Mark 12:1
What does Mark 12:1 mean?
A plain-English look at Mark 12:1 in WEB alongside six other public-domain English translations, with cross-references and chapter context.
What Mark 12:1 means
Jesus begins with a parable describing a landowner who prepares a vineyard and leases it to tenants. This carefully tended vineyard, with its hedge, winepress, and tower, represents God’s chosen people, Israel, whom He nurtured and provided for. The landowner's act of entrusting the vineyard to husbandmen signifies God's delegation of spiritual responsibility to the religious leaders of Israel. His subsequent departure to another country indicates a period of God's patience and observation, allowing the tenants to work the vineyard and produce fruit.
Parallel translations
WEB
World English Bible · 2000And he began to speak unto them in parables. A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged a pit for the winepress, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into another country.
KJV
King James Version · 1611And he began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winefat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country.
ASV
American Standard Version · 1901And he began to speak unto them in parables. A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged a pit for the winepress, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into another country.
BBE
Bible in Basic English · 1949And he gave them teaching in the form of stories. A man had a vine-garden planted, and put a wall about it, and made a place for crushing out the wine, and put up a tower, and let it out to field-workers, and went into another country.
YLT
Young's Literal Translation · 1862And he began to speak to them in similes: `A man planted a vineyard, and put a hedge around, and digged an under-wine-vat, and built a tower, and gave it out to husbandmen, and went abroad;
DRA
Douay-Rheims (Challoner) · 1752And he began to speak to them in parables: A certain man planted a vineyard and made a hedge about it and dug a place for the winefat and built a tower and let it to husbandmen: and went into a far country.
DBY
Darby Bible · 1890And he began to say to them in parables, A man planted a vineyard, and made a fence round [it] and dug a wine-vat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and left the country.
Context
This verse opens the parable of the wicked husbandmen, a direct address from Jesus to the chief priests, scribes, and elders (implied from Mark 11:27). It sets the stage for a spiritual indictment, immediately preceding the description of the tenants' refusal to honor their agreement. This context is crucial as it frames Jesus's coming challenge to the religious authorities who have failed in their stewardship.
v.1This passage
v.2And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruits of the vineyard.
Cross references
Related passages from across Scripture, drawn from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
- Ezekiel 20:49
Then said I, Ah Lord Jehovah! they say of me, Is he not a speaker of parables?
- Ezekiel 20:18
And I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their ordinances, nor defile yourselves with their idols.
- Luke 8:10
And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to the rest in parables; that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.
- Romans 11:17
But if some of the branches were broken off, and thou, being a wild olive, wast grafted in among them, and didst become partaker with them of the root of the fatness of the olive tree;
- John 15:1
I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
- Luke 20:9
And he began to speak unto the people this parable: A man planted a vineyard, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into another country for a long time.
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