Matthew 22

Matthew 22:1

When he was come into the temple. Compare Mr 11:27 Lu 20:1. This was on Tuesday, after the discourse on the fig tree, which occurred the morning after the curse was pronounced. The chief priests and the elders. Mark and Luke add “the scribes”. These three classes made up the Sanhedrin, and this was probably a deputation from that body. By what authority doest thou these things? Such acts as driving the money-changers and traders out of the temple, done the day before.

Matthew 22:2

I also will ask you one thing. A malicious question is often best answered by a question which will expose the questioners.

Matthew 22:3

The baptism of John. Though the people generally had obeyed John, they had rejected his baptism. Yet they dared not say it was of men, for fear of the people; nor that it was of heaven, because they had disobeyed it. They therefore say, “We cannot tell” (Matthew 21:27).

Matthew 22:5

We cannot tell. Hence the Lord refuses to answer their question, but immediately addresses them in a parable. As his death approaches, his parables are unusually solemn.

Matthew 22:6

A [certain] man had two sons. The two sons represent the priests, elders and scribes on the one hand, and the publicans and harlots, “the sinners”, on the other (Matthew 21:31). Both classes were bidden to work in the Lord’s vineyard. The publicans and sinners had refused, but repented at the preaching of John. The others professed to obey, but did not. The design of the parable is to show that the publicans and harlots, whom they so much despised, were morally superior to his questioners.

Matthew 22:10

Repented not afterward. The Greek word here translated “repent”, is not the one which is used in all commands as, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2), “Repent and be baptized” (Acts 2:38), “Repent and be converted” (Acts 3:19), etc. This term “metamellomai” means, rather, “regret” or “sorrow”; the word in the other passages, “metanoeo”, means “change your minds” or “hearts”. The regret, or sorrow, for sin leads to repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10). The scribes and Pharisees did not regret their course, when they saw sinners repenting, so that they could come into a penitent belief.

Matthew 22:11

Hear another parable. Compare Mr 12:1-12 Lu 20:9-19. The second parable is also a rebuke of the ruling classes that were seeking his death. There was a certain householder. The head of a family is here selected to represent God. In what follows is portrayed the blessings he had bestowed and the care he had taken of Israel. Which planted a vineyard. Our Lord draws, as was his wont, his illustration from common life and familiar objects. Palestine was emphatically a vine-growing country. And hedged it around. God in his care not only planted Israel, but “hedged” the nation around by the law which separated it from the Gentiles. Digged a winepress in it. The wine-press consisted of two parts: (1) the press, or trough, above, in which the grapes were placed and there trodden by the feet; (2) a smaller trough, into which the expressed juice flowed through a hole. Here the smaller trough, which was “digged” out of the earth or rock and then lined with masonry, is put for the whole apparatus, and is called a “wine FAT”. Built a tower. Towers were erected in vineyards for the accommodation of keepers, who defended the vineyards from thieves and from troublesome animals. The hedge and wine-press and tower represent the various advantages conferred by God upon the Jewish people (Romans 9:4). Let it out to vinedressers. Representing the rulers of the Jews, and also the people as a whole, a nation, are included. Went into a far country. Better, “into another country”, as in the Revised Version. “For a long while” (or time), adds Lu 20:9 It means that God left Israel to itself to see what use it would make of the favors he had bestowed.

Matthew 22:12

When the time of the fruit drew near. Probably no definite time, but whenever any special duty was to be done, or special call to repentance made, as by the prophets. He sent his servants. The prophets. That they might receive his fruits. The householder’s share. The rent was to be paid in a stipulated portion of the produce. The fruits were obedience, love, righteous living, teaching the true God to the nations, etc.

Matthew 22:13

And the husbandmen took his servants. According to the obvious design of the whole parable, this is a lively figure for the undutiful and violent reception often given to the prophets or other divine messengers, and the refusal to obey their message. See Matthew 23:29-31 23:34,37 Lu 11:47-50 13:33,34. Compare 1 Thessalonians 2:15 Revelation 16:6 18:24. Killed another. Some of the prophets were not merely maltreated, but actually put to death.

Matthew 22:15

Last of all he sent unto them his son. This was the last and crowning effort of divine mercy; after which, on the one side, all the resources, even of heavenly love, are exhausted; on the other, the measure of sins is perfectly filled up.

Matthew 22:16

This is the heir. He for whom the inheritance is meant, and to whom it will in due course rightfully arrive. Christ is “heir of all things” (Hebrews 1:2). Come, let us kill him. The very words of Ge 37:20 where Joseph’s brethren express a similar resolution. This resolution had actually been taken (John 11:53). Let us seize on his inheritance. If Christ prevailed, Judaism must fall; if they could destroy Christ they could maintain their hold on the vineyard; or, in other words, seize the inheritance. Such was their hope.

Matthew 22:17

Cast [him] out of the vineyard. This may involve an allusion to Christ suffering “without the gate” (Hebrews 13:12,13 Joh 19:17). Slew [him]. This is a prophecy of his own death at the hands of the men whom he was addressing.

Matthew 22:18

When the lord therefore . . . cometh, what will he do? This question is addressed to the Jews, who seem to have been so carried away by the vivid description that they answered without seeing that they pronounced their own sentence. See Matthew 21:41.

Matthew 22:19

They say unto him, etc. Their answer is not only their own decree of judgment upon themselves, but an unconscious prediction. The nation was nearly destroyed in the Roman war; 1,100,000 perished in the siege of Jerusalem; the Jewish polity was destroyed, and “another people”, the Church of Christ, mostly Gentile aliens before, received the inheritance and the kingdom.

Matthew 22:20

The stone which the builders rejected. “The Scripture” that speaks of this stone is Psalms 118:22,23–a psalm which the Jews applied to the Messiah. Peter twice applied it to him (Acts 4:11 1 Peter 2:7). The figure represents a stone rejected by the builders as worthless, and then found to be the chief corner-stone of the building. The stone is Christ, rejected by the Jewish nation, but “the chief corner-stone”, for this is what is meant by the “head of the corner”. The “corner-stone” joined two walls. Alford thinks this is a reference to the union of Jews and Gentiles in the church. Marvellous. That the rejected stone should become the “chief corner-stone, elect and precious”, on which the whole structure of the spiritual temple rests (1 Peter 2:6 Isaiah 28:16).

Matthew 22:21

Given to a nation bringing forth the fruits. The kingdom was taken from the Jews and given to the “chosen nation”; not any particular nation, but those chosen out of the nations to be a “peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9).

Matthew 22:22

Whoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken. Two fates are named for opposers in this verse: (1) those who fall on the stone shall be broken; (2) those on whom the stone shall fall shall be ground to powder. While the principle is general, the special application is to the Jewish opposers. Their “falling upon” the Stone (Christ) was the ruin of their nation. When the Stone “fell upon them”, in the judgment he had predicted because they rejected him, they were ground to powder in the awful desolation that occurred about thirty-seven years later.

Matthew 22:23

When the chief priests and Pharisees had heard, etc. When the application of the parable was made, they perceived that they were meant and that they had condemned themselves.

Matthew 22:24

When they sought to lay hands on him. Jerusalem was filled with people, and the demonstration, two days before, on Sunday, showed that thousands of Galileans, at least, regarded him a prophet. Hence, they find some darker and safer way than an open assault in the day. None can oppose Christ without injury. Even the silent opposition of indifference will cause us to be “broken” unless repented of. To continue our opposition until the day of grace is over will result in irretrievable ruin. Those who are “ground to powder” are beyond hope.

Matthew 22:26

The Marriage of the King’s Son; Attempts to Entrap the Savior SUMMARY OF MATTHEW 22: The Marriage Feast. The Invited Guests. The Invitation Rejected. Their Fate. Those in the Highway and Hedges Called. The Man with No Wedding Garment. The Pharisees and Herodians. Paying Tribute to Caesar. The Sadducees and the Resurrection. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Lawyer’s Question. The Great Commandment. What Think Ye of Christ?. Jesus answered and spoke unto them again. Compare Matthew 13:15-24. Mark states that after the parable of the wicked husbandmen, the rulers “left him and went their way” (Mr 12:12); hence this parable (peculiar to Matthew) was not spoken directly to the rulers.

Matthew 22:27

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king. Its relation to the Jews and Gentiles is likened unto a king which made a marriage for his son. Rendered “marriage feast” in the Revised Version. The scenery of this parable is drawn from the Oriental marriage feast, which assumed a much more important place in the ceremony of marriage than it does in our times. See the wedding feast at Cana, in John 2:1-11. The betrothal usually took place many months before, but the marriage rite was consummated by bringing the bride to the home of the bridegroom, and the occasion was celebrated by a feast, to which many were invited. In the parable the King is God, the Son our Lord, the bride is his church, those first invited are the Jews, those invited later are all mankind, the marriage feast is when the Lamb’s Bride is taken home to the Father’s house, the day named in Revelation, the day of judgment and reward (Revelation 19:7-9).

Matthew 22:28

Sent his servants forth to call them that were bidden to the wedding. It was the custom among the ancients for the guests to be twice invited; or rather first invited that they might prepare themselves, and then summoned a short time before the banquet, that they might be there at the proper time. The first invitation to the Jews was given by the prophets, down to John the Baptist; the second afterwards by the apostles and other disciples in succession.

Matthew 22:29

Again, he sent forth other servants. This is a second invitation to those who had previously been invited and “would not come”. The Jews were invited first of all, by the Savior and his apostles under the first commission before all things were ready, but they refused the invitation and rejected Christ. Then, after all was made ready by the death and resurrection of Christ and the establishment of the kingdom, they were again invited before the apostles turned to the Gentiles. For seven years from Pentecost, the gospel was preached to Jews alone. My oxen and [my] fatlings [are] killed. A description drawn from an ancient feast, where the substantial portion of the repast was flesh.

Matthew 22:30

But they made light of [it]. There were two classes that refused to heed the invitation. This is the first class, those who are indifferent.

Matthew 22:31

And the remnant took his servants and . . . slew [them]. The indifference of the previous class was proof of disloyalty, but the second class resort to open rebellion. This was fulfilled in the persecutions of the apostles and early church stirred by the Jews. See Acts 4:3 5:18,40 7:58 8:3 12:3 14:5,19 16:23 17:5 21:30 23:2; also the Epistles here and there.

Matthew 22:32

And when the king heard [of it], he was wroth. He who insults or assails a king’s heralds assails the king’s majesty. Destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Strikingly fulfilled in the fate of the Jews. The Roman armies were chosen to inflict the retribution upon the Jewish nation.

Matthew 22:33

The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Those who reject the gospel invitation show that they are not worthy. Compare Paul, Acts 13:46.

Matthew 22:34

Go ye therefore into the highways. All are now to be invited, not one race or class alone, but the command is, As many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. This was fulfilled when the gospel was offered to the Gentiles as well as Jews.

Matthew 22:35

So those servants . . . gathered together all . . . both good and bad. The bad are invited, not to remain bad, but in order that they might become good. No one can truly come without a determination to quit sinning.

Matthew 22:36

Saw there a man which had not a wedding garment. It is said to be a custom in the East, even at the present day, for the host to present his guests with robes of honor. Every saint is robed, not in his own righteousness, but in the white robes of Christ’s righteousness. “As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). Abbott, on this passage says: ``The garments we put on when he put on the Lord Jesus Christ by faith in baptism . . . To be without the wedding garments, offered freely to him, implied that the man thought his usual attire good enough. He therefore represents one who, while professing to be for Christ, thought his own righteousness would save him without a trustful obedience to the Savior (Romans 13:14 Galatians 3:26-27).''

Matthew 22:37

How camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? The fact that he had not was proof that he had no right to be there. All invited might be very different before, good and bad, but they must be clothed alike when the guests of the Lord.

Matthew 22:38

Then said the king, . . . Bind him hand and foot. It is the king’s right to exclude all unfit, even at the door of the feast.

Matthew 22:39

For many are called, but few [are] chosen. “The many called” embrace all who hear the gospel; the whole Jewish nation, and the Gentiles of every land where the gospel is preached. The chosen are those who choose to accept.

Matthew 22:40

Then went the Pharisees. They were the chief element in the Sanhedrin delegation which assailed him. See Matthew 21:45,46. Compare Mr 12:13-17 Lu 20:19-26.

Matthew 22:41

Sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians. The “disciples” were Pharisees, but young, unknown, and less likely to be suspected. The Herodians were a Jewish political party that favored the Herodian and Roman rule. Master. They came with flatteries in order the better to deceive.

Matthew 22:42

Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, nor not? To the Roman emperor, who had subjected Judea. If he had said “no”, they expected to denounce him to the Roman governor as teaching sedition. If he had said “yes”, they expected it would destroy his influence, as the people hated the Romans and the tribute.

Matthew 22:43

Perceived their wickedness. Their deceit.

Matthew 22:44

Shew me the tribute money. The Roman coin was used to pay the poll-tax. A penny. The Roman denarius, a silver coin worth sixteen cents. It had on it the image and name of Tiberius Caesar.

Matthew 22:46

Render therefore unto Caesar. The use of Caesar’s coin as the current money was an acknowledgment of Caesar. Let them return his coin when demanded. Unto God the things that are God’s. Obedience in moral and spiritual things. Faith, love, obedience and liberal giving for God’s work. We are to obey the human government over us, and to obey God. When the first requires us to disobey God, we are to obey him, whatever may be the peril. See Acts 5:29.