Matthew 22:5 Komentář

And Jesus answered and spake unto them again,.... Not to the multitude only, but to the chief priests, elders, Scribes, and Pharisees: for though Mark seems to intimate, that upon the delivery of the last parable of the vineyard, they left him, and went their way; yet since he does not relate the following parable, they might not leave him until they had heard that, which is spoken with much the same design as the former, and might increase their resentment the more: or if the chief priests and elders did go away, the Pharisees remained behind, as is clear from Mat 22:15 to whom he spake by parables, similitudes, and comparisons, taken from earthly things, and against whom he directed the following one; and said, as hereafter related.

But they made light of it,.... The invitation. They neglected the ministry of the Gospel; they did not care for it, nor showed any regard to it: and this is the ease, when either it is not attended on, though there is an opportunity, yet having no heart to embrace it, and no value for it, neglect attendance on it; and which often arises from loving of the world too much: or when it is attended on, but in a very negligent and careless manner; when men pull away the shoulder, or stop their ears; when they do not mind what they hear, let it slip and forget it; when they are unconcerned for it, and their thoughts are employed about other things: or when the Gospel and the ordinances of it are looked upon as things of no importance; not knowing the real worth and value of them; seeing no wisdom in them, having never tasted the sweetness, or felt the power of them, or seen the need of the things revealed by them: as also when there is an aversion to the Gospel, a loathing of it, as a novel, upstart doctrine, received but by a few, and these the meanest and most illiterate; as contrary to reason, and tending to licentiousness; and especially, when it is contradicted and blasphemed, as it was by the Jews, and its ministers despised: some men make light of it, because of the loss of time from worldly employments; because of the charge attending it; because it teaches them to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts; and because they prefer their bodies to their souls, and things temporal, to things eternal. The aggravations of their sin, in slighting and neglecting the Gospel and Gospel ordinances, are, that this is a grand entertainment, a very expensive provision, as well as a very plentiful one; that it was a wedding dinner, a feast of love, they were invited to; that it was prepared by so great a person as a king, and who is the King of kings, and the only potentate; who provided this dinner of his own sovereign good will and pleasure, in the everlasting council and covenant of grace and peace: for the things of which it consists, there was a scheme so early contrived to bring them about; and that this was made on the account of the marriage of his Son, the Messiah, who had been so often spoken of by the prophets of the Old Testament, these men professed a value for; one so long expected by their forefathers, and is the messenger of the covenant, whose coming they themselves desired and sought for; and that they should be invited to it again and again, and one set of servants sent after another, and the most striking and moving arguments made use of; and yet they slighted and made light of all this, and were careless and unconcerned; to which may be added, that the things they were invited to, were such as concerned their immortal souls, and the spiritual and eternal welfare of them; in short, it was no other than the great salvation, wrought out by the great God, and our Saviour, for great sinners, at the expense of his blood and life, which they neglected; See Gill on Heb 2:3. And went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: they all turned their backs on the Gospel, and the ministration of it, and pursued their own worldly inclinations, ways, and methods of life: those that were brought up in a rural way, lived a country life, and were concerned in meaner employments, went everyone to their "village", as the Vulgate Latin, and Munster's Hebrew Gospel read it, and to their farms, there to manage their cattle, and till their ground; and others, that lived in larger towns and cities, and were concerned in greater business of life, betook themselves to trade at home, or traffic abroad; placing their happiness in the affluence of this life, which they preferred to the word and ordinances of Christ. Such a division of worldly employment is made by the Jews (k); "the way of that host is like to a king, who makes a grand entertainment, and says to the children of his palace, all the rest of the days ye shall be everyone in his house; this shall do his business, , "and this shall go about his merchandise", , "and this shall go to his field", except on my day.'' (k) Zohar in Lev. fol. 40. 2.

For men are taken up with worldly ambition as with a farm; and many through covetousness are engrossed with trafficking.

But not even so do these become better men nor more gentle, than which what can be worse? For this again is a third accusation. The first that they killed the prophets; then the son; afterwards that even when they had slain Him, and were bidden unto the marriage of Him that was slain, by the Very one that was slain, they come not, but feign excuses, yokes of oxen, and pieces of ground, and wives. And yet the excuses seem to be reasonable; but hence we learn, though the things which hinder us be necessary, to set the things spiritual at a higher price than all. "How then do some bring forward marriages, others yokes of oxen? these things surely are of want of leisure." By no means, for when spiritual things call us, there is no press of business that has the power of necessity.

(Hom. lxix.) Forasmuch as He had said, And it shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof, He now proceeds to show what nation that is.

(Vers. 4, 5.) He sent other servants again, saying: Tell those who are invited: Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and fatted cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready: come to the wedding feast. But they disregarded him. The servants who were sent the second time are better understood as prophets than apostles, if the word 'servant' is written above. But if you read 'servants' in the same place, then the second servants should be understood as apostles. The prepared dinner, the oxen, and the slaughtered fatted cattle either describe the riches of the kingdom using a metaphor, so that the spiritual may be understood from the carnal, or certainly the greatness of doctrine and the richness of God's teaching can be perceived.

By the servants who were sent the second time, we may better understand the Prophets than the Apostles; that is to say, if servant is read in the first place; but if 'servants,' then by the second servants are to be understood the Apostles; The dinner that is prepared, the oxen and the fatlings that are killed, is either a description of regal magnificence by the way of metaphor, that by carnal things spiritual may be understood; or the greatness of the doctrines, and the manifold teaching of God in His law, may be understood.

(de Cons. Ev. ii. 71.) This parable is related only by Matthew. Luke gives one like it, but it is not the same, as the order shows.

(non occ. sed vid. Gloss. ord.) Or He says, All things are now ready which belong to the mystery of the Lord's Passion, and our redemption. He says, Come to the marriage, not with your feet, but with faith, and good conduct. But they made light of it; why they did so He shows when He adds, And they went their way, one to his farm, another to his merchandize. Or otherwise; When we work with the labour of our hands, for example, cultivating our field or our vineyard, or any manufacture of wood or iron, we seem to be occupied with our farm; any other mode of getting money unattended with manual labour is here called merchandize. O most miserable world! and miserable ye that follow it! The pursuits of this world have ever shut men out of life.

Or, by the business of a farm, He denotes the Jewish populace, whom the delights of this world separated from-Christ; by the excuse of merchandize, the Priests and other ministers of the Temple, who, coming to the service of the Law and the Temple through greediness of gain, have been shut out of the faith by covetousness. Of these He said not, 'They were filled with envy,' but They made light of it. For they who through hate and spite crucified Christ, are they who were filled with envy; but they who being entangled in business did not believe on Him, are not said to have been filled with envy, but to have made light of it. The Lord is silent respecting His own death, because He had spoken of it in the foregoing parable, but He shows forth the death of His disciples, whom after His ascension the Jews put to death, stoning Stephen and executing James the son of Alphæus, for which things Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. And it is to be observed, that anger is attributed to God figuratively and not properly; He is then said to be angry when He punishes.

There follows: "But they neglected it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business." To go to a farm is to devote oneself immoderately to earthly labor; to go to business is to yearn for the profits of worldly activities. For when one person is intent on earthly labor and another is given over to the activities of this world, each refuses to consider the mystery of the Lord's incarnation and to live according to it—as if going off to a farm or to business, he declines to come to the king's wedding.

Whosoever then intent upon earthly business, or devoted to the actions of this world, feigns to be meditating upon the mystery of the Lord's Passion, and to be living accordingly, is he that refuses to come to the King's wedding on pretext of going to his farm or his merchandize.

This parable, too, like that of the vineyard, alludes to the disobedience of the Jews. But as that one indicates Christ's death, so this one indicates the nuptial joy, that is, the resurrection. But this parable also shows them to be worse transgressors than the men in the preceding parable. For the husbandmen of the vineyard slew those who demanded fruits of them. But these men vented their murderous rage upon those who had invited them to a wedding. God is likened to a human king, for He does not appear as He is, but as it is fitting for Him to appear to us. When we die as humans, subject to human failings, God appears to us in human form; but when we walk about as gods, then God stands in the congregation of gods. And when we live as wild beasts, then He, too, becomes for us a panther, and a bear, and a lion. He makes a wedding feast for His Son, joining Him to every soul that is beautiful. For the bridegroom is Christ and the bride is the Church and the soul. The servants that were sent out first are Moses and those with him, whom the Jews did not obey but provoked God in the wilderness for forty years and did not want to accept the word of God and spiritual joy. Then other servants, the prophets, were sent out; but of these, some they killed, as they did Isaiah; others they treated spitefully, as they did Jeremiah, throwing him into a pit of mire. Those who were less extreme merely declined the invitation: one went his way to his own field, that is, turned towards a life of pleasure and carnal pursuits, for one's "own field" is the body; another, to his merchandise, that is, to a life of acquisition and profit, for merchants are a type of men most greedy for profit. This parable shows that those who fail to attend the wedding feast and the fellowship and feasting with Christ, do so primarily on account of these two things - the pleasures of the flesh, or the passion of greed. In this parable the meal is called a "dinner," although elsewhere the same thing is called a "supper" (Lk. 14:16), and not unreasonably. For it is called a supper when this wedding feast appears in perfect form in the latter times, towards evening, that is, at the end of the ages. But it is called a dinner when even in former times the mystery was revealed, although more obscurely. The oxen and the fattened calves [in Greek, sitista, grain-fattened calves] are the Old and the New Testaments. For the Old Testament is symbolized by the oxen, for it contained animal sacrifice; the New Testament is symbolized by the grain-fattened calves, for now we offer loaves upon the altar, which could truly be called sitista [literally, "formed from wheat"], as the loaves consist of wheat, sitos. God therefore calls us to partake of the good things of both the Old Testament Scriptures and the New. But when you see someone clearly interpreting the divine words know that he is giving grain-fattened meat. For when he teaches clearly, it is as if he were feeding the unlearned with rich food. No doubt you will ask why He says here, "Call them that were called." If they were already invited, why are they going to invite them again? Learn, then, that each of us by nature has been called towards the good, for we are being called by the word of the innate teacher within us. But God also sends us external teachers to call us from without, we who were first called by the word in our nature. The king sent his armies, that is, the Roman legions, and destroyed the disobedient Jews and burnt up their city, Jerusalem, as even the truthful Josephus says.

But they, namely, those hardened in malice, neglected it. Some leave off through negligence, but others through malice, who persecute preachers; hence he says, but they neglected it. And what was the cause? Because they went their ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise. They seemed to have a just cause outwardly, but the Lord does not accept it, because no temporal things should keep one from coming to God. According to Hilary, by what he says, to his farm, is signified the desire for human glory; John 12:43: they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God; Jeremiah 5:4: but I said: perhaps these are poor and foolish, not knowing the way of the Lord and the judgment of their God. By what he says, another to his merchandise, is signified the desire of avarice; Jeremiah 6:13: from the least of them even to the greatest, all are given to covetousness. According to Chrysostom, some have the occupation of laboring with their own hands, others in merchandise, i.e., in their own business.

PARABLE OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. (Mat 22:1-14) The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son--"In this parable," as TRENCH admirably remarks, "we see how the Lord is revealing Himself in ever clearer light as the central Person of the kingdom, giving here a far plainer hint than in the last parable of the nobility of His descent. There He was indeed the Son, the only and beloved one (Mar 12:6), of the Householder; but here His race is royal, and He appears as Himself at once the King and the King's Son (Psa 72:1). The last was a parable of the Old Testament history; and Christ is rather the last and greatest of the line of its prophets and teachers than the founder of a new kingdom. In that, God appears demanding something from men; in this, a parable of grace, God appears more as giving something to them. Thus, as often, the two complete each other: this taking up the matter where the other left it." The "marriage" of Jehovah to His people Israel was familiar to Jewish ears; and in Psa. 45:1-17 this marriage is seen consummated in the Person of Messiah "THE KING," Himself addressed as "GOD" and yet as anointed by "HIS GOD" with the oil of gladness above His fellows. These apparent contradictions (see on Luk 20:41-44) are resolved in this parable; and Jesus, in claiming to be this King's Son, serves Himself Heir to all that the prophets and sweet singers of Israel held forth as to Jehovah' s ineffably near and endearing union to His people. But observe carefully, that THE BRIDE does not come into view in this parable; its design being to teach certain truths under the figure of guests at a wedding feast, and the want of a wedding garment, which would not have harmonized with the introduction of the Bride.

But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: