A vineyard
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Ἀμπελών (ampelōn) means vineyard, a cultivated field of grapevines requiring ownership, labor, protection, patience, and expected fruit. Jesus compares the kingdom to a landowner hiring workers for his vineyard and paying with surprising generosity.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἀμπελών (G290) · Open the biblical lexicon
Ἀμπελών (ampelōn) means vineyard, a cultivated field of grapevines requiring ownership, labor, protection, patience, and expected fruit. Jesus compares the kingdom to a landowner hiring workers for his vineyard and paying with surprising generosity.
The BSB source-word alignment has 23 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include vineyard (19), a vineyard (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 20:1. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (10), Luke (7), Mark (5), 1 Corinthians (1).
Ἀμπελών (ampelōn) means vineyard, a cultivated field of grapevines requiring ownership, labor, protection, patience, and expected fruit. Jesus compares the kingdom to a landowner hiring workers for his vineyard and paying with surprising generosity. In the tenant parable, a carefully planted vineyard is entrusted to cultivators who violently reject the owner's servants and son, turning stewardship into rebellion.
A fig tree planted within a vineyard receives additional care before judgment for fruitlessness. Paul appeals to the ordinary right of one who plants a vineyard to share its fruit while defending support for gospel workers. The vineyard itself does not carry one fixed symbolism: it can frame grace, covenant stewardship, patience, accountability, labor, or provision.
The parable's owner, workers, tenants, fruit, and outcome control the teaching.
Ἀμπελών names a cultivated vineyard. Its passages portray kingdom labor under a generous owner, rebellious tenants, patient expectation of fruit, and the worker's ordinary right to share in a vineyard's yield.
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.
The landowner repeatedly hires workers for his vineyard and pays according to his generous purpose, exposing resentment when grace exceeds ordinary comparison.
Then Jesus began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a wine vat, and built a watchtower. Then he rented it out to some tenants and went away on a journey.
The owner prepares the vineyard carefully and entrusts it to tenants, whose violence against servants and son reveals rebellion against ownership rather than a labor dispute.
Then Jesus told this parable: “A man had a fig tree that was planted in his vineyard. He went to look for fruit on it but did not find any.
A fig tree receives space and care within the vineyard but remains accountable for fruit, holding patience and impending judgment together.
Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Who tends a flock and does not drink of its milk?
Paul asks who plants a vineyard without eating its fruit, using ordinary agricultural provision to defend material support for those who serve the gospel.
He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
The agreed denarius and actual sending into the vineyard establish a real labor arrangement before the parable focuses on the owner's freedom to be generous.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Agricultural property representing labor, investment, and divine judgment in Jesus' parables of accountability.
Agricultural property representing labor, investment, and divine judgment in Jesus' parables of accountability.
(ἄμπελος), [in LXX for כֶּרֶם ;] a vineyard: Mat.20:1 ff. Mat.21:28 ff, Luk.13:6 20:9 ff., 1Co.9:7. Æschin., 49, 13; Diod., al.; see MM, VGT, see word; LS, see word ἀμπελουργεῖον.)
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 23 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a vineyard
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Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 3 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 23 lexical occurrence verses.
ἀμπελών is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
A vineyard is cultivated life under an owner's claim. Matthew's workers enter at different hours, yet the landowner's generosity cannot be reduced to human calculations of comparative deserving. Mark's tenants forget that stewardship never becomes ownership; their violence culminates against the beloved son and brings judgment. Luke's fruitless tree receives another season of care, but patience is purposeful and fruit remains expected.
Paul takes the image in an ordinary economic direction: one who cultivates should share in the crop, just as gospel laborers may receive support. Churches should receive ministry as grace, honor the Owner, seek fruit, and provide for workers without confusing their stewardship with possession of Christ's people. Ἀμπελών joins gift and accountability because the field is prepared, entrusted, tended, and finally evaluated by someone beyond the laborers.
Matt.20.1
Ἀμπελών is a noun for vineyard, the cultivated place rather than a single vine. Possessors and labor verbs establish ownership and activity. Figurative force comes from parable and prophetic context.
Israel is sung as the Lord's vineyard, prophets lament bad fruit, Jesus announces judgment through vineyard parables, and apostolic teaching uses cultivation to discuss labor and provision.