XX.
(1) For the kingdom. — The division of the chapter is here singularly unfortunate, as separating the parable both from the events which gave occasion to it and from the teaching which it illustrates. It is not too much to say that we can scarcely understand it at all unless we connect it with the history of the young ruler who had great possessions, and the claims which the disciples had made for themselves when they contrasted their readiness with his reluctance.
To hire labourers into his vineyard. — The framework of the parable brings before us a form of labour in some respects lower than that of the “servants,” or “slaves,” who formed part of the household, and had been bought or born to their position. The labourers here are the “hired servants” of Luke 15:17, engaged for a time only, and paid by the day. Interpreting the parable, we may see in the householder our Lord Himself. It was indeed a title which He seems to have, as it were, delighted in, and which He applies directly to Himself in Matthew 10:25; Matthew 13:27; Matthew 13:52. And the “vineyard” is primarily, as in Isaiah 5:1, the house of Israel, which the Anointed of the Lord had come to claim as His kingdom. The “early morning” answered accordingly to the beginning of our Lord’s ministry; the “labourers” He then called were the disciples whom, at the outset of His ministry, He had summoned to follow Him. He had promised them a reward. Though at the best they were unprofitable servants, He yet offered them wages, and the wages were the kingdom of heaven itself (Matthew 5:3; Matthew 5:10); in other words, “righteousness, and peace, and joy;” in other words, yet again, “eternal life, seeing and knowing God” (Matthew 5:8; John 17:3). We may trace, I believe, something of a subtle and peculiar fitness in our Lord’s choice of this form of labour, as distinct, on the one side, from free and willing service, and, on the other, from the task-work of slaves. It was not in itself the best or most adequate symbol of the relation of the disciples to their Lord, but as their question, “What shall we have, therefore?” implies, it was that on which their minds were dwelling, and therefore He chose it, adapting Himself so far to their weakness, that He might teach them the lesson which they needed.