Matthew 21:33-46 - Revision of the Textus Receptus

The gospel according to Matthew

Chapter 21

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33. Ἄλλην παραβολὴν ἀκούσατε. Ἄνθρωπος ἦν οἰκοδεσπότης ὅστις ἐφύτευσεν ἀμπελῶνα καὶ φραγμὸν αὐτῷ περιέθηκεν καὶ ὤρυξεν ἐν αὐτῷ ληνὸν καὶ ᾠκοδόμησεν πύργον καὶ ἐξέδοτο[1] αὐτὸν γεωργοῖς καὶ ἀπεδήμησεν. “Hear another parable. There was a [2] man who was a master of a household who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to farmers and went into a far country.

34. Ὅτε δὲ ἤγγισεν ὁ καιρὸς τῶν καρπῶν, ἀπέστειλεν τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ πρὸς τοὺς γεωργοὺς λαβεῖν τοὺς καρποὺς αὐτοῦ. And when the season for the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the farmers to receive the fruits of it.

35. Καὶ λαβόντες οἱ γεωργοὶ τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ ὃν μὲν ἔδειραν, ὃν δὲ ἀπέκτειναν, ὃν δὲ ἐλιθοβόλησαν. And the farmers took his servants and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.

36. Πάλιν ἀπέστειλεν ἄλλους δούλους πλείονας τῶν πρώτων, καὶ ἐποίησαν αὐτοῖς ὡσαύτως. Again he sent other servants more than the first, and they did the same to them.

37. Ὕστερον δὲ ἀπέστειλεν πρὸς αὐτοὺς τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ, λέγων, Ἐντραπήσονται τὸν υἱόν μου. Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

38. Οἱ δὲ γεωργοὶ ἰδόντες τὸν υἱὸν εἶπον ἐν ἑαυτοῖς, Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ κληρονόμος. Δεῦτε, ἀποκτείνωμεν αὐτὸν καὶ κατάσχωμεν[3] τὴν κληρονομίαν αὐτοῦ. But when the farmers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’

39. Καὶ λαβόντες αὐτὸν ἐξέβαλον ἔξω τοῦ ἀμπελῶνος καὶ ἀπέκτειναν. And taking him, they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

40. Ὅταν οὖν ἔλθῃ ὁ κύριος τοῦ ἀμπελῶνος, τί ποιήσει τοῖς γεωργοῖς ἐκείνοις; Therefore when the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?”

41. Λέγουσιν αὐτῷ, Κακοὺς κακῶς ἀπολέσει αὐτούς καὶ τὸν ἀμπελῶνα ἐκδώσεται[4] ἄλλοις γεωργοῖς, οἵτινες ἀποδώσουσιν αὐτῷ τοὺς καρποὺς ἐν τοῖς καιροῖς αὐτῶν. They said to him, “He will miserably destroy those wicked men[5] and will lease out the vineyard to other farmers who will give him the fruit in its season.”

42. Λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Οὐδέποτε ἀνέγνωτε ἐν ταῖς γραφαῖς, Λίθον ὃν ἀπεδοκίμασαν οἱ οἰκοδομοῦντες οὗτος ἐγενήθη εἰς κεφαλὴν γωνίας. Παρὰ κυρίου ἐγένετο αὕτη, καὶ ἔστιν θαυμαστὴ ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς ἡμῶν; Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

43. Διὰ τοῦτο λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι ἀρθήσεται ἀφʼ ὑμῶν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ δοθήσεται ἔθνει ποιοῦντι τοὺς καρποὺς αὐτῆς. “For this reason, I say to you that kingdom of God will be taken away from you and will be given to a nation producing its fruits.

44. Καὶ ὁ πεσὼν ἐπὶ τὸν λίθον τοῦτον συνθλασθήσεται· ἐφʼ ὃν δʼ ἂν πέσῃ λικμήσει αὐτόν. And he who falls on this stone will be broken, but on whomever it will fall, it will grind him to powder.” [6]

45. Καὶ ἀκούσαντες οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ Φαρισαῖοι τὰς παραβολὰς αὐτοῦ ἔγνωσαν ὅτι περὶ αὐτῶν λέγει· And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them.

46. Καὶ ζητοῦντες αὐτὸν κρατῆσαι, ἐφοβήθησαν τοὺς ὄχλους, ἐπειδὴ[7] ὡς[8] προφήτην αὐτὸν εἶχον. And when they sought to seize him, they feared the multitudes, because they regarded him as a prophet.

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[1] NA-Text reads “εξεδετο”, same word spelled differently.

[2] NA-Text and Vg-St omit “certain” (Gr.: “τις”): א B D Θ Byz^pt Theophylact | TR: Byz^pt Θ^c || Word omitted.

[3] NA-Text and Vg-St read “σχωμεν” (“have” instead of “seize / possess”, Latin equivalent: “habebimus”): א B D L Z Θ ƒ¹ syr^s syr^c 33 Origen Jerome Cyril | TR: C K W Δ 0102 ƒ¹³ 565 579 700 892 1241 1424 Byz it^ff1 it^q syr^p syr^h Chrysostom Theophylact || This portion in Irenaeus’ book 4 against heresies survived only in Latin which may have been adjusted to the reading in the vulgate (Against heresies 4:36:1). The Alexandrian reading here is possibly the result of a scribal reduction from the more complex “κατεχω” that occurs only here in the gospel of Matthew to the more common “εχω” that occurs 72 times in the same gospel.  

[4] NA-Text, P-Text, WPF³⁵ and M-Text read “εκδωσεται”: א B D Θ Byz Chrysostom Theophylact. Greek text corrected.

[5] Greek: “Evil men, he will evilly destroy them”, Latin: “malos male perdet”.

[6] NA-Text brackets this verse as doubtful. The collective witness of the majuscules, including codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, the minuscules, the versions and the fathers are overwhelmingly against questioning this verse as part of the word of God. The Diatessaron should not be cited for the omission of this verse once verse 44 is present in the Arabic Diatessaron. Origen also should not be cited for the omission of the verse because he is possibly quoting verses 42 and 44 in his commentary on the gospel of John, book 1, chapter 23 or a conflation between the verses in Matthew and Luke 20:17-18. Irenaeus also should not be cited as a witness for the omission because he worked on the text going from verses 33-43, not going any further on this text (Against heresies, 4:36:1). John Burgon also noticed this inconsistency of citation of church fathers that simply stopped their exposition at verse 43. And he explains that this is because verses 18-43 have been assigned for Monday morning during the holy week, . Verse 44 was not quoted, he says, because it is not part of the parable and was not part of the scope of their exposition. This is one of Dr. Hort’s “non-western interpolations”, where he thought that codex D’s shorter readings should have precedence over the Alexandrian codices א and B for preserving a more ancient form of the text before scribes added to it. Another possibility is also a parableptic error in codex D and the copies influenced by it (και ο πεσων επι τον λιθον τουτον συνθλασθησεται εφ ον δ αν πεση λικμησει αυτον και, thus missing verse 44: “And he who falls on this stone will be broken, but on whomever it will fall, it will grind him to powder”), but I’m more inclined to receive Burgon’s explanation for the omission in codex D based on the lectionary cycle of the church as a more satisfactory for the present case.

[7] NA-Text reads “επει”. Both words mean the same thing.

[8] NA-Text reads “εις”, which could be literally translated as “for a prophet” instead of “as a prophet”, but they can be interchangeable in this context.

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Notes:

1. Text in red letters are places where the original reading in the Textus Receptus has been revised and corrected;

2. The English translation used as a reference is the WEB brought to conformity as literal as possible to the Textus Receptus. The end product though is not the WEB or a revised WEB and it should not be called WEB. The content of this post is freely available to everyone and it is not supposed to be copyrighted;

3. TR: Textus Receptus. This text is not copyrighted;

4. NA-Text: Nestle-Aland text commonly known as critical text;

5. M-Text: Majority Text;

6. VgSt: Vulgate of Stuttgart;  

7. WPF³⁵: Wilbur Pickering-family 35;

8. PT: Patriarchal Text, also known as Patriarchal Greek New Testament, published by the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

9. The creator of the variant apparatus available in the VarApp kindly gave me permission to freely use the information contained in the material he put together.

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To God all the glory for the preservation of the scriptures! He reigns!