Mark 12 Footnotes

12:6 The authenticity of this parable is established, among other things, on the word play in Hebrew of “son” (ben) and “stone” (eben). It indicates that Jesus understood himself to be Israel’s Messiah and shows that he viewed rejection as essential to the Messiah’s mission. The Jewish audience was quite able to follow Jesus’s point. They understood that he was referring to Israel as the vineyard (Is 5:1) and to the prophets as the servants of the owner, God. Thus they could be expected to recognize the son as the Messiah (2Sm 7:14; Ps 2:7; 89:26-27; see Mk 14:61). What they could not accept was that the Messiah would be rejected and killed by the Jewish leadership, who would in turn be destroyed.

12:37 In Jewish culture (and Roman culture as well) fathers (and other patriarchs) were deserving of utmost respect; they were lords of their families and descendants. Thus Jesus pointed out a paradox intended to expand the audience’s messianic categories. He did not deny the Messiah was a son of David but noted that Ps 110 implies that the Messiah, though David’s son, is his superior. Some have argued that the superscription of Ps 110 can be read as “a psalm to [or for] David,” indicating that the psalm was written about David by someone else. However, the same superscription is used on all the psalms of David, notably Ps 18, which was clearly written by him, not about him, nor do the Pharisees seem to have entertained this option (Mt 22:45).