In the words of one commentator, this servant “shows as soon as he opens his mouth that he is not interested in his lord’s advantage but in saving his own skin.”

The adjective hard is used only here in the Gospel of Matthew; elsewhere in the New Testament it is found in John 6.60; Acts 26.14; James 3.4 (“strong” of wind); Jude 15 (“harsh”). The two illustrations (sowing and reaping; winnowing and gathering) probably reflect proverbial sayings (see Job 31.8; John 4.37); they are used to illustrate what the servant means by the accusation that his master is a hard man. Most translators describe the master here as “strict” or, as in Barclay, “a shrewd and ruthless businessman.”

The four verbs (reaping … sow … gathering … winnow) may require the explicit mention of objects, as for example, “reap harvests,” “sow (or, plant) seeds,” “gather crops,” and “winnow chaff.” But this is complicated by the observation that the final verb in this series is literally “scatter” and may mean either “scatter” (of seed) or “winnow” (of chaff). The Good News Translation rendering “scatter seed” probably is best in this context. In either case the idea of taking profits where someone else has done the work is clear.

It is possible to follow chronological order, shift to a comparison, and at the same time combine the two figures of speech into one: “You are a hard man. You are like someone who does not plant seeds but expects to gather a crop” or “You are like someone who expects to gather a crop from a garden (or, field) that someone else has planted.”

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 .