The King who serves: the generous landowner, the third passion prediction and the ransom for many

Matthew 20 continues the road to Jerusalem that began in 19:1.

• The first Gospel is traditionally ascribed to Matthew the tax collector, one of the Twelve (9:9; 10:3), on the testimony of Papias and later writers. Many critical scholars regard it as the work of an unnamed Jewish Christian scribe who drew on Mark and on a body of shared sayings. The date is tied to the synoptic problem. If Mark came first, Matthew is usually dated between about AD 70 and 90. Those who hold Matthean priority, or who defend an early Matthew, place it before 70.
• The first audience was probably Jewish Christians in a mixed church, and the Gospel keeps showing how Jesus fulfils Israel's Scriptures while reshaping Israel's expectations.

This chapter is the end of the journey. The parable of the vineyard workers (verses 1-16) finishes the teaching begun in 19:27-30. The three events that follow are all set on the road: the third prediction of the cross, the request of the sons of Zebedee, and the healing of the blind men as Jesus leaves Jericho. Jericho lay about fifteen miles from Jerusalem, and the road from there is a climb of more than three thousand feet, so 'going up to Jerusalem' (verse 17) is literal.

The parable has no parallel in the other Gospels. The passion prediction and the request of James and John are found in Mark 10:32-45, and the passion prediction also in Luke 18:31-34. Mark and Luke tell the healing at Jericho with one blind man, named Bartimaeus in Mark. Matthew has two, and in Mark the brothers make the request themselves, while Matthew has their mother ask.

The first part of the chapter is a parable, a story told to make one main point about the kingdom of heaven. The opening phrase, 'the kingdom of heaven is like', says that the whole story, not each detail, is the comparison. The key is the last two lines before the proverb: the landowner's question, 'Are you envious because I am generous?', and the saying 'the last will be first, and the first will be last.' The parable should not be read as a lesson in labour relations. A reader looks for the point on which the story turns, here the master's pay, and for the people the story is aimed at, here the Twelve who have just asked what they will receive.

The rest of the chapter is narrative with embedded teaching, and its unity comes from the road. The third prediction, the ambition of the disciples and the blind men are three responses to the approaching cross. Jesus says what is about to happen, the disciples show that they do not understand it, and two blind men who know their need are the ones who see. The frame also joins this chapter to chapters 16-17. Matthew has given three predictions (16:21; 17:22-23; 20:17-19), each followed by evidence that the disciples misunderstand.

The interpreter should also note Matthew's habit of doubling, as at 8:28 and 9:27, where Mark or Luke have one person. Some scholars see literary shaping or the Law's rule of two witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15). Others suppose Mark and Luke simply mention the better-known man. The text does not settle it, and the point of the story is untouched either way.

Verses 1–7

A landowner goes out at dawn and agrees a wage of 'a denarius for the day', which was a common day labourer's pay. He hires more men at the third, sixth, ninth and eleventh hours, that is about nine in the morning, noon, three and five in the afternoon, since the working day ran from about six to six. To the later groups he says only 'whatever is right'. The last group have stood idle 'because no one has hired us', and they too are sent in. In the Old Testament a vineyard is a common figure for Israel (Isaiah 5:1-7), so the hearers would take the owner to be God.

Verses 8–12

At evening the steward is told to pay the last first, and each gets a denarius. The first group, who expected more, 'began to grumble' because the late arrivals were made 'equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day'. Their complaint is not about being cheated. They received what they agreed. It is about someone else receiving what they did not earn.

Verses 13–16

The owner addresses one of them as 'Friend', a word Matthew uses for people who are being confronted (22:12; 26:50). 'Did you not agree with me on one denarius?' He has done no wrong. 'Do I not have the right to do as I please with what is mine? Or are you envious because I am generous?' The Greek is literally 'is your eye evil because I am good', an idiom for envy. The verdict is 'the last will be first, and the first will be last.' The parable answers Peter. Those who follow Jesus do not bargain for their reward, because the reward is a gift that exceeds any calculation. Later Christians read the hours as ages of life or of salvation history, but Jesus gives the stress on the master's goodness.

Verses 17–19

Jesus takes the Twelve aside. This is the third and most detailed prediction. The Son of Man will be 'delivered over' to the chief priests and scribes, who will condemn him to death and hand him to the Gentiles 'to be mocked and flogged and crucified', and on the third day he will be raised. Only here among the three predictions does Matthew name crucifixion, a Roman penalty, and the word 'delivered over' recurs in the passion story (26:2, 45; 27:2). The verb also recalls Isaiah 53:12 in the Greek Old Testament.

Verses 20–23

The mother of Zebedee's sons, probably the woman at the cross in 27:56, kneels and asks for the places at his right and left in his kingdom. It follows hard after a prediction of death and a promise of twelve thrones. Jesus speaks to the sons: 'Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?' In the Old Testament the cup is often the cup of God's wrath or judgment (Isaiah 51:17; Jeremiah 25:15), and it will be Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane (26:39). They say 'We can.' He answers that they will drink it, but the seats 'belong to those for whom My Father has prepared them'. James was put to death by Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:2), and John, if he is the John of Revelation, writes there as a fellow sufferer (1:9).

Verses 24–28

The other ten are indignant, and Jesus calls them together. Rulers of the nations 'lord it over them', but 'it shall not be this way among you'. Whoever would be great must be a servant (diakonos), and whoever would be first must be a slave (doulos). The pattern is the Son of Man, who 'did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many'. The word 'ransom' (lutron) is the price paid to free a captive or a slave, and 'for many' comes from Isaiah 53:11-12. Mark 10:45 has nearly the same wording, which suggests that the saying was widely remembered.

Verses 29–34

As they leave Jericho, two blind men beside the road hear that Jesus is passing and cry out, 'Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!' The crowd tells them to be quiet and they cry louder. Jesus stops. 'What do you want Me to do for you?' he asks, the very question he put to the mother and her sons (verse 21). The blind men ask only for sight. Moved with compassion, he touches their eyes, and they see and follow him. Two blind men address Jesus rightly while the disciples ask wrongly.

The chapter holds together three truths that run through the whole Bible. The first is that salvation and its reward are gift. The parable teaches the same grace that Paul sets out in Romans 4:4-5 and Ephesians 2:8-9: God pays more than work earns. Yet the parable does not make labour meaningless. All the workers are in the vineyard, and the generous master is still the master. The Old Testament side of this is the God who forgives freely (Isaiah 55:1-7; Jonah 4:2), and Jonah's complaint is the older form of the grumbling workers.

The second is the cross as ransom. The statement in 20:28 gathers three strands. The Son of Man of Daniel 7 receives a kingdom, but here he gives his life. The Servant of Isaiah 52:13-53:12 bears the sin of many. And the Exodus language of redemption, in which God ransoms his people from slavery (Exodus 6:6; Psalm 49:7-9), is applied to the death of one man. Paul speaks the same way (1 Timothy 2:5-6) and so does Peter (1 Peter 1:18-19). 'For many' in Hebrew idiom means a great number and is not a limit.

The third is that greatness in the kingdom runs opposite to the world's measures. It was the lesson of 18:1-4 and 19:30, and here the argument becomes a pattern: the king of the kingdom serves. Paul's hymn in Philippians 2:5-8 is the same truth set to verse.

Christ speaks of himself directly here, and this is fulfilment in its plainest form. Verses 18-19 show he knows the course of the cross in detail and goes toward it. In verse 28 he states why: the Son of Man came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. The words echo Isaiah 53:10-12, though Matthew does not quote the passage, so the link is an echo that the later New Testament confirms (for example 1 Peter 2:24-25). The statement is the nearest thing to a plain account of the meaning of his death in the first Gospel, and it will be completed at the Supper, when he speaks of his blood 'poured out for many' (26:28).

He is also the Master of the parable, whose generosity makes the last equal to the first. In calling himself the one who gives the wage, he claims the place of God in the story. The cup he mentions is the cup he will accept in Gethsemane.

The blind men call him 'Son of David' twice. In Matthew that title belongs to the healer (9:27; 12:23; 15:22) and to the king who is about to enter Jerusalem (21:9). The man in David's line who fulfils the promise of 2 Samuel 7 is the man who stops for two beggars and asks what they want. The Old Testament had promised that when God came to save, the eyes of the blind would be opened (Isaiah 35:5; 42:7), and the story shows the Messiah doing it on the way to his death.