Matthew 21:38,39 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

When the husbandmen saw the son— It would hence seem, that the Jews knew Jesus to be the Son of God. Yet Peter says both of the rulers and the people, that they crucified the Lord ignorantly, Acts 3:17 and our Lord himself prays for them as not knowing what they did. It is evident indeed, that the rulers, for verymalice, caused him to be crucified; yet it is not at all improbable, that though they could not but confess him to be some great person or prophet, yet they might be far from being convinced that he was the Messiah. The Apostles themselves, notwithstanding they had been eye-witnesses of all his miracles, and had the advantage of hearing all his discourses, doubted whether he was the Messiah, while he lay in the grave; there can therefore be no impropriety, in supposing that the unbelieving Jews were in the same state of mind. And, if so, where is the inconsistency in saying, that though they put him to death as a prophet, they did not crucify him as the Messiah? That this was really their opinion is evident both from Sacred History, and from the general sentiments of their descendants, even to this day. Our Lord's words may bear another sense, and imply, that though it be granted they acknowledged his being the Messiah, and thought that in putting him to death, they were answerable for the death of a mere mortal only, yet they were ignorant of his essential dignity, and the near relation in which he stood to his heavenly Father. Yet after all, this, like the other circumstance of their seizing upon the inheritance, may be added to heighten and complete the parable, without being intended to convey any particular and independant truth. For it is the nature of a parable, as well as of a fable, or an historical picture, to convey some general truth to the mind, resulting from the whole assemblage of circumstances or figures taken collectively; but not to convey particular truths from any single circumstance or figure considered as separate, detached from, or independant of the rest. St. Matthew and St. Luke say, That the husbandmen cast the son out of the vineyard, and killed him, (Matthew 21:39.) St. Mark says, They first killed him, and then cast him out: but his meaning may have been this; they so beat and bruised him, before they cast him out, that he could not live; and, after having cast him out, they completed the murder, killing him outright. The manner in which St. Mark has expressed it, insinuates, that after they had killed him, they threw out his body, without burial, to the dogs; a circumstance which does not seem to have any particular reference, but is formed to shew in a general point of view, the greatness of the rebellion of these husbandmen. If such a proposal as that before us, come, let us kill him, &c. would have been the height of folly as well as wickedness in these husbandmen, it was so much the more proper to represent the part that the Jewish rulers acted in the murder of Christ, which they were now projecting, andwhich they accomplished within three days. The admonition was most graciouslygiven; but served only, in an astonishing manner, to illustrate that degree of hardness to which a sinful heart is capable of arriving. See Mac-knight, Doddridge, and Chemnitz.