<p>20:14 <i>But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned one with another, saying- </i>That is, they conspired. This is quoting the LXX of Gen. 37:18. And the allusion is also to&nbsp;<i>&quot;When they shall see him,&nbsp;</i>there is no beauty that they should desire him&quot; (ls. 53:2). &quot;Shamefully handled&quot; (Mk. 12:4) is s.w. Is. 53:3 LXX &quot;despised&quot;.</p><p><i>This is the heir-</i> The leaders of first century Israel initially recognized Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah (cp. Gen. 37:20; Jn. 7:28). They saw (i.e. understood, recognized) him, but then they were made blind by Christ (Jn. 9:39). It was because they &quot;saw&quot; Jesus as the Messiah that the sin of rejecting him was counted to them (Jn. 9:41). This explains why the Roman / Italian nation was not held guilty for crucifying Christ, although they did it, whereas the Jewish nation was. And yet there is ample Biblical evidence to suggest that these same people who &quot;saw&quot; / recognized Jesus as the Christ were also ignorant of his Messiahship. &quot;You both know me, and you know whence I am... You neither know me, nor my Father... when you have lifted up the Son of man, then shall you know that I am he&quot; (Jn. 7:28; 8:19,28) were all addressed to the same group of Jews. Did they know / recognize Jesus as Messiah, or not? As they jeered at him on the cross, and asked Pilate to change the nameplate from &quot;Jesus, King of the Jews&quot;, did they see him as their Messiah? It seems to me that they didn't. In ignorance the Jewish leaders and people crucified their Messiah (Acts 3:17 RV). And yet they knew him for who he was, they saw him coming as the heir. I would suggest the resolution to all this is that they did recognize him first of all, but because they didn't want to accept him, their eyes were blinded, so that they honestly thought that he was an impostor, and therefore in ignorance they crucified him. And yet, it must be noted, what they did in this ignorance, they were seriously accountable for before God.</p><p><i>Let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours</i>- Their assumption therefore was that the landlord must have died, for otherwise, killing the son would not have given them the inheritance. They acted, as we can, as if God is dead; although they would never have admitted that. The apparent non-action of God can likewise lead to the wrong impression that He is effectively dead. Seizing a vineyard for personal possession reminds us of Ahab&rsquo;s actions in 1 Kings 21:15,16- making Naboth a type of Christ, and associating the Jewish religious leadership with wicked Ahab. However, Ahab did repent- and one wonders whether the Lord built in this allusion in reflection of His amazing hopefulness for Israel&rsquo;s repentance. The allusion to Ahab may have been born in the Lord's Bible-saturated mind by the way that Isaiah 5:6 spoke of rain being withheld from the vineyard, as happened in Ahab and Elijah's time. The confirmation of Israel in their evil way was brought to its climax in the crucifixion of Christ.</p>