Matthew 21:40 is a question Jesus asks his listeners: when the owner of a vineyard returns, what will he do to the tenants who have mistreated his servants and his son? The answer everyone in the crowd can see is that justice will follow, and the parable is built to make them pronounce that judgment on themselves. Jesus speaks this verse in Jerusalem during the final week before his crucifixion, addressing the chief priests and elders of the people.
When therefore the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?”
Matthew 21:40 (WEB)
What Matthew 21:40 Means
The phrase “when therefore the lord of the vineyard comes” points to a moment of reckoning. In the parable, the owner has planted the vineyard, leased it to farmers, and gone away. His return is the point at which every account is settled, so the question carries the weight of a final accounting rather than a casual “what if.”
The word “therefore” links this question to what has just happened in the story: the tenants beat and killed the servants sent to collect the harvest, and then killed the owner’s son. Jesus is asking his hearers to consider how any owner would respond to such wickedness. The verse does not describe the owner’s action in detail. It sets up the expectation that the tenants will face consequences, and it asks the listeners to name those consequences themselves.
What the verse does not do is give a timetable or a full picture of judgment. It does not explain every detail of the parable’s allegory, and it does not promise that wrongdoers will always be exposed in this life. It invites a verdict, and the verdict it invites is a sober one.
The Context of Matthew 21:40
Matthew’s Gospel was written for a community that knew Jewish scripture well and wanted to understand how Jesus fit within the story of Israel. The parable of the wicked tenants draws on Isaiah 5 and Psalm 80, where Israel is pictured as God’s vineyard. Matthew’s audience would have recognized the imagery at once, which is why the question in verse 40 lands with such force.
Just before the verse, the tenants kill the owner’s son, and just after it, the chief priests and Pharisees realize that Jesus is speaking about them. Their own answer in verse 41 condemns them, and Jesus then turns to the stone rejected by the builders. Read in that setting, verse 40 is not a neutral philosophical question. It is the hinge on which the parable’s accusation against the religious leaders turns.
Key Phrases in Matthew 21:40
Isaiah 5:7
For the vineyard of the LORD of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for justice, but, behold, oppression; for righteousness, but, behold, a cry of distress.
(WEB)
This verse states plainly that the vineyard is Israel and the people of Judah, which gives the parable in Matthew its background. Reading it alongside Matthew 21:40 shows that the owner’s expectation of fruit was rooted in God’s long history of patient care for his people.
Mark 12:9
What therefore will the lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the farmers, and will give the vineyard to others.
(WEB)
Mark records the same parable and the same question about the owner’s response. Seeing it in a second Gospel strengthens the sense that this teaching was central to how the early church understood Jesus’s confrontation with the religious leaders in Jerusalem.
A Short Prayer From Matthew 21:40
Lord, you have entrusted me with gifts, relationships, and responsibilities that are not mine to keep for myself. Search my heart and show me where I have treated what belongs to you as if it were my own. Give me the courage to be honest about my failures and the humility to make things right where I can. Let me live each day as someone who expects to give an account, and let that expectation draw me closer to you rather than fill me with fear. Amen.
