Luke 20:9

vineyard--(See on Luk 13:6). In Mat 21:33 additional points are given, taken literally from Isa 5:2, to fix down the application and sustain it by Old Testament authority. husbandmen--the ordinary spiritual guides of the people, under whose care and culture the fruits of righteousness might be yielded. went, &c.--leaving it to the laws of the spiritual husbandry during the whole length of the Jewish economy. (See on Mar 4:26.)

Christ spoke this parable against those who were resolved not to own his authority, though the evidence of it was ever so full and convincing; and it comes very seasonably to show that by questioning his authority they forfeited their own. Their disowning the lord of their vineyard was a defeasance of their lease of the vineyard, and giving up of all their title. I. The parable has nothing added here to what we had before in Matthew and Mark. The scope of it is to show that the Jewish nation, by persecuting the prophets, and at length Christ himself, had provoked God to take away from them all their church privileges, and to abandon them to ruin. It teaches us, 1. That those who enjoy the privileges of the visible church are as tenants and farmers that have a vineyard to look after, and rent to pay for it. God, by setting up revealed religion and instituted orders in the world, hath planted a vineyard, which he lets out to those people among whom his tabernacle is, Luk 20:9. And they have vineyard-work to do, needful and constant work, but pleasant and profitable. Whereas man was, for sin, condemned to till the ground, they that have a place in the church are restored to that which was Adam's work in innocency, to dress the garden, and to keep it; for the church is a paradise, and Christ the tree of life in it. They have also vineyard-fruits to present to the Lord of the vineyard. There are rents to be paid and services to be done, which, though bearing no proportion to the value of the premises, yet must be done and must be paid. 2. That the work of God's ministers is to call upon those who enjoy the privileges of the church to bring forth fruit accordingly. They are God's rent-gatherers, to put the husbandmen in mind of their arrears, or rather to put them in mind tha…

20:9-19 This story adapts Isaiah’s Song of the Fruitful Vineyard (Isa 5:1-7) to allegorize Jesus’ rejection by Israel’s leaders. In Isaiah’s allegory, the vineyard owner is God and Israel is the unfruitful vineyard that will be judged. Jesus added new characters—the tenant farmers were Israel’s unrighteous leaders, the servants were the Old Testament prophets (repeatedly rejected by Israel), and the son was Jesus. God would judge Israel’s leaders for rejecting and murdering his son. 20:9 leased it to tenant farmers: This was a common practice in first-century Palestine, especially in Galilee, where peasants would lease the right to raise crops from wealthy landowners.