Texts in Conversation
In Matthew 21, the parable of the vineyard draws on the imagery of Isaiah, where a vineyard gives only bad fruit. Both use agricultural imagery of planting, protection, and expectation, using the vineyard as a symbol of responsibility and failure.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
LXX Isaiah 5:2
Septuagint
1 Now I will sing to my beloved a song of my beloved concerning my vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a high hill in a fertile place. 2 And I made a hedge round it, and dug a trench, and planted a choice vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and dug a place for the wine-vat in it: and I waited for it to bring forth grapes, and it brought forth thorns. 3 And now, every man of Judah, and you dwellers in Jerusalem, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What shall I do any more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? Whereas I expected it to bring forth grapes, but it has brought forth thorns.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Matthew 21:33
New Testament
33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a pit for its winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and went on a journey. 34 When the harvest time was near, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his portion of the crop. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves, beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them the same way. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’
Date: 70–90 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The Hebrew text of Isaiah 5:1-7 forms the starting point of a long and intensive interpretation process. Within that process the version of the LXX and the Targum represent two relatively independent moments. In both cases elements from the Hebrew text are copied but a number of other elements are fundamentally changed. Here we encounter the fascinating phenomenon that a text from the Hebrew bible is again and again at the basis of new texts. From 4Q500 we can gather that the interpretation offered by the targumist was current in Jesus' and Matthew's time ... The similarities between Mark 12:1-12 and Isaiah 5:1-7 have been borrowed by Matthew with some minor changes. Moreover, he was further strengthened the connection between the parable and Isaiah 5:1-7. This means that the song from Isaiah not only played a productive role in the genesis of Mark's version of the parable, but Matthew, too ..."
W. J. C. Weren, “The Use of Isaiah 5,1-7 in the Parable of the Tenants (Mark 12,1-12; Matthew 21,33-46),” Bib 79.1 (1998): 1–26.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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