, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So
that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of
the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the
streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the
maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is
done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said
unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them
to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say unto you, That none
of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper."[955]

The story implies that invitations had been given sufficiently early to
the chosen and prospective guests; then on the day of the feast a
messenger was sent to notify them again, as was the custom of the time.
Though called a supper, the meal was to be a sumptuous one; moreover,
the principal meal of the day was commonly spoken of as supper. One man
after another declined to attend, one saying: "I pray thee have me
excused"; another: "I cannot come." The matters that engaged the time
and attention of those who had been bidden, or as we would say, invited,
to the feast, were not of themselves discreditable, far less sinful; but
to arbitrarily allow personal affairs to annul an honorable engagement
once accepted was to manifest discourtesy, disrespect and practical
insult toward the provider of the feast. The man who had bought a field
could have deferred the inspection; he who had just purchased cattle
could have waited a day to try them under the yoke; and the newly
married man could have left his bride and his friends for the period of
the supper that he had promised to attend. Plainly none of these people
wanted to be present. The master of the house was justly angry. His
command to bring in the poor and the maimed, the halt and the blind from
the city streets must have appealed to those who listened to our Lord's
recital as a reminiscence of His counsel given a few minutes before,
concerning the kind of guests a rich man could invite with profit to his
soul. The second sending out of the servant, this time into the highways
and hedges outside the city walls, to bring in even the country poor,
indicated boundless benevolence and firm determination on the
householder's part.

Explication of the parable was left to the learned men to whom the story
was addressed. Surely some of them would fathom its meaning, in part at