n made a great supper and bade many." In this case it is
not a king but a person in a private station who provides the feast; and
the occasion of the rejoicing is not the marriage of the entertainer's
son. It is an ordinary example of hospitality exercised by an affluent
citizen.

Both here and in the analogous parable of the royal marriage it is
assumed, as at least not altogether incongruous with custom, that
invitations should be issued some days before, and that the invited
guests should a second time be warned by a messenger to repair to the
banqueting house when the time drew near. This summons to attend
immediately was sent out at supper time. We know that the term [Greek:
deipnon] was in ancient times employed generally to signify the
principal meal, without reference to a particular period of the day;
and, from the circumstances of this case, it plainly appears that the
feast was a dinner at an early hour, and not a supper in our sense of
the word. At the moment when the warning reached him, the man who had
bought a field intended to go and see it, and the man who had bought
five yoke of oxen intended on that same afternoon to try whether they
would go well in harness; these excuses, although not sincere, must in
the nature of the case have appeared plausible, and consequently the
feast must have been ready at an early hour of the day.

It is implied that these men had tacitly, or in some other
well-understood way, accepted the first invitation. They gave no
intimation that they intended to decline--they gave the provider of the
feast reason to expect their presence. Probably they were well pleased
to be invited; if they met any of their poorer neighbours in the
interval, it is probable they would take occasion to show their own
importance. These common people in the town, and these labourers in the
country, are not admitted as we are into good society. When the moment
arrived they were unwilling; or rather they were so intently occupied
with their own affairs, that the attractions of the feast were not
powerful enough to tear them away.

"With one consent" they all made excuses. The servant saw them
separately and received their answers. There is no reason to believe
that they met together and framed a plan to insult their entertainer.
They acted all on the same method, although they did not act in concert.
The creatures were of one kind, and though they answered separately they
answered similarly. Off one