Murmured - Complained; found fault with.
The goodman of the house - The original here is the same word which in Matthew 20:1 is translated householder, and should have been so translated here. It is the old English way of denoting the father of a family. It expresses no moral quality.

They murmured - The Jews made the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles, a pretense why they should reject that Gospel; as they fondly imagined they were, and should be, the sole objects of the Divine approbation. How they murmured because the Gentiles were made partakers of the kingdom of God; see Acts 11:1, etc., and Acts 15:1, etc. There are many similitudes of this kind among the Jews, where the principal part even of the phraseology of our Lord's parable may be found. Several of them may be seen in Schoettgen. Our Lord, however, as in all other cases, has greatly improved the language, scope, design, and point of the similitude. He was, in all cases, an eminent master of the sentences.

And when they had received it,.... The external privileges of the Gospel dispensation, an inheritance among them that are sanctified, and a right unto it, on the foot of free grace,
they murmured against the good man of the house; who had been so kind and liberal, to those who came last into the vineyard, and had done no injury to them, but gave them a full reward. So the Jews that first believed in Christ, were at first uneasy at the Gospel being preached to the Gentiles, at the calling of them, and their partaking of the same privileges in a Gospel church state with them, without submitting to the ceremonies of the law, as they had done; just as the Pharisees, in Christ's time, murmured against him; for receiving sinners, and eating with them: though in the latter day, the envy of Ephraim shall depart, and in the ultimate glory there will be no murmuring at each other's happiness.

And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house--rather, "the householder," the word being the same as in Matthew 20:1.