1Když se přiblížili k Jeruzalému a přišli k Betfage u Olivové hory, poslal Ježíš dva učedníky napřed 2a řekl jim: »Jděte do té vesnice, která je před vámi, a hned naleznete přivázanou oslici a s ní oslátko. Odvažte je a přiveďte ke mně. 3A kdyby vám někdo něco namítal, řekněte: 'Pán je potřebuje, a hned je pošle nazpátek.'« 4To se stalo, aby se splnilo, co bylo řečeno ústy proroka: 5'Řekněte siónské dceři: Hle, tvůj král k tobě přichází pokorný, sedí na oslu, na oslátku, mláděti soumara.' 6Učedníci šli a udělali, jak jim to Ježíš nařídil. 7Přivedli oslici a oslátko, prostřeli na oslátko své pláště a on se na pláště posadil. 8Veliké množství lidu pak prostřelo své pláště na cestu, jiní sekali ze stromů ratolesti a stlali je na cestu. 9Zástupy, které šly před ním i za ním, volaly: »Hosana synu Davidovu! Požehnaný, který přichází ve jménu Páně! Hosana na výsostech!« 10Jakmile vjel do Jeruzaléma, vzrušení zachvátilo celé město a lidé se ptali: »Kdo je to?« 11Ze zástupu jim odpovídali: »To je ten prorok, Ježíš z galilejského Nazareta.« 12Ježíš vešel do chrámu a vyhnal všechny, kteří v chrámě kupovali a prodávali, zpřevracel stoly směnárníkům a lavice prodavačům holubů 13a řekl jim: »Je psáno: 'Můj dům ať je domem modlitby', ale vy z něho děláte lupičské doupě.« 14V chrámě přistoupili k němu slepí a chromí a on je uzdravil. 15Když však velekněží a učitelé Zákona viděli ty podivuhodné věci, které vykonal, a jak děti v chrámě provolávají: »Hosana synu Davidovu!«, velmi těžce to nesli. 16Řekli mu: »Slyšíš, co říkají?« Ježíš jim odpověděl: »Ovšem! Což jste nikdy nečetli v Písmu: 'Z úst nemluvňat a kojenců zjednal sis chválu'?« 17A nechal je, vyšel z města do Betánie a tam přenocoval. 18Když se ráno zase vracel do města, dostal hlad. 19U cesty uviděl fíkovník, šel k němu, ale nic na něm nenašel než listí. Řekl mu: »Nikdy, až navěky, ať z tebe už nevzejde ovoce!« Fíkovník ihned uschl. 20Když to viděli učedníci, podivili se tomu a řekli: »Jak ten fíkovník hned uschl!« 21Ježíš jim na to odpověděl: »Amen, pravím vám: Jestliže budete mít víru a nebudete pochybovat, dokážete nejen to, co se stalo s fíkovníkem, ale i kdybyste řekli této hoře: 'Zdvihni se a vrhni se do moře!', stane se to. 22A dostanete všechno, zač budete v modlitbě prosit s vírou.« 23Když přišel do chrámu a učil, přistoupili k němu velekněží a starší lidu s otázkou: »Jakou mocí děláš tyto věci? Kdo ti k tomu dal plnou moc?« 24Ježíš jim odpověděl: »Také já se vás zeptám na jednu věc. Když mi na ni odpovíte, i já vám řeknu, jakou mocí dělám tyto věci. 25Odkud byl Janův křest? Z nebe, anebo od lidí?« Ale oni mezi sebou uvažovali: »Řekneme-li 'z nebe', namítne nám: 'Proč jste mu tedy neuvěřili?' 26Řekneme-li však 'od lidí', musíme se bát lidu, protože všichni pokládají Jana za proroka.« 27Odpověděli tedy Ježíšovi: »Nevíme.« A on jim řekl: »Ani já vám nepovím, jakou mocí tyto věci dělám. 28Co soudíte o tomto případu: Jeden člověk měl dva syny. Přistoupil k prvnímu a řekl mu: 'Synu, jdi dnes pracovat na vinici.' 29On odpověděl: 'Mně se nechce', ale potom toho litoval, a přece šel. 30Přistoupil k druhému a řekl totéž. Ten odpověděl: 'Ano, pane', ale nešel. 31Který z těch dvou vykonal otcovu vůli?« Odpověděli mu: »Ten první.« Ježíš jim řekl: »Amen, pravím vám: Celníci a nevěstky vás předcházejí do Božího království. 32Přišel k vám Jan, aby vám ukázal správnou cestu, ale neuvěřili jste mu. Celníci však a nevěstky mu uvěřili. Vy jste to viděli, a přece ani potom jste se nezměnili a neuvěřili jste mu. 33Poslyšte jiné podobenství: Byl jeden hospodář a ten vysázel vinici. Obehnal ji plotem, vykopal v ní jámu pro lis a vystavěl strážní věž, pronajal ji vinařům a vydal se na cesty. 34Když se přiblížilo vinobraní, poslal k vinařům své služebníky vyzvednout z ní výtěžek. 35Ale vinaři jeho služebníky popadli, jednoho zbili, druhého zabili, třetího ukamenovali. 36Hospodář poslal tedy jiné služebníky, ještě ve větším počtu než poprvé, ale naložili s nimi zrovna tak. 37Naposled k nim poslal svého syna; myslel si: 'Na mého syna budou mít ohled.' 38Když však vinaři uviděli syna, řekli si mezi sebou: 'To je dědic. Pojďte, zabijme ho, a jeho dědictví bude naše!' 39A popadli ho, vyhnali ven z vinice a zabili. 40Až pak přijde pán té vinice, co asi s těmi vinaři udělá?« 41Odpověděli mu: »Krutě ty zlosyny zahubí a svou vinici pronajme jiným vinařům, kteří mu budou ve svůj čas odvádět výtěžek.« Ježíš jim řekl: 42»Nečetli jste nikdy v Písmu: 'Kámen, který stavitelé odvrhli, stal se kvádrem nárožním. Učinil to Pán a v našich očích je to podivuhodné'? 43Proto vám říkám: Vám bude Boží království odňato a bude dáno národu, který ponese jeho ovoce. 44A kdo na ten kámen padne, ten se potluče, a na koho padne, toho rozdrtí.« 45Když velekněží a farizeové uslyšeli tato jeho podobenství, poznali, že mluví o nich. 46Hleděli se ho zmocnit, ale měli strach z lidu, protože lidé ho považovali za proroka. Podobenství o svatební hostině
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 23 THE AUTHORITY OF JESUS QUESTIONED AND THE REPLY--THE PARABLES OF THE TWO SONS, AND OF THE WICKED HUSBANDMAN. ( = Mark 11:27-12:12; Luke 20:1-19). (Mat. 21:23-46)
By what authority doest thou these things!--referring particularly to the expulsion of the buyers and sellers from the temple, and who gave thee this authority?
24 And Jesus answered and said unto them, I also will ask you one thing, &c.
25 The baptism of John--meaning his whole mission and ministry, of which baptism was the proper character.
whence was it? from heaven, or of men?--What wisdom there was in this way of meeting their question will best appear by their reply.
If we shall say, From heaven; he will say unto us, Why did ye not then believe him?--"Why did ye not believe the testimony which he bore to Me, as the promised and expected Messiah?" for that was the burden of John's whole testimony.
26 But if we shall say, Of men; we fear the people--rather, "the multitude." In Luke (
Luke 20:6) it is, "all the people will stone us."
for all hold John as a prophet--Crooked, cringing hypocrites! No wonder Jesus gave you no answer.
27 And they answered Jesus, and said, We cannot tell--Evidently their difficulty was, how to answer, so as neither to shake their determination to reject the claims of Christ nor damage their reputation with the people. For the truth itself they cared nothing whatever.
Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things--What composure and dignity of wisdom does our Lord here display, as He turns their question upon themselves, and, while revealing His knowledge of their hypocrisy, closes their mouths! Taking advantage of the surprise, silence, and awe produced by this reply, our Lord followed it up immediately by the two following parables.
Parable of the Two Sons (
Matt 21:28-
Matt 21:32).
28 But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard--for true religion is a practical thing, a "bringing forth fruit unto God."
29 He answered and said, I will not--TRENCH notices the rudeness of this answer, and the total absence of any attempt to excuse such disobedience, both characteristic; representing careless, reckless sinners resisting God to His face.
30 And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir--"I, sir." The emphatic "I," here, denotes the self-righteous complacency which says, "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men" (
Luke 18:11).
and went not--He did not "afterward repent" and refuse to go; for there was here no intention to go. It is the class that "say and do not" (
Matt 23:3) --a falseness more abominable to God, says STIER, than any "I will not."
31 Whether of them twain did the will of his Father? They say unto him, The first--Now comes the application.
Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go--or, "are going"; even now entering, while ye hold back.
into the kingdom of God before you--The publicans and the harlots were the first son, who, when told to work in the Lord's vineyard, said, I will not; but afterwards repented and went. Their early life was a flat and flagrant refusal to do what they were commanded; it was one continued rebellion against the authority of God. The chief priests and the elders of the people, with whom our Lord was now speaking, were the second son, who said, I go, sir, but went not. They were early called, and all their life long professed obedience to God, but never rendered it; their life was one of continued disobedience.
32 For John came unto you in the way of righteousness--that is, calling you to repentance; as Noah is styled "a preacher of righteousness" (
2Pet 2:5), when like the Baptist he warned the old world to "flee from the wrath to come."
and ye believed him not--They did not reject him; nay, they "were willing for a season to rejoice in his light" (
John 5:35); but they would not receive his testimony to Jesus.
but the publicans and the harlots believed him--Of the publicans this is twice expressly recorded,
Luke 3:12;
Luke 7:29. Of the harlots, then, the same may be taken for granted, though the fact is not expressly recorded. These outcasts gladly believed the testimony of John to the coming Saviour, and so hastened to Jesus when He came. See
Luke 7:37;
Luke 15:1, &c.
and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him--Instead of being "provoked to jealousy" by their example, ye have seen them flocking to the Saviour and getting to heaven, unmoved.
Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen (
Matt 21:33-
Matt 21:46).
33 Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard--(See on
Luke 13:6).
and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower--These details are taken, as is the basis of the parable itself, from that beautiful parable of
Isa 5:1-
Isa 5:7, in order to fix down the application and sustain it by Old Testament authority.
and let it out to husbandmen--These are just the ordinary spiritual guides of the people, under whose care and culture the fruits of righteousness are expected to spring up.
and went into a far country--"for a long time" (
Luke 20:9), leaving the vineyard to the laws of the spiritual husbandry during the whole time of the Jewish economy. On this phraseology, see on
Mark 4:26.
34 And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen--By these "servants" are meant the prophets and other extraordinary messengers, raised up from time to time. See on
Matt 23:37.
that they might receive the fruits of it--Again see on
Luke 13:6.
35 And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one--see
Jer 37:15;
Jer 38:6.
and killed another--see
Jer 26:20-
Jer 26:23.
and stoned another--see
2Chr 24:21. Compare with this whole verse
Matt 23:37, where our Lord reiterates these charges in the most melting strain.
36 Again, he sent other servants more than the first; and they did unto them likewise--see
2Kgs 17:13;
2Chr 36:16,
2Chr 36:18;
Neh 9:26.
37 But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son--In Mark (
Mark 12:6) this is most touchingly expressed: "Having yet therefore one son, His well-beloved, He sent Him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence My Son." Luke's version of it too (
Luke 20:13) is striking: "Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send My beloved Son: it may be they will reverence Him when they see Him." Who does not see that our Lord here severs Himself, by the sharpest line of demarcation, from all merely human messengers, and claims for Himself Sonship in its loftiest sense? (Compare
Heb 3:3-
Heb 3:6). The expression, "It may be they will reverence My Son," is designed to teach the almost unimaginable guilt of not reverentially welcoming God's Son.
38 But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves--Compare
Gen 37:18-
Gen 37:20;
John 11:47-
John 11:53.
This is the heir--Sublime expression this of the great truth, that God's inheritance was destined for, and in due time is to come into the possession of, His own Son in our nature (
Heb 1:2).
come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance--that so, from mere servants, we may become lords. This is the deep aim of the depraved heart; this is emphatically "the root of all evil."
39 And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard--compare
Heb 13:11-
Heb 13:13 ("without the gate--without the camp");
1Kgs 21:13;
John 19:17.
and slew him.
40 When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh--This represents "the settling time," which, in the case of the Jewish ecclesiastics, was that judicial trial of the nation and its leaders which issued in the destruction of their whole state.
what will he do unto those husbandmen?
41 They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men--an emphatic alliteration not easily conveyed in English: "He will badly destroy those bad men," or "miserably destroy those miserable men," is something like it.
and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons--If this answer was given by the Pharisees, to whom our Lord addressed the parable, they thus unwittingly pronounced their own condemnation: as did David to Nathan the prophet (
2Sam 12:5-7), and Simon the Pharisee to our Lord (
Luke 7:43, &c.). But if it was given, as the two other Evangelists agree in representing it, by our Lord Himself, and the explicitness of the answer would seem to favor that supposition, then we can better explain the exclamation of the Pharisees which followed it, in Luke's report (
Luke 20:16) --"And when they heard it, they said, God forbid"--His whole meaning now bursting upon them.
42 Jesus saith unto them. Did ye never read in the scriptures-- (
Ps 118:22-
Ps 118:23).
The stone which the builders rejected, &c.--A bright Messianic prophecy, which reappears in various forms (
Isa 28:16, &c.), and was made glorious use of by Peter before the Sanhedrim (
Acts 4:11). He recurs to it in his first epistle (
1Pet 2:4-6).
43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God--God's visible Kingdom, or Church, upon earth, which up to this time stood in the seed of Abraham.
shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof--that is, the great evangelical community of the faithful, which, after the extrusion of the Jewish nation, would consist chiefly of Gentiles, until "all Israel should be saved" (
Rom 11:25-
Rom 11:26). This vastly important statement is given by Matthew only.
44 And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder--The Kingdom of God is here a Temple, in the erection of which a certain stone, rejected as unsuitable by the spiritual builders, is, by the great Lord of the House, made the keystone of the whole. On that Stone the builders were now "falling" and being "broken" (
Isa 8:15). They were sustaining great spiritual hurt; but soon that Stone should "fall upon them" and "grind them to powder" (
Dan 2:34-
Dan 2:35;
Zech 12:2) --in their corporate capacity, in the tremendous destruction of Jerusalem, but personally, as unbelievers, in a more awful sense still.
45 And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables--referring to that of the Two Sons and this one of the Wicked Husbandmen.
they perceived that he spake of them.
46 But when they sought to lay hands on him--which Luke (
Luke 20:19) says they did "the same hour," hardly able to restrain their rage.
they feared the multitude--rather, "the multitudes."
because they took him for a prophet--just as they feared to say John's baptism was of men, because the masses took him for a prophet (
Matt 21:26). Miserable creatures! So, for this time, "they left Him and went their way" (
Mark 12:12).
