Herzog

The characters in the parable belong to identifiable social classes or groups in advanced agrarian societies. The landowner is a householder that is very wealthy. The evidence of the man being wealthy is that he was able to get a big amount of day laborers in all hours of the day. The parable shows that the man was able to have stewards watch over the laborers instead of himself. This shows that since he was very wealthy and had stewards to watch over the vineyard and laborers, he must be a patron. Also the man owns a vineyard. This related back to the parable of the wicked tenants. In this parable the man owned a vineyard, which in those days didn’t produce anything for 4 years and he was able to survive during that time. This shows that he had to be wealthy. To show evidence the parable references his steward and his vineyard. His harvest is so good at the time that he didn’t know how much helped he needed. During there were signs of unemployment. To go to angora in all hours of day and still find people suggests that people were hungry for jobs. The people had no bargaining power. The people went to the vineyard without putting up a fight and went willing to work without any clear agreement on wages and took a risk, which shows signs of unemployment. The reason why the laborers weren’t paid very well is that because there was so much land there became so many laborers. Evidence shows that the householder could be a member of the urban elite. He is an owner of a large estate, his large harvest requires many people, and he has a steward. The only question going against this is why would he not the steward go to angora many times to find laborers. Normally people of the urban elites would have others do that work for them, because they did not want the burning resentment caused by their exploitive policies. Jesus’ parable shows systems of oppression in order to show them and make them visible to those victimized by them. They stretch the truth in order to expose it. The laborers prefer the security of their position, they claim the right to claim pay according to their work, and they claim that they deserve something for their work and only work for that reward. Slaves were better taken care of because they were an investment, but the laborers were seen as a slave at their own risk. The employers didn’t have to feed them at all.(MISHNAH) Day laborers fall into a class of people in advanced agrarian societies known as "the expendables." Their life was solitary, poor, nasty, and short. They were not married and didn’t reproduce. The group was kept alive by the steady stream of new recruits forced into its ranks from the classes above it. These people mainly consisted of children of peasant families that couldn’t be supported or provided for. The percentage of these people ranged from 5-15%. The householder belonged to the elite and the laborers belong to the "expendables." The steward belongs to the priests.
The wages that the laborers received was very low and the householder tried to depress wages. The wages of a denarius a day would be enough for a man and his family, living at a peasant level. Some say that the peasants lived below a subsistence level of living and were eventually forced to beg before dying of malnutrition. A denarius a day isn’t enough to survive, because they don’t even work that much, which was caused by their masters so that way they couldn’t gain any power. The problem was that the workers worked mainly at planting and harvest time and were forced to wonder the streets for work to try to survive. Once the workers fell into the "expendables" category their life expectancy was 5-7 years. They were forced to accept the occupations that would soon destroy them.
In second half of the parable the owner tells the steward to pay them beginning with the last to the first, which was different because most people paid the 1st first. The workers raise the question and ask why the people who worked only for 1 hour get paid 1st while we who were in the hot sun all day don’t. They told the owner that they shouldn’t get the same wage, because they worked less than them. The owner did it on purpose. The owner sent his steward to send the insult to the workers. The owner wanted to degrade them, which is apart of their class, to keep them under control and to humiliate them. The owner was threatening their position even at the lowest class, which cause to workers to get very angry. Wages would vary according to the productivity of the worker. The charity of the landowner robs the sense of honors in the workers. The owner tells them that they are the employed and he is the employer and what he does is none of their business. The landowner thought that the land belonged to him. The debt code stated that Yahweh had given the land to the people; all were debtors of him, tenants of his land. If the land belonged to Yahweh, then it was his prerogative to dispose and distribute the land. The land was to produce a lot of good things, that was intended to be shared. The more one got, the more one was supposed to share. The code was supposed to prevent people from coveting the things of others. However the code caused people to want more and more things. Americans practice an analogous art of savage discovery, deducing from single traits in people or groups the savages hidden behind them. The laborers were in a way tricked, because the householder made the victims seen like the ungrateful ones that didn’t appreciate his generosity.
Jesus always points out a problem and a challenge. In this parable the elite were dependent on the lowliest of laborers. The banishment of one served to intimidate the others and put them in their place. In the parable the laborers ended up being the villains. Once the householder is seen as a member of an oppressing elite class, their directions are open to scrutiny. This allows people to see a different view of the complaints by the workers.