TRANSLATION MATTHEW

“Listen to another parable! There was a man, a landowner, who planted a vineyard, surrounded it with a hedge, dug a trough for the vat, built a watch-tower, let it out to farmers, and went abroad. When the harvest-time was near, he sent his slaves to the farmers to take his share of the crop. But the farmers took his slaves, thrashed one, killed another, and pelted another with stones. Then again he sent slaves, more than the first time, and they dealt with them the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will show respect to my son.”

But when the farmers saw the son, they said to each other, “This is the heir! Come on, let’s kill him and possess his inheritance.” So they took him, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. So when the owner comes to the vineyard, what will he do to these farmers?”

They said to him, “He will give these evil men an evil death, and he will give over the vineyard to other farmers who will pay him back his share at harvest-time.”

Jesus says to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures, “The stone which the builders considered useless, became the headstone of the corner! This is the Lord’s doing and it is wonderful in our eyes.”?

“For this reason I tell you that the Rule of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation that will produce its fruit.

[The one who falls on this stone will be shattered, and the one on whom it falls will be ground to dust. “]

When the chief priests and the Pharisees listened to his parables they realised that he was speaking about themselves. They longed to lay hands on him, but they were afraid because the crowds held him to be a prophet.

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The landowner who goes abroad leaving others to work his land, is another stock figure of wisdom stories. Israel’s God as the owner of a vineyard is vividly depicted in Isaiah 5. Jesus here enjoys briefly indicating the care the owner takes before going away. The frankly incredible patience of the owner in face of local thuggery is used here to suggest that he may never come back, justifying his tenants’ confidence. It’s quite likely that Jesus included the son’s death in his original story, but probably not the detail of his murder outside the vineyard

“This is the heir,” expresses the brutal joy of those (Israelites) who think there will be no judgement. The suggestion that Israel will murder its messiah was likely to produce the crime it narrated. It is of course possible that the bit about the Son has been added to the parable in the Gospel tradition.

There is a nice play on the Greek verb ‘labein’ to take: the owner wants to “take” his share; but the farmers finally “take” his son.

The quoted verse from Psalm 118 is applied here to the Gentiles, not directly to Jesus. But the offence is great that words written for Israel are now applied to Gentiles. As with all gospel records of controversy between Jesus and the Jewish leadership, the later situation of Jesus’ Assemblies amongst a tightly organised network of orthodox Jews, should be considered.

The headstone of the corner: it seems clear to me that this is not a “cornerstone’; that is the foundation stone, the first to be laid. But the head or cap stone, is the highest placed in a structure, maybe the last to be laid, and is therefore also different from the ‘keystone’ of an arch.If so many pious commentaries on Jesus as cornerstone are misplaced in this case. The head or chief stone completes a structure.

The passage in square brackets, albeit it appears in many decent manuscripts, I judge to be a later addition to Matthew’s text.