And he began to speak unto them by parables.
A certain man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and dug a place for the winepress, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into a far country.
All Commentaries on Mark 12:1 Go To Mark 12
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Planted a vineyard. Gr. ε̉φÏτευσεν, Vulg. pastinavit. The verb pastinare is especially used of vines. It means to dig the soil of the vineyard, and prepare it for planting vines, So the word repastinare means to dig up vines when they are sterile.
And dug a lake (Vulg.), a receptacle into which the must pressed from the grapes might flow. The Gr. is Ïπολήνιον, i.e, beneath the winepress. For ληνός means winepress. Hence the Arabic translates, and dug a winepress in it. S. Matthew (xxi33) uses the same expression. For torcular, or winepress, means not only the actual press itself, but the vat or receptacle beneath the press in which the grape juice was received. This last was said to be dug, or, as in Isaiah 5:1, to be cut out.
