When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.
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 at the season he sent unto the husbandman a servant,.... The Evangelist Matthew says, "when the time of the fruit drew near", Mat 21:34; and so the Persic version here reads. The Syriac and Ethiopic versions read, "in its own time", or "season", which was the fourth year from the planting of it; and then it was holy to the Lord; and might not...
And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard. (b) When the fruits of the ground used to be gathered.