A.T. Robertson Commentary Mark 12:1

"And he began to speak unto them in parables. A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge about it, and digged a pit for the winepress, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into another country." — Mark 12:1 (ASV)

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 , 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 (Matthew 21:28–32) nor that of the Marriage Feast of the King's Son (Matthew 22:1–14). He gives here the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen. Also in Mt 21:33-46 and Lu 20:9-19. See discussion in Matthew. Matthew 21:33 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).