What Does Matthew 21:33 Mean in the King James?
Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The tenants receive a ready-made vineyard, but the householder remains its owner.
THE MEANING
Your work begins inside a place already planted, enclosed, and equipped; what is entrusted to you has a source beyond you. The householder’s absence leaves room for real labor, but it does not turn the tenants into owners.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that being given responsibility means the place and its fruit belong to you.
THE ROOT
ἐξέδετο
exedeto
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
didōmi
to give, grant, or hand over
“let it out” in this verse is exedeto. The verb comes from the word for giving: the vineyard is handed over for use, while its source remains the householder. The same give-root also carries the idea of rendering something back, keeping entrusting and accountability within one word-family.
ALSO GROWS
ekdidōmi: to let out, lease, or give over for use
ἐκδίδωμι
This is the verb used here: the husbandmen receive the vineyard’s use without becoming its source.
apodidōmi: to give back, render, or pay
ἀποδίδωμι
The same give-root can describe rendering something back, illuminating the difference between temporary care and ownership.
φραγμόν
phragmon
GROWS FROM
φράσσω
phrassō
to fence, enclose, or close off
“hedged” in this verse is phragmon. The word-family holds enclosure and separation together: a fence can protect a cultivated place, while a related form can describe a barrier between people. Here the boundary marks the vineyard as prepared for use without erasing the tenants’ distinct role.
ALSO GROWS
phrassō: to fence, enclose, or stop
φράσσω
In Romans 3:19, a form of this verb describes every mouth being stopped; here its related noun names the fence around the vineyard.
phragmos: a fence, hedge, or partition
φραγμός
In Ephesians 2:14, this noun names the middle wall of partition, showing how the same fence-word can mark enclosure or division.
THE PATTERN
The work of tending begins inside provision already given; receiving a place to work does not make its worker the source.
And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it.I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.THE THREAD
And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.The sequence of vineyard, fence, winepress, and tower makes Isaiah’s cultivated plot the blueprint inside Jesus’ sentence. The tenants’ work begins after the whole working place is already prepared.
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