Isa. 53:5; 32:17), hope in hardship (Pss. 23:6; 25:20), and the gift of the Spirit (Joel 2:28–29) in Romans 5:1–5.