Greetings again from Jerusalem. The Parable of the Vineyard and Evil Tenants appears in Matthew in the context of Jesus’ conflict with the priestly establishment in the Jerusalem Temple. It further develops the Parable in chapter 5 of Isaiah, where the Vineyard represents the people of Israel and Judea. All this suggests that the object of Jesus’ invective is the priestly elite: supposed to be the guardians of the Temple, the symbol of God’s kingdom on earth, and lead the people to holiness, they betrayed that sublime calling. In fact, dissatisfaction with the priestly class was those days widely present in the Jewish society – not only the Essenes at Qumran felt so but many Pharisees too. No wonder that the crowd cheered Jesus who exposed the wicked leaders.
Such an interpretation works smoothly in the parallels in Mark and Luke. Matthew, however, has an addition complicating the matters (Matt 21:43): “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation/people (ἔθνος - ethnos) producing the fruits of it.” Matthew also claims further on – again nothing like this in Mark and Luke – that the.crowd “held him (Jesus) to be a prophet.”
Some commentators see at least part of Matthew’s additions as not going back to Jesus himself, but rather reflecting the opinion of the gospel writer. Whatever the case, the reader wonders what is the intended meaning of the prophecy. A distant future when Israel as God’s people would be replaced by the community of a new “Christian nation” consisting of many nations?
There are precedents of such diatribes against Israel’s infidelity in the Hebrew Bible, but they usually predict Israel’s eventual repentance, not its replacement by another “chosen nation.” And if Matthew thought about such a replacement, how to explain the gospel’s claim that the Jewish crowd seems to have sided with Jesus? Finally, when biblical prophesies outline Gentiles’ participation in redemption (as in Isaiah 2), they employ the terminology of “nations” in plural, not “nation.
I believe, therefore, that we should stick to the understanding that Matthew’s addition also addressed the conflict with the religious elite, not with the “nation” as a whole. Scholars helpfully noted the possible alternative meaning of the Greek word ethnos – not “nation,” but people as in “a group of people” or “caste.” In other words, a new cadre of the keepers of the kingdom that would replace the Temple establishment and also Pharisees, as further on in the episode Matthew mentions Pharisees together with the priests here. Writing in the 80s of the 1st century, Matthew could have already thought about the influx of Gentile believers too, but it appears that in the initial context of the story, a group within Israel was primarily meant.
It sounds convincing, but I am not completely happy with relying exclusively on an only marginally attested meaning of ἔθνος as caste. But then I thought about the group behind the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Qumranites, who viewed the Jerusalem priests as corrupt desecrators of God’s house, and mightily disliked Pharisees too. Those Qumranites defined themselves as the true Jewish nation (Judea in their terminology), while branding Sadducees (i.e. priestly families) and Pharisees as belonging to some fringe tribes. It is an interesting nation-within-the-nation pattern of religious thought. With all the differences, the parallel from the Scrolls may provide an insight into Matthew’s thinking here.
About Author:
Serge Ruzer obtained his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1996, eventually becoming an Associate Professor at the Department of Comparative Religion and a Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Christianity of that University. His research and publications pertain mostly to the Jewish background to nascent Christianity and early Syriac literature.