1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 sn The question is whether John’s ministry was of divine or human origin. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 sn The image of the tenants beating up the owner’s slave pictures the nation’s rejection of the prophets and their message. 27 28 29 30 31 sn The owner’s decision to send his one dear son represents God sending Jesus. 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 sn The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The use of Ps 118:22-23 and the “stone imagery” as a reference to Christ and his suffering and exaltation is common in the NT (see also Matt 21:42; Mark 12:10; Acts 4:11; 1 Pet 2:6-8; cf. also Eph 2:20). The irony in the use of Ps 118:22-23 here is that in the OT, Israel was the one rejected (or perhaps her king) by the Gentiles, but in the NT it is Jesus who is rejected by Israel. 40 41 sn This proverb basically means that the stone crushes, without regard to whether it falls on someone or someone falls on it. On the stone as a messianic image, see Isa 28:16 and Dan 2:44-45. 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 sn A denarius was a silver coin worth approximately one day’s wage for a laborer. The fact that the leaders had such a coin showed that they already operated in the economic world of Rome. The denarius would have had a picture of Tiberius Caesar, the Roman emperor, on it. 59 sn In this passage Jesus points to the image (Grk εἰκών, eikwn) of Caesar on the coin. This same Greek word is used in Gen 1:26 (LXX) to state that humanity is made in the “image” of God. Jesus is making a subtle yet powerful contrast: Caesar’s image is on the denarius, so he can lay claim to money through taxation, but God’s image is on humanity, so he can lay claim to each individual life. 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 sn See the note on Christ in 2:11. 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110