He began to speak unto them in parables (ηρξατο αυτοις εν παραβολαις λαλειν). Mark's common idiom again. He does not mean that this was the beginning of Christ's use of parables (see ), but simply that his teaching on this occasion took the parabolic turn. "The circumstances called forth the parabolic mood, that of one whose heart is chilled, and whose spirit is saddened by a sense of loneliness, and who, retiring within himself, by a process of reflection, frames for his thoughts forms which half conceal, half reveal them" (Bruce). Mark does not give the Parable of the Two Sons () nor that of the Marriage Feast of the King's Son (). He gives here the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen. Also in  and . See discussion in Matthew.  calls the man "a householder" (οικοδεσποτης).

A pit for the winepress (υποληνιον). Only here in the N.T. Common in the LXX and in late Greek. Matthew had ληνον, winepress. This is the vessel or trough under the winepress on the hillside to catch the juice when the grapes were trodden. The Romans called it lacus (lake) and Wycliff dalf (lake), like delved. See on Matthew for details just alike.

Husbandmen (γεωργοις). Workers in the ground, tillers of the soil (εργον, γη).