“Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first.” — Matthew 21:31
Few short parables have a more tangled manuscript record. In the received form, the first son refuses and then repents; the second promises and does nothing; the hearers correctly choose the first. Some witnesses reverse the sons. A Western form keeps their order but answers “the last,” turning the reply into nonsense.
Later in the chapter, verse 44 warns that the stone will break the one who falls on it and grind the one on whom it falls. Some early witnesses omit that verse.
The son who went
The received sequence is direct. Words say no; repentance changes the deed. The other son says yes and disobeys. Publicans and harlots believed John, while the religious leaders saw and still did not repent.
Modern critical editors also prefer this basic sequence. The strangest form—answering that the disobedient son did the father’s will—has sometimes been praised merely because it is difficult. But a reading can be difficult because a scribe blundered. “Harder” is a clue, not a crown.
The reversed order may have arisen from an urge to place the outwardly obedient religious son first and the repentant outcast second. It preserves the point, but it changes the story’s first blow. The received order makes the leaders condemn themselves before they see their place.
The falling stone
Verse 44 resembles Luke 20:18, so many scholars call it an early addition. Yet its wording is not identical, and it fits badly as a random insertion after verse 43; a harmonizer would more naturally put it next to the stone quotation in verse 42.
There is also a visible route for loss. The Greek near the end of verse 43 and the end of verse 44 contains similar pronoun endings. An eye could leap over the sentence. The main critical text has often retained the verse, though with strong brackets or warnings.
The two halves of the stone saying name two judgments. A person who stumbles over Christ is broken; when the rejected stone falls in judgment, it crushes. The image grows from Psalm 118 and reaches toward Daniel’s kingdom stone. It is no loose decoration.
The parable and the stone verse both warn against letting a theory outrank sense. The son who obeyed is the one who went. The stone saying belongs to the judgment Christ announces. The received text is not preserved by choosing the oddest option, but by weighing every reading as language, history, and Scripture.
The absurd answer “the last” is a useful boundary on the harder-reading rule. It may be difficult because an author intends irony, but no signal in the scene makes the leaders deliberately answer against their own judgment. A transcriptional reversal explains the form with less invention.
The first son’s repentance is not mere regret. His changed mind produces the obedience his first words refused. The second son’s respectful “I go, sir” makes profession without action. The leaders condemn that gap and then embody it by rejecting John after seeing sinners believe.
Verse 44 widens the warning from failed obedience to collision with the Messiah. Whether a person trips over the rejected stone now or meets it descending in judgment, neutrality is gone. Its severe image fits the parables addressed to leaders who are already seeking to seize the Son.
Sources and further reading
- Psalm 118:22–23; Daniel 2:34–35; Matthew 21:23–46; Luke 20:9–18.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, notes on Matthew 21:29–31 and 21:44.
- John William Burgon, The Revision Revised.