The parable of the workers in the vineyard illustrates the aphorisminMatthew 19:30: Many who are first will be last, and the last first.[1] Anglican theologian E. H. Plumptre argues that the division of the chapters at this point is "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".[2]LutheranPietistJohann Bengel argues, likewise, that a link is to be made with Peter's enquiry in Matthew 19:27: "See, we have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?" [3]
This parable is only related by Matthew.[4] It asserts that "the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard".[5]
Now when he [the landowner] had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.[6]
Bengel notes that the landowner deals with the first group of labourers by legal contract, promising to pay an agreed sum, and with the others more by mere liberality".[3]
Many details of the parable, including when the workers receive their pay at the end of the day, the complaints from those who worked a full day, and the response from the king/landowner are paralleled in a similar parable found in tractate Berakhot in the Jerusalem Talmud.[7]
Matthew's narrative portrays the healing of two blind men taking place as Jesus, his disciples and a great multitude leave Jericho, although their passage back over the River Jordan and their arrival in Jericho are not described. The Ethiopic version, uniquely, reads here "as they went out from Jerusalem".[18]
