Then he sent them another servant, and they struck him over the head and treated him shamefully.
Christ had formerly in parables showed how he designed to set up the gospel church; now he begins in parables to show how he would lay aside the Jewish church, which it might have been grafted into the stock of, but was built upon the ruins of. This parable we had just as we have it here, Mat 21:33. We may observe here, I.
Commenting on Mark 12:1-12
And again he sent unto them another servant,.... Another set of good men, to instruct, advise, and counsel them, and exhort them to their duty; such as were Isaiah, Zechariah, and others: and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head; for of these were stoned, as well as sawn asunder, and slain with the sword; though it seems, that this servant...
At him they cast stones and wounded him in the head - Or rather, as most learned men agree, they made short work of it, εκεφαλαιωσαν. We have followed the Vulgate, illum in capite vulneraverunt, in translating the original, wounded him in the head, in which signification, I believe, the word is found in no Greek writer.