Matthew 20:3

3 When he went out about nine in the morning, ^[a] he saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.

Matthew 20:3 Meaning and Commentary

Matthew 20:3

And he went out about the third hour
About nine o'clock in the morning,

and saw others standing idle in the market place:
the place where labourers used to be hired: and may design the world, because a place full of people, and of great wickedness, for the whole world lies in it; a place of trade and traffic in worldly things, and likewise of worldly and carnal pleasure, and also of idleness. Now God's elect before calling, are in this place: they are natives of it, have their conversation according to it: here Christ came in person, and here he sends his ministers, his Gospel, to find them out, and by his Spirit and grace he calls them from hence; so that afterwards they are no more of it, though they are in it: but before conversion they belong to it, and their posture then is standing idle; being sluggish, and slothful in business, unwilling to work, and afraid of a little danger and trouble, sauntering away their time in carnal pleasures, and so clothed with rags, and in a starving, famishing condition: but Christ's eye is upon them; he observes, and takes notice of them in this disagreeable position and situation, and speaks of them in the following manner.

Matthew 20:3 In-Context

1 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.

2 After agreeing with the workers on one denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard.

3 When he went out about nine in the morning, he saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.

4 To those men he said, 'You also go to my vineyard, and I'll give you whatever is right.' So off they went.

5 About noon and at three, he went out again and did the same thing.

Footnotes

• [a]. Lit about the third hour