The commentators point out that the servants mentioned in this verse are intended to represent the post-exilic prophets. Even the bitter experience of the exile did not cause Israel to alter its attitude toward God.

Again … other servants may be problematic for some readers to whom it may suggest that these other servants were now being sent a second time (Again). To remove this difficulty, one may translate “After this, the man sent other servants.”

More than the first may require translation as a separate sentence: “He sent more slaves this time than he did the first time.”

Did the same to them (Good News Translation “treated them the same way”) may be translated “did the same thing to them that they did to the other slaves.” The text has simply they and them. Translators will have to make sure it is clear that it was the tenants who did the same thing to these servants.

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 .