The Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen (Matthew 21:33-44), Part 6

Hear another parable: There was a certain householder who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to husbandmen and went into a far country. Now when the time of fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first, and they did to them likewise. But last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘they will reverence my son.’ But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘this is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.’ And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. When the lord therefore of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those husbandmen? They said to Him, “He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and lease his vineyard to other husbandmen who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. And whoever falls on this stone shall be broken. But on whomever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder

Several observations from the Scriptures will indeed testify to the truth of the continual rejection of God’s prophets by Israel throughout the Old Testament period; and will further bolster and amplify the tragic reality of verses 35 and 36 and confirm all too well the repeated history of it.

In these two verses, our Lord sorrowfully, with utmost brevity, says that the rejection and maltreatment expressed by the disobedient tenants was shown to all of the householder’s servants. None seem to be excluded.

From the biblical account, it is proven that the wicked rulers and people of Israel rejected most, if not all the prophets sent from God, at some point in time. Although space does not permit us to cite all of the examples here, we will, however, highlight certain prophets who played a significant role in trying to bring Israel back to God, but were despised and cast out for their divine mission.

Time and time again in the historical books of the Old Testament, we read the oft-repeated phrase concerning the backslidden condition of Israel’s many kings and rulers, “And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.”

The Bible lists thirty-three kings of Israel that “did evil in the sight of the Lord.” From King Saul to King Zedekiah, not one king from the northern kingdom of Israel (with the exception of King David) was reputed godly and obedient to the Lord.

Josephus the ancient Jewish historian writes of King Manasseh, “He barbarously slew all the righteous men that were among the Hebrews, nor would he spare the prophets. For he every day slew some of them until Jerusalem was overflowed with blood.”

It is a shameful fact that from the time of the prophet and lawgiver Moses to the prophet and forerunner of the Messiah John the Baptist, the prophets, by and large, were spurned and disbelieved by the Jewish nation. God was forsaken and idolatry defiled the land.

As noted in this historical/prophetic parable of Christ, it was the tenants who militantly refused to render the fruits to the servants of the householder. Paralleling this, we note that the leaders of the nation of Israel spearheaded the fierce persecution of the prophets. They initiated such and murderously completed it. The leaders of the twelve tribes had repeatedly challenged and defied Moses’ leadership abilities in the desert journeys. For this God brought stern judgment on them to bring them back under submission to His chosen leader Moses.

Israel rejected the prophet Samuel and chose instead Saul for their king (1Samuel 8). Later, after Saul became eaten up with hatred and envy, he pursued Samuel and David to apprehend and kill them in Rama (1Samuel 19).

No Bible reader can forget the sinister and infamous cruelties that Jezebel and Ahab inflicted in trying to snuff out the bold and fiery prophet Elijah, along with the many other prophets already killed by them.

In fleeing for his life, Elijah remorsefully reminded God of the mass carnage sinful and faithless Israel committed against the holy prophets of God. “For the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, thrown down Your altars, and slain Your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left. And they seek my life, to take it away” (1Kings 19:10).

Elijah would have undoubtedly been added to the long casualty list of slain prophets, if it were not for the divine intervention of the Lord that saved him. Though Elijah was not killed, he is certainly classified as one of the divine Householder’s servant who was “beaten and ill received” by the backslidden leaders of Israel.

The respectable prophet Micaiah, contemporaryof Elijah, prophesied the stinging truth to King Ahab of Israel. The prophet foretold Ahab’s defeat and overthrow in battle by the King of Syria.

In spite of pressure from the apostate rulers and the many false prophets, Micaiah stood true to the Word of the Lord and spoke it fully in bold firmness without hesitancy or reserve. The results led the prophet of God to experience physical abuse and imprisonment at the hands of King Ahab and the host of his flattering, false prophets (1Kings 22).

Zechariah, the Son of Jehoiada, not to be confused with the other prophet Zechariah who wrote the book of Zechariah, was another valorous prophet that testified against the immoralities of Israel and proclaimed the truth of God. For this, he died in a tortuous way by being stoned to death at the commandment of King Joash (2Chronicles 24:20-21).

The other Zechariah, son of Berechiah, who penned the book of Zechariah, was also stoned. Our Lord says he was stoned in the outer court of the temple “between the temple and the altar” (Matthew 23:35). It is to these two prophets that were stoned to death that Christ gives clear corroboration of the servants mentioned in verses 35 and 36 who were stoned by the malicious husbandmen.

Jewish tradition also tells us that the great prophet Isaiah was sawed in half with a sword and that the prophet Amos died after being bludgeoned to death with an iron rod by King Uzziah or Amaziah, priest of Bethel. Jeremiah “the weeping prophet” suffered physical beatings, and was put in stocks by Pashur a priest and chief governor of the temple. Several years later, the leaders subjected the prophet to solitary confinement in a miry dungeon (Jeremiah 38:6).

This great prophet also suffered utter rejection from his neighbors (Jeremiah 11:19-21); from his own family (Jeremiah 12:6); from the high priests and false prophets (Jeremiah 20:1-2); from his own friends (Jeremiah 20:10); from the general population of Israel (Jeremiah 26:8); and from the king and his top aides (Jeremiah 36-37). There has never been a prophet quite like Jeremiah who so closely and definitely foreshadowed “the man of sorrows, rejected of men, and acquainted with grief.”

God mightily commissioned the prophet Ezekiel to prophesy against the rebellious, stiff-necked nation of Israel. They, in reply, renounced the prophet’s message and fettered him with chains (Ezekiel 3:7, 25). Many other nameless prophets of God faced such similar fates.

From apostate Israel they encountered “trial of cruel mockings and scourging, yes, moreover of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn asunder, were tempted, and were slain with the sword” (Hebrews 11:35-36).

The Old Testament Canon closed with the book of Malachi. This followed with a period of 400 years of silence from God—this was a judgment of silence and temporary rejection because of the nation’s perpetual backslidings with their persistent refusal to obey God’s Law and accept the prophets He sent them (2Kings 17:13-15).

Yet out of all the Old Testament prophets that were rejected were consistently despised and ostracized from the people of Israel, the Lord in infinite patience sent the greatest of the Old Testament prophets—John the Baptist—even as the Lord Jesus confirmed. “For I say to you, among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist” (Luke 7:28).

John was better than all the Old Testament prophets by virtue of his message and mission to Israel. John came to formally prepare and proclaim to the Jewish nation the soon arrival of the Messiah. He was sent by God the heavenly Householder to precede the coming of Messiah to demand, “fruits worthy of repentance” from the vineyard of Israel. “There was a man sent by God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe” (John 1:6-7).

John’s ministry ended with imprisonment and execution at the hands of Herod Antipas, who was the nominal ruler of Judea under the greater rule of the Roman Empire.

Yes, John the Baptist, the greatest of the Old Testament prophets and forerunner of the Messiah, suffered rejection from the Jewish people of Jesus’ day. He was the last of the divine Householder’s servants turned away by God’s people. The patient householder sent many of his servants to the husbandmen only to have all of them bitterly spurned and shunned. Thus he was left empty handed with no fruit to show from their toiled cultivations.

The only natural recourse of action left to take for the householder would be full retaliation. The dictates of the law would have accounted the householder just, if he had chosen to forcefully reclaim the vineyard and punish the tenants from the property temporarily rented out to them. Judging from the irreformable ways of the dishonest tenants, nothing but the swift, unmerciful execution of just retribution was due them.

Instead, strange as it may seem, this same householder sent his very own son to receive the fruits tilled by the husbandmen. We may think how could this householder send his son to the murderous tenants that had repeatedly shunned, beat and murdered his servants sent aforetime? Ah, but God’s way are not man’s ways, neither His thoughts, our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8).

Instead of punishing Israel without pardon or remedy for continually rejecting and murdering His prophetic servants, God showed the supreme act of love, mercy and potential pardon toward them when sending His only begotten Son Jesus Christ to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.