Mark 12:1-12--The Parable of the Tenants

Mark 12:1-12
English Standard Version

The Parable of the Tenants
12 And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. 2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. 6 He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not read this Scripture:

“‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
11 this was the Lord's doing,
    and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

​12 And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.

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Jesus knows the intent of the Pharisees in their questioning at the end of chapter 11, and that they were on a public campaign to ruin Him in the eyes of the people.  Jesus will use several parables and give answers to the questions of those in authority and who are the politically connected so that it will be the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians that will look foolish to the people.  None of them will stand up to His scrutiny and examination.

First, Jesus tells a story that reveals that He knows the hearts of these men--it is the same as the heart of those that killed the prophets that God sent before Him.  They are wicked tenants that want to act like owners and think they are in charge and refuse to be in subjection to the authority of the landowner.  They won't even give him the tithe of the produce that is rightfully his (that is the purpose of all these messengers, as they were supposed to make their payment for renting the land by providing a portion of their crop to the owner).  They instead beat the messengers and sent them back to the king empty-handed, and they treated all the other messengers the same way--treating them shamefully.

Eventually, beating the king's servants wasn't enough for them, and they began to kill them instead.  The king doesn't know who else to send that they might listen to, so he sends his own son (probably his only son since this story is supposed to be about God the Father and Jesus).  The landowner says, "Surely they will listen to him," but they plan on killing the son who is the heir so that they can try to take his inheritance (which means they would also kill the landowner if they got the chance).  That's not how it works in real estate law--the tenants don't become the property owners when the landlord dies, but their hearts are so darkened that this foolishness is what makes sense to them.  No, the landowner would then have to send his army to arrest these men and punish them for their crimes, would throw them out of the vineyard (the Promised Land of Israel) and would choose other tenants to take care of the land for him that would honor him and pay their rent (a portion of the produce).  Jesus is telling the leaders of Israel that if they don't change their ways, their time as leaders in Israel is about to come to an end and God is going to find new leaders for Israel that will fear the LORD and obey Him and will give Him the tithes and offering that He is due and will be good caretakers of the Land (and the people).

Then Jesus brings it back to them plotting to kill Him and pointing them back to Scripture to say that all this has been prophesied ahead of time.  "The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.  This was the Lord's doing, and it was marvelous to our eyes."  However, Jesus made this statement in the form of a question, turning to the teachers and religious leaders saying, "Have you not read...?" and implying "Do you not understand...?"  That embarrassed them all the more, and they also perceived that the parable that He was telling the people was about them, so they wanted all the more to kill Him to shut Him up.  They could come to no other conclusion than that He must die.  Now all they wanted was to try to get the people to go along with their plan so that the people wouldn't riot.