translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: MRK

label: NET study note

text: The vineyard is a figure for Israel in the OT ( Isa 5:1-7 ). The nation and its leaders are the tenants, so the vineyard here may well refer to the promise that resides within the nation. The imagery is like that in Rom 11:11-24 .


text: The leasing of land to tenant farmers was common in this period.


text: The image of the tenants beating up the owner’s slave pictures the nation’s rejection of the prophets and their message.


text: The slaves being sent empty-handed suggests that the vineyard was not producing any fruit – and thus neither was the nation of Israel.


text: Throwing the heir’s body out of the vineyard pictures Jesus’ death outside of Jerusalem.


text: The statement that the owner will come and destroy those tenants is a promise of judgment; see Luke 13:34-35; 19:41-44 .


text: The warning that the owner would give the vineyard to others suggests that the care of the promise and the nation’s hope would be passed to others. This eventually looks to Gentile inclusion; see Eph 2:11-22 .


text: A quotation from Ps 118:22-23 .


text: The point of the parable in Mark 12:1-12 is that the leaders of the nation have been rejected by God and the vineyard (v. 9 , referring to the nation and its privileged status) will be taken from them and given to others (an allusion to the Gentiles).


text: See the note on Pharisees in 2:16 .


text: Pharisees and Herodians made a very interesting alliance. W. W. Wessel (“Mark,” EBC 8:733) comments: “The Herodians were as obnoxious to the Pharisees on political grounds as the Sadducees were on theological grounds. Yet the two groups united in their opposition to Jesus. Collaboration in wickedness, as well as goodness, has great power. Their purpose was to trip Jesus up in his words so that he would lose the support of the people, leaving the way open for them to destroy him.” See also the note on “Herodians” in Mark 3:6 .


text: Teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Very few comments are as deceitful as this one; they did not really believe this at all. The question of the Pharisees and Herodians was specifically designed to trap Jesus.


text: Jesus’ answer to give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s was a both/and, not the questioners’ either/or. So he slipped out of their trap.


text: The Sadducees controlled the official political structures of Judaism at this time, being the majority members of the Sanhedrin. They were known as extremely strict on law and order issues (Josephus, J. W. 2.8.2 [2.119], 2.8.14 [2.164-166]; Ant. 13.5.9 [13.171-173], 13.10.6 [13.293-298], 18.1.2 [18.11], 18.1.4 [18.16-17], 20.9.1 [20.199]; Life 2 [10-11]). They also did not believe in resurrection or in angels, an important detail in v. 25 . See also Matt 3:7, 16:1-12, 22:23-34 ; Luke 20:27-38 ; Acts 4:1, 5:17, 23:6-8 .


text: This remark is best regarded as a parenthetical note by the author.


text: A quotation from Deut 25:5 . This practice is called levirate marriage (see also Ruth 4:1-12 ; Mishnah, m. Yevamot; Josephus , Ant. 4.8.23 [4.254-256]). The levirate law is described in Deut 25:5-10 . The brother of a man who died without a son had an obligation to marry his brother’s widow. This served several purposes: It provided for the widow in a society where a widow with no children to care for her would be reduced to begging, and it preserved the name of the deceased, who would be regarded as the legal father of the first son produced from that marriage.


text: Angels do not die, nor do they eat according to Jewish tradition ( 1 En. 15:6; 51:4; Wis 5:5; 2 Bar. 51:10; 1QH 3.21-23).


text: See Exod 3:6 . Jesus used a common form of rabbinic citation here to refer to the passage in question.


text: A quotation from Exod 3:6 .


text: He is not God of the dead but of the living. Jesus’ point was that if God could identify himself as God of the three old patriarchs, then they must still be alive when God spoke to Moses; and so they must be raised.


text: A quotation from Deut 6:4-5 and Josh 22:5 (LXX). The fourfold reference to different parts of the person says, in effect, that one should love God with all one’s being.


text: A quotation from Lev 19:18 .


text: A quotation from Deut 4:35 .


text: A quotation from Deut 6:5 .


text: It was a common belief in Judaism that Messiah would be David’s son in that he would come from the lineage of David. On this point the Pharisees agreed and were correct. But their understanding was nonetheless incomplete, for Messiah is also David’s Lord. With this statement Jesus was affirming that, as the Messiah, he is both God and man.


text: The Lord said to my Lord. With David being the speaker, this indicates his respect for his descendant (referred to as my Lord ). Jesus was arguing, as the ancient exposition assumed, that the passage is about the Lord’s anointed. The passage looks at an enthronement of this figure and a declaration of honor for him as he takes his place at the side of God. In Jerusalem, the king’s palace was located to the right of the temple to indicate this kind of relationship. Jesus was pressing the language here to get his opponents to reflect on how great Messiah is.


text: A quotation from Ps 110:1 .


text: There is later Jewish material in the Talmud that spells out such greetings in detail. See H. Windisch, TDNT 1:498.


text: See the note on synagogue in 1:21 .


text: These two small copper coins were lepta (sing. “lepton”), the smallest and least valuable coins in circulation in Palestine, worth one-half of a quadrans or 1/128 of a denarius, or about six minutes of an average daily wage. This was next to nothing in value.


text: Has put more into the offering box than all the others. With God, giving is weighed evaluatively, not counted. The widow was praised because she gave sincerely and at some considerable cost to herself.


text: The contrast between this passage, 12:41-44 , and what has come before in 11:27-12:40 is remarkable. The woman is set in stark contrast to the religious leaders. She was a poor widow, they were rich. She was uneducated in the law, they were well educated in the law. She was a woman, they were men. But whereas they evidenced no faith and actually stole money from God and men (cf. 11:17 ), she evidenced great faith and gave out of her extreme poverty everything she had .