Matthew 20 Bible study: The last will be first

After Peter's question (19:27), Jesus's answer begins at 19:28, and by the WEB's quotation marks it runs on without a break into a parable: "For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who was the master of a household, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard" (20:1) (tap vineyard). He agrees with them "for a denarius a day" (20:2). He goes out again "about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace" (20:3) (tap idle), again "about the sixth and the ninth hour" (20:5), and once more "About the eleventh hour" (20:6). Those he finds then say, "Because no one has hired us" (20:7). "When evening had come, the lord of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first.’" (20:8) (tap wages, last). Each is given a denarius (20:9-10), and those hired first "murmured against the master of the household" (20:11) (tap murmured): "These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!" (20:12). He answers one of them, "Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius?" (20:13), and asks, "Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?" (20:15). Then Jesus says, "So the last will be first, and the first last" (20:16). Here is what almost everyone misses: the parable is held between two sayings. Just before it, Jesus says, "But many will be last who are first, and first who are last" (19:30), and it ends with "So the last will be first, and the first last" (20:16). Inside the story, the pay goes out "beginning from the last to the first" (20:8). Of the ten times Matthew's Greek has the word for last, seven are in these verses, from 19:30 to 20:16. Jesus doesn't say who the laborers are, what the hours stand for or who the master is, and these notes don't either; nothing here is said about anyone's work or pay today.

Deuteronomy 24:15→leads toMatthew 20:8

Moses says of the poor hired servant, "In his day you shall give him his wages, neither shall the sun go down on it" (24:15). In a parable of Jesus, the master of a household hires laborers "for a denarius a day" (Matthew 20:2), and "When evening had come, the lord of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first'" (Matthew 20:8). Jesus doesn't cite Deuteronomy 24, so setting them together is a reading. Some hear this law in the story: day laborers paid their wages at evening, on the day they worked. Others read the evening pay as part of the story's setting, and its point in the master's words, "Or is your eye evil, because I am good?" (Matthew 20:15), and "So the last will be first, and the first last" (Matthew 20:16), without a link to this chapter.

ἔσχατοςeschatossay ES-khat-os

Strong's: "farthest, final (of place or time)". Thayer: "extreme, last in time or in place", and he lists 20:8 and 20:12 for those "who had come to work last". "pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first" (20:8); those hired first complain, "These last have spent one hour" (20:12); the master answers, "It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you" (20:14); and Jesus ends, "So the last will be first, and the first last" (20:16). Matthew's Greek has the word ten times (counted in RP2018), and seven of them are between 19:30 and 20:16: twice in "But many will be last who are first, and first who are last" (19:30), once each in 20:8, 20:12 and 20:14, and twice in 20:16. Mark gives the saying of 19:30 in its own words, "But many who are first will be last, and the last first" (Mark 10:31).