what is the vineyard that was planted by God at the beginning of the parable? Was it not the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem, and its laws and ordinances through which the priests and doctors of the law (husbandmen) would govern Israel, in which they were supposed to lead Israel to produce fruit.
Clarke
“There was a certain householder - Let us endeavor to find out a general and practical meaning for this parable. A householder - the Supreme Being. The family - the Jewish nation. The vineyard - the city of Jerusalem. The fence - the Divine protection. The wine-press - the law and sacrificial rites. The tower - the temple, in which the Divine presence was manifested. The husbandmen - the priests and doctors of the law. Went from home - entrusted the cultivation of the vineyard to the priests, etc., “
Ellicot
“Taking the thought there suggested as the key to the parable, the vineyard is “the house of Israel;” the “fence” finds its counterpart in the institutions which made Israel a separate and peculiar people; the “wine-press” (better, wine-vat—i.e., the reservoir underneath the press), in the Temple, as that into which the “wine” of devotion, and thanksgiving, and charity was to flow; the “tower” (used in vineyards as a place of observation and defence against the attacks of plunderers; comp.
Isaiah 1:8), in Jerusalem and the outward polity connected with it. So, in like manner, the letting out to husbandmen and the going “into a far country” answers historically to the conquest by which the Israelites became possessors of Canaan, and were left, as it were, to themselves to make what use they chose of their opportunities.”
Benson
“The Jewish Church planted in Canaan, represented also as a vineyard”
MacLaren
“It is planted and furnished with all appliances needful for making wine, which is its great end. The direct divine origin of the religious ideas and observances of ‘Judaism’ is thus asserted by Christ. The only explanation of them is that God enclosed that bit of the wilderness, and with His own hands set growing there these exotics.”
Benson
“Planted a vineyard - A place for the cultivation of grapes. It is often used to represent the church of God. as a place cultivated and valuable. Judea was favorable to vines, and the figure is frequently used, therefore, in the sacred writers. See
Matthew 20:1. It is used here to represent the "Jewish people" - the people chosen of the Lord, cultivated with care, and signally favored; or perhaps more definitely, "the city of Jerusalem."
Jamiesson
“and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower—These details are taken, as is the basis of the parable itself, from that beautiful parable of Isa 5:1-7, in order to fix down the application and sustain it by Old Testament authority.”
So when these wicked tenants are destroyed for killing the servants and the son, and not producing fruit from the vineyard , am I to understand that the new tenants that are given this very same exact vineyard, are given the literal nation of Israel, the literal earthly city of Jerusalem, and the literal ordinances of the law in order to bear fruit? Based on your current and very rigid argument, it seems so, but……
No, of course not. The parable isn’t meant to convey that the new tenants would take the place of the wicked tenants’ position in literal earthly Jerusalem over the old covenant. Jesus explains the parable, and the meaning - the vineyard being given to the new tenants is to be understood as the kingdom of God being taken from the wicked leaders and given to a new nation producing fruit - the body of Christ (new tenants) would be given the spiritual kingdom of God and the heavenly Jerusalem.
So Just as Jesus explains the vineyard being given to new tenants, as the kingdom being taken from Israel and being given to a new nation, he also explains the wicked tenants’ destruction by the vineyard owner - the stone that was rejected by the builders (husbandmen) had now became the cornerstone, and it would fall on them and crush them.
So, I view matthew 21:40-41 through Jesus’ explanation in Matthew 21:43-44 and matthews commentary on the Pharisees reaction in vs 45.