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The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Luke 20:9-19, The tenants who killed the heir
Jesus tells of a vineyard owner whose tenants beat his servants and kill his beloved son to take the inheritance. The leaders realize he has told it against them.
Luke 20:9-19, in every translation this tool compares.
Jesus tells a story about a vineyard owner who leases his land to tenant farmers and travels abroad. Each servant he sends to collect his share is beaten and turned away, so finally he sends his own dear son, and the tenants kill him to take the property for themselves. Jesus asks what the owner will do, cites the psalm about a rejected stone becoming the cornerstone, and the religious leaders, realising the story is about them, want to arrest him.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/estates-and-laborers\/","n":"Estates, tenants and day laborers","s":"Wealthy owners, often living in town, let their land to tenant farmers for a share of the crop or hired day laborers in the marketplace and paid them a denarius at sundown.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/prophets-rejected\/","n":"Prophets rejected and killed","s":"Israel's memory of prophets mocked, beaten and killed by their own people. By Jesus' day tradition had lengthened the list of martyred prophets.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/adoption-and-heirs\/","n":"Adoption, heirs and wills","s":"A family's property passed to its heirs; in Jewish practice the land went to the sons, the eldest with a double share. Roman law also let a man adopt a son, often a grown one, who left his old debts and ties behind and became his heir. A will, sealed before witnesses, settled who inherited and who looked after an heir too young to inherit.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/chief-priests-and-council\/","n":"Chief priests, elders and the council","s":"The Jerusalem aristocracy of priestly families and elders who ran the temple and the Sanhedrin and dealt with Rome.","r":""}
Absentee landlords were common, especially in Galilee, and tenants paid at harvest either a share, sometimes half, or a fixed amount (Keener and his notes; Strauss, in the Zondervan backgrounds commentary). Landowners always held the social and legal power, and a few reportedly kept hit squads for troublesome tenants; these tenants act as if the power were theirs (Keener). The parable builds on Isaiah's song of the vineyard (Isaiah 5:1-7), where the vineyard is Israel and the owner God, so hearers would catch its threat at once (Strauss), and they would think at once of Israel's killing of the prophets (Keener and his notes). Keener notes that tenants could seize an inheritance only under certain legal conditions, and that the owner could name someone else as heir. Psalm 118:22 came from the Hallel, fresh in everyone's mind at Passover, and the building in the psalm is the temple, so a new cornerstone threatened the builders of the old (Keener and his notes). Bailey reads the owner's choice to send his son, instead of coming with force, as a refusal to retaliate.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Luke 20:9-18, 20:9, 20:10, 20:11-12, 20:14-15 and 20:17
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Luke 20:9, 20:10, 20:11-12 and 20:17
- Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, ch. 24, The Parable of the Great Banquet
- Mark L. Strauss, Luke, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Luke 20:9-19, 20:9, 20:10, 20:13, 20:15, 20:17 and 20:18
