The kingdom of heaven may be compared to translates the same formula used in 13.24. As there, the Kingdom of heaven should be compared to the whole parable, not to a king, as the Revised Standard Version may seem to mean. See Good News Translation, but also note Barclay: “The situation in the Kingdom of Heaven is like the situation which arose when a king gave a wedding banquet for his son.”

Note that Good News Translation has used the formula “Once there was….” Translators should use the same formula here that they used in 20.1.

In contrast to the Lukan parallel (14.16), the “man” is here a king, and the “great feast” is now a marriage feast for his son. In translation it must not be implied, of course, that the king himself prepared the meal. One may translate either “who caused a wedding feast to be prepared for his son” or “who ordered his servants to prepare a wedding feast for his son.” Direct discourse may be preferable: “who told his servants, ‘Prepare a wedding feast for my son.’ ”

Marriage feast may require some explanation if there is no expression in the receptor language that means exactly the same thing. Translators may have to say “There was a king whose son was getting married, so the king prepared a feast for him (or, a feast to celebrate).”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .