《Pett’s Commentary on the Bible – Matthew(Vol. 3)》(Peter Pett)
20 Chapter 20
Verse 1
“For the kingly rule of heaven is like to a man who was a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.”
Here we have a further description of what the Kingly Rule of Heaven is like. Compare Matthew 13:24; Matthew 13:31; Matthew 13:33; Matthew 13:44-45; Matthew 13:47; Matthew 18:23-35; Matthew 22:1-14; Matthew 25:1-13. Note that it is like something that is continual through the lifetimes of His listeners. In other words the Kingly Rule of Heaven is being experienced as a present experience. This is the obvious way of reading it unless we have to manipulate it in order to fit a theory.
And what is the Kingly Rule of Heaven like? It is like a man who is a householder/estate owner and owns a vineyard (compare and contrast Matthew 21:33). And this estate owner goes out early in the morning to hire labourers into His vineyard. Thus He is calling them to come under the Kingly Rule of Heaven so that they might serve Him. Here we have the indication that all His disciples are now being recruited for His mission (Matthew 9:37-38), and will continue to be so. They are to be sent out to bring in the harvest.
In those days those who had no strips of land, or insufficient strips of land, of their own, would hire themselves out to the more wealthy landowners in order to earn a living. And this was done by standing in the market place or the great square around the gate of the city and waiting for the hirers to come along. This was necessary for them so that they could earn money so as to put food into their childrens’ mouths. And a denarius was a normal days pay for such workers. It was in fact all that larger families could do to survive on such a small amount. And workers like this were despised and looked down on. They were seen as almost penniless and little better than slaves. They subsisted on whatever work they could get.
‘Early in the morning.’ This would be at dawn, indicating the commencement of the new Day. There is here a further indication of the commencement of the new age.
Verse 2
“And when he had agreed with the labourers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.”
In this case the estate owner agreed with the workers whom He hired from those who were standing there, a fair wage for a day’s work, one denarius. Then He sent them to work in His vineyard, no doubt under His manager (Matthew 20:8). The labourers were quite satisfied. He had offered them the usual rate for the job. That was important. God cheats or underrates no man.
Verse 3-4
“And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing in the marketplace idle, and to them he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And they went their way.”
Presumably the work was falling behind with the result that His manager informed Him that more workers were needed. Or perhaps we are to see in it simply the goodness of heart of the estate owner although in that case why not hire all at once? But the purpose of the details is not in order to explain the estate owner’s reasons but in order to get over the idea of a gradually ongoing situation. So He again goes out to look for labourers, this time at roughly 9:00 am. And in the marketplace He finds that there are still many labourers who have not found work. So He again selects out some workers. They would have been there from early morning, but no one had previously hired them (Matthew 20:7). To these He promises that He will pay ‘whatever is right’. To this they agree, for they know that they cannot expect a full denarius, and they are desperate to get work. And like the others they go to work in His vineyard. Note the deliberate emphasis on the fact that they are to trust the estate manager to do what is right.
Verse 5
“Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same.”
Again perhaps His manager twice warns Him that with the workforce that they have the work will not be finished by the evening. But whatever the reason He goes out around noon and then again around 3:00 pm. (15:00 hours). And again He hires labourers on the same terms as the previous ones at 9:00 am, the terms of trust and obedience. His operations are to go on all through the day.
Verse 6
“And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing, and he says to them, ‘Why do you stand here all the day idle?’ ”
But still the workers prove insufficient and the call comes for more workers (compare Matthew 9:38). So at around 5 pm (17:00 hours), at ‘the eleventh hour’, He goes out and He still find labourers whom no one has hired. And He asks them why no one has hired them. The purpose of the question is in order to demonstrate that they are not layabouts, but have genuinely been there all day waiting for work. By this time they were aware that for that day at least, their children would go hungry.
It should be noted here that the assumption is that those who are not labouring for the estate owner are ‘idle’ (not working). It visualises only one occupation that is worthwhile in this coming new age, that of serving the Lord of the vineyard.
Verse 7
“They say to him, ‘Because no man has hired us.’ He says to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ ”
So they inform the landowner that the reason that they are still there, (having stood there be it noted through the heat of the day), is because no one has hired them. We can imagine how they were feeling, and even more their great delight when the landowner hires them at a time when they were past hope. Their pay for work at the end of the day might be small, but it will be better than nothing, and they are grateful. It may at least buy some stale barley bread for their families to feed on.
Verse 8
“And when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard says to his steward, ‘Call the labourers, and pay them their hire, beginning from the last to the first.’ ”
Then when evening comes the Estate Owner calls to His manager and tells him to line up the labourers so that they can receive their pay. Paying at the end of the day, on the same day, was a requirement of the Law (Leviticus 19:13). And He tells him to pay the last who were employed first. His gracious treatment continues to the end.
Verse 9
“And when those came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a denarius.”
When the men who had been employed at the eleventh hour came forward they expected very little, and they must have been astounded when He paid them a denarius. This was not what they had anticipated at all. They had expected only a fraction of a denarius. But we are to gather that the estate owner was a good and righteous man, and recognised that they had been without work through no fault of their own. And He also recognised that they would have families to feed. Thus He had determined to pay them enough to feed their families. The generosity of heart is intended to indicate that he is like God (compare Matthew 5:45), and that He will meet sufficiently the needs of all His people (compare Matthew 6:30). We are left to imagine the overflowing gratitude and praise that would fill their hearts.
Verse 10
“And when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more, and they likewise received every man a denarius.”
When the men who had worked all day saw this their eyes would glisten. Clearly they would be paid much more than a denarius. And they came forward confidently to receive their due. But they too only received a denarius.
The intermediate workers are not mentioned in the final payout, and the assumption is that they too were paid a denarius. But their importance in the parable is in the indication that the estate owner continued to call on people to work in His vineyard all through the day, and called on them to trust Him to deal rightly with them in the end.
We must remember that this is a parable. It is not saying that all who commence work at the very beginning will be dissatisfied at the end, or that none of the others will be dissatisfied. It is using extremes to bring out a lesson. We may in fact happily assume that some would in real life be content with their denarius.
Verse 11-12
“And when they received it, they murmured continually against the householder, saying, ‘These last have spent but one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ”
The workers who had worked all day were furious and muttered among themselves, pointing out to each other that they had worked throughout the whole day, bearing the burden of the greater part of the work, and working even when the sun was hottest. And yet this mean-minded, ungrateful rich estate owner had only paid them the same as He had paid those who had only worked from 5:00 pm to nightfall. (They ignored the fact that these others had waited hopelessly in the sun all day with only despair in their hearts). They did not consider it fair. And our hearts are so hardened that we tend to agree with them, for we all like to think in terms of what we deserve, failing to recognise that if we too got what we deserved our case would be hopeless. But the question that will now be answered is, was their attitude right? (Note that this is not a parable about wage negotiations and fairplay. It is a parable about a gracious and good Estate Owner in His dealings with unfortunates and the fact that our attitude should be the same).
Verse 13
“But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I do you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?’ ”
The estate owner, who was a good man, then gently took one of them aside, and calling him His ‘friend’, an act of graciousness in itself, He pointed out that He had done him no wrong, for He had paid him exactly what he had agreed. Why then was he grumbling when he had received the amount agreed in their contract?
Verse 14
“Take up what is yours and go your way. It is my will to give to this last, even as to you.”
Then He pointed out that what He had done what in accordance with His own will, and that was to pay a living wage to everyone regardless of their misfortune at not finding work until late on (in fact a good Union principle). This stress on the owner’s ‘will’ is a further indication that he represents God Who does according to His own will, and we should ever be grateful for the fact that it is His will not to give us what we deserve, but to benefit even the least deserving.
Verse 15
“Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?”
Then He explained His purpose. His money was lawfully His, so that He could do with it what He would. And because He was a good man He had decided to pay the unfortunates who had not been able to find work until late sufficient to feed their families. This was an act of His own goodness, not a matter of what was deserved. (He had not withheld part of their denarius with which to help others). For His purpose had been in order to ensure that none went without. Thus He had performed His will, and He had done what was right, but He had also gone further. He had done what was more than right, He had done what was ‘good’ (compare Matthew 19:17). This clearly identifies him as representing God, and not just any benefactor.
‘Is your eye evil.’ This metaphor almost certainly has in mind Deuteronomy 15:9 where it represents the eye that is ungenerous towards the needy. It is a rebuke indicating that with all their claims to what was lawful their hearts were not set to obey the Law as promulgated in Deuteronomy 14:28 to Deuteronomy 15:11, the Law of generosity to the poor. It also brings out the principle on which the Estate Owner was working, that of benefiting and providing for the poor and needy. The evil eye, ungenerous itself, was looking at One Who was truly good, and therefore it could not understand. But how glad we should be that God is like this. For few of us, even if we survive the burden and heat of the day, do it without some failure. How wonderful then it is to know that in the end we will still hear His ‘well done’.
Verse 16
‘So the last will be first, and the first last.’
And thus the story tells us that because of God’s goodness and graciousness, and because our spirits can so easily become jealous and hardened, it is often the last who become first, while the first become last. This is a warning, not a threat. The sad thing in the parable is that it was the men who had worked hardest who came out worst, not because they were not fairly paid, but because they were ungracious and mean-spirited and finished up dissatisfied.
It is interesting how often commentators at this point cite stories where a man who only worked a short time did as much in that short time as those who had worked all day. It emphasises our sense of fair play. But that is almost to cancel out the point of the story. For the point of the story is not that we get what is due because of what we have accomplished, but that if we have done our best God is so gracious that we all get far more than we deserve, regardless of how much we have done. The point is that God is generous beyond deserving to those who seek to serve Him and that we should not be looking at what others get, but wondering at His graciousness in giving us so much when we are the least deserving.
For the real emphasis of the story is not the workforce, nor on what they received, but is on how we should conceive the goodness and graciousness of God, and on the fact that we will all come out of His vineyard with far more than we deserve, because of how good and generous He is. It is that our rating does not depend on what we deserve, but on His goodness alone. Once again they learn that the new world is upon them, a world unlike any known before, a world where the only criterion is the good, and where men receive far more than they deserve. (In fact, of course, God had always been like this, but now it is revealed as the very basis of the new age).
Thus the idea that ‘the last will be first, and the first last’ warns against presumption when we are dealing with Someone Who is the very opposite of all our reasoning, because He does not think in terms of what we deserve, but in terms of love. Thus none can set himself up above any other, and the Apostles least of all. If this was not intended to prevent the Apostles getting the wrong idea about their ‘thrones’ we do not know what else would have been. And shortly we shall learn how necessary it was (Matthew 20:20-28).
Verse 17
‘And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples apart, and on the way he said to them, “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death.” ’
‘As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem.’ Matthew does not want us to miss the context. What is to follow must be seen in the light of that fact that Jesus had His eyes fixed on a cross in Jerusalem.
Eager that His chosen twelve Apostles should be prepared for what was coming, He took them to one side on the journey and again emphasised what His fate was going to be. And He makes clear that it will happen to Him as ‘the Son of Man’. The picture of the Son of Man emerging from suffering and going on the clouds of Heaven to receive kingship and glory was by now well known to them. But He stresses it again. And again reminds them that it will be at the hands of the Jewish leaders, the Chief Priests and the Scribes, those upstanding leaders of religion in Jerusalem. Such a suggestion was in accordance with the Scriptures - see Isaiah 50:6; Isaiah 53:7-8. It would have caused no surprise to Jeremiah (e.g. Jeremiah 19:1; Jeremiah 20:1-2; Jeremiah 26:11).