Charles Ellicott 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)

And he began to speak to them by parables.—See Notes on Matthew 21:33-36. The parable which, like that of the Sower, and like the Sower's alone, is related in all the first three Gospels, was one which had obviously impressed itself strongly, as that had done, on the minds of those who heard it, and was reproduced by independent reporters with almost textual exactness.

A place for the winefat.—Better, simply, a vine vat.