Mark 11:27-33
Mark 12:1-12
CHAPTER 12
Mr 12:1-12. PARABLE OF THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. ( = Mt 21:33-46; Lu 20:9-18).
See on Mt 21:33-46.
Mr 12:13-40. ENTANGLING QUESTIONS ABOUT TRIBUTE THE RESURRECTION, AND THE GREAT COMMANDMENT, WITH THE REPLIES—CHRIST BAFFLES THE PHARISEES BY A QUESTION ABOUT DAVID, AND DENOUNCES THE SCRIBES. ( = Mt 22:15-46; Lu 20:20-47).
The time of this section appears to be still the third day (Tuesday) of Christ's last week. Matthew introduces the subject by saying (Mt 22:15), "Then went the Pharisees and took counsel how they might entangle Him in His talk."
Luke 20:1-19
2. these things—particularly the clearing of the temple.
4. baptism of John—his whole ministry and mission, of which baptism was the seal.
5. Why then believed ye him not?—that is, in his testimony to Jesus, the sum of his whole witness.
7. could not tell—crooked, cringing hypocrites! No wonder Jesus gave you no answer (Mt 7:6). But what dignity and composure does our Lord display as He turns their question upon themselves!
9-13. vineyard—(See on Lu 13:6). In Mt 21:33 additional points are given, taken literally from Isa 5:2, to fix down the application and sustain it by Old Testament authority.
husbandmen—the ordinary spiritual guides of the people, under whose care and culture the fruits of righteousness might be yielded. went, &c.—leaving it to the laws of the spiritual husbandry during the whole length of the Jewish economy. (See on Mr 4:26.)10. beat, &c.— (Mt 21:35); that is, the prophets, extraordinary messengers raised up from time to time. (See on Mt 23:37.)
9-13. vineyard—(See on Lu 13:6). In Mt 21:33 additional points are given, taken literally from Isa 5:2, to fix down the application and sustain it by Old Testament authority.
husbandmen—the ordinary spiritual guides of the people, under whose care and culture the fruits of righteousness might be yielded. went, &c.—leaving it to the laws of the spiritual husbandry during the whole length of the Jewish economy. (See on Mr 4:26.)13. my beloved son—Mark (Mr 12:6) still more affectingly, "Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved"; our Lord thus severing Himself from all merely human messengers, and claiming Sonship in its loftiest sense. (Compare Heb 3:3-6.)
it may be—"surely"; implying the almost unimaginable guilt of not doing so.14. reasoned among themselves—(Compare Ge 37:18-20; Joh 11:47-53).
the heir—sublime expression of the great truth, that God's inheritance was destined for, and in due time to come into the possession of, His Son in our nature (Heb 1:2). inheritance . . . ours—and so from mere servants we may become lords; the deep aim of the depraved heart, and literally "the root of all evil."15. cast him out of the vineyard—(Compare Heb 13:11-13; 1Ki 21:13; Joh 19:17).
16. He shall come, &c.—This answer was given by the Pharisees themselves (Mt 21:41), thus pronouncing their own righteous doom. Matthew alone (Mt 21:43) gives the naked application, that "the kingdom of God should be taken from them, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof"—the great evangelical community of the faithful, chiefly Gentiles.
God forbid—His whole meaning now bursting upon them.17-19. written—(in Ps 118:22, 23. See on Lu 19:38). The Kingdom of God is here a Temple, in the erection of which a certain stone, rejected as unsuitable by the spiritual builders, is, by the great Lord of the House, made the keystone of the whole. On that Stone the builders were now "falling" and being "broken" (Isa 8:15), "sustaining great spiritual hurt; but soon that Stone should fall upon them and grind them to powder" (Da 2:34, 35; Zec 12:3) —in their corporate capacity in the tremendous destruction of Jerusalem, but personally, as unbelievers, in a more awful sense still.
19. the same hour—hardly able to restrain their rage.
Lu 20:20-40. ENTANGLING QUESTIONS ABOUT TRIBUTE AND THE RESURRECTION—THE REPLIES.