Notes on Mark 12:1-12

These notes accompany and supplement my podcast on the same passage.

This parable is normally seen as a discussion of God’s relationship with the nation of Israel. Doubtless in the original context, with Jesus talking to Jews about how they had rejected prophets, and now were rejecting him, this was the meaning. Having noticed that, however, in my podcast on the passage I intend to focus on how this parable can apply to us in principle today. Here I’ll provide cross-references and a few historical notes. UBSIV lists no significant textual variants for this pericope.

Parallel passages are Matthew 21:33-46 and Luke 20:9-19.

This passage finds parts of its background in Isaiah 5:1-7, Isaiah 27:1-6, and perhaps Jeremiah 12:10-13.

Translation and Notes

¹He began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. He rented it out to tenants and left on a journey.

Parables are often built around common situations that the audience would comprehend. A person who sets up a vineyard and then leases it out to others, expecting appropriate payment, was quite a comprehensible situation. In addition, the use of the vineyard in imagery by Isaiah, especially, would help tie this parable to Israel.

Note the big difference between Isaiah’s parable and this one. In this case the rebuke is addressed to the leaders, to those who are supposed to tend to the vineyard. In Isaiah, the entire vineyard is addressed. It is supposed to bring forth fruit and does not. Jesus is carefully addressing a problem that is specific to the leadership of the time, and particularly the temple leadership.

²And he sent a servant to his tenants at the appropriate time to receive the fruit from his vineyard. ³But they took him, beat him, and sent him away empty handed. ⁴And again he sent another servant to them. They beat this one on the head this one and insulted him. ⁵He sent another one, and the killed that one. Then he sent many others. Some the beat, some they killed.

One of the principles for interpreting a parable is that we don’t try to get too much meaning out of the details. A parable tends to drive home a particular point, and details are often there merely to fill out the narrative. An allegory, on the other hand, attempts to match symbol to specific reality at all points. The fact is that there is more of a continuum between a parable and an allegory. In this case, we are dealing primarily with a parable, but it has some features of an allegory, with the various servants representing prophets, and of course the son representing Jesus himself. Thus Matthew puts in additional detail by having some servants stoned.

The key message here is that there was an expectation of result from the planting of this vineyard, and that the appropriate return is refused to the owner.

⁶He still had one other person he could send–a beloved son. He finally sent him to them, saying, ‘They will honor my son!’ ⁷But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir! Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’

It’s an odd sort of logic that is going on here. Did the tenants really expect to get by with this type of behavior? Did they hope, perhaps that the owner would decide this wasn’t worth the effort and risk, and never return? Speculation on that might go beyond the purpose of the parable, but I do think Jesus is placing an emphasis on the perverse nature of the behavior of the servants. They had every reason to hand over the fruit. It was their duty to do so, yet they determined not to, no matter what happened.

⁸So they took him and killed him and threw him outside the vineyard. ⁹What then will the owner of that vineyard do? He will go and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.

The punishment is severe, but in proportion to the offense. I would point out that while the parable in its original intent clearly applies to the Israelite leaders, it is specifically to the leaders that it does apply. There is no notion here that God is throwing out Israel. Rather, the corrupt temple leadership which is not fulfilling God’s mandate for his people is to be eliminated, and the vineyard will be otherwise cared for.

¹⁰Have you never read this scripture:

The stone that the builders rejected
is the very one that has become the cornerstone?
¹¹This comes from the Lord
And it looks marvelous to us!”

This passage and quotation (Psalm 118:22-23) emphasize the topic of the rejection of Jesus. Jesus certainly does see himself here as a man with a mission from God, and he also sees rejection of his mission as a grave hazard to the nations. By missing his agenda, the leaders are flirting with disaster.

With the hindsight of history, we can say that rejecting the peaceful way that Jesus espoused certainly did lead to disaster, as Judea and Galilee attempted twice in only a little more than a century to throw off the Roman yoke. Their efforts were paid for in blood. It is common to think of those revolutionaries as the true patriots. But they might have done well to try a different approach.

¹²And they sought to seize him, but they were afraid of the crowd, for they knew that the parable was spoken against them. They left him and went away. — Mark 12:1-12

Mar 12:12 – They feared the multitude – How wonderful is the providence of God, using all things for the good of his children! Generally the multitude is restrained from tearing them in pieces only by the fear of their rulers. And here the rulers themselves are restrained, through fear of the multitude! — John Wesley