12:7a

Verses 12:7–8 tell what happened after the son arrived at the grape farm. However, the text in 12:7a does not actually say that the son arrived. In some languages it may be necessary to make that explicit. For example:

But when the son arrived

But the tenants said to one another: The Greek conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as But introduces a contrast with what the owner thought in 12:6c. Instead of respecting the owner’s son, the farmers told each other that they should kill him (12:7c). Indicate this contrast in a natural way in your language.

12:7b

This is the heir: Here the tenants indicated that the owner’s son was his heir. The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as heir refers to the person who would own his father’s property after his father died.

12:7c

Come: In this context the Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Come indicates that the farmers encouraged each other to unite and kill the heir. It does not refer to moving toward something. Consider whether you have an expression in your culture that members of a group might use to encourage each other to do something. In some languages it may be more natural not to translate this word.

let us kill him: The grape farmers said the words let us kill him to encourage each other to kill the owner’s son.

and the inheritance will be ours: This phrase expresses what the farmers thought would happen if they killed the son. (It seems that the farmers were not thinking clearly about the probable results of their killing the heir. Perhaps when they saw the son coming they thought that the owner had already died and that the son was coming to claim the grape farm for himself (Gundry pages 686–687). Some scholars indicate that it was customary at that time that, when men had farmed land for three (or perhaps four) years or more, they could claim that it was their land if there was no one else to claim it (France page 461). So the farmers thought that if they killed the son (apparently the only son), they would become the owners of the grape farm.) In some languages you may wish to make this clear by following this example:

If we do, then the inheritance will be ours.

the inheritance: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as inheritance refers to the grape farm, which the son would receive when his father died. To “inherit” something means to own it when the previous owner, usually a parent, dies.

© 2008 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.