Tool Beta
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.
Matthew 20:1-16, A day's wage for an hour's work
A landowner hires laborers for his vineyard at dawn and again through the day, then pays everyone a full denarius, starting with the last. Those hired first complain.
Matthew 20:1-16, in every translation this tool compares.
Jesus tells of a vineyard owner who hires workers at dawn and keeps hiring through the day, the last only an hour before quitting time. At payday everyone gets a full day's wage, and those who worked all day complain. The owner replies that he has cheated no one and is free to be generous with his own money. The story upends ideas of earning, ending with the order of last and first reversed.
- {"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\/sowing-and-harvest\/","n":"Sowing, harvest and threshing","s":"The farming year every hearer lived by: seed scattered on thin and thorny ground, weeds that look like wheat, the harvest rush, and grain winnowed in the wind while the chaff burned.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/honor-and-shame\/","n":"Honor before a crowd","s":"Public standing was the currency of the ancient Mediterranean. People competed for honor and dreaded being shamed in front of others.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/parables\/","n":"Parables and riddles","s":"Short stories that compared one thing to another. Jewish teachers used them to make a point plain, and without the point stated they worked as riddles.","r":""}
The grumblers speak to the landowner without a title, and few in their position would speak so rudely to a man whose favor they needed (the cultural backgrounds notes). The rich were praised for generosity to the poor, and calling such a benefactor stingy, the evil eye of 20:15, was a humiliating insult that the landowner turns back on them (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes); the notes sum up: "Grace is not fair; it is generous." A later rabbinic parable told the same story to the opposite effect, with Israel, the hard worker, paid more than the Gentiles (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes). The working day ran from about six in the morning to six at night, so the eleventh hour was about five, and a man hired then could expect a twelfth of a denarius (Wilkins); a denarius was also a Roman soldier's daily pay (the Zondervan Bible Dictionary).
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Matthew 20:11-12, 20:13-15 and 20:16
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Matthew 20:9-15
- Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, ch. 28, The Parable of the Compassionate Employer
- Craig L. Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables, 7.2 The Laborers in the Vineyard
- Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Matthew 20:3 and 20:6
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry money
