2. The Parable as a Narrative from Real Life.

PARABLES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

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CHAPTER II. THE PARABLE AS A NARRATIVE FROM REAL LIFE.

I. The parable of Nathan.— II. The parable of the widow of Tekoah. — III. The parable of "one of the sons of the prophets." — IV. The parable of the Lord’s vineyard in I Isaiah.— V. The parables of the sluggard and the "poor” wise man." THE parable in that highest form, to which, looking to the teaching by parables of our Lord Himself, we most commonly apply the name, is but scantily represented in the Old Testament. One chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew (Mat. 13) contains more parables of this type than can be found in all the older Scriptures put together. This is the more remarkable, when we consider that of figurative teaching of other kinds — of metaphor, of type, of proverb, of riddle, of symbolic vision, even of fable — these older Scriptures present a rich abundance. But the parable, as a narrative taken from real life, embodying in some simple form the great principles of human nature and God’s dealings with it, has been raised by our Lord’s teaching from the rudimentary condition, in which we find it in the Old Testament, and stamped peculiarly as His own. In whatever degree of perfection it appears, it differs from the fable in not being drawn from the realm of fancy. It differs from the allegory in this — that, having a solid meaning of its own, it does not imperiously demand some attempt at interpretation from all, thoughtless and thoughtful alike. But its chief lesson is a lesson of transcendent importance — that real history is at least as truly symbolical as fiction — that by God’s eye perfectly, and in measure by the eyes which He enlightens, the great laws of His providence and grace are seen to be represented in the simplest incident of the most homely life, as the whole heaven is mirrored in a single dewdrop- that, accordingly, the history written in Holy Scripture " for our learning " (since it is thus seen under the light of God’s inspiration), being a plain and literal history, is still, as St. Paul has taught us in two celebrated passages (1 Corinthians 10:1-11; Galatians 4:21-31), symbolical of truths which concern all humanity, even to the end of time.[1] In that lesson are involved the main principles of the right interpretation both of the Book of human life and the Book of Holy Scripture. Of the fully-developed parables belonging to this class, three, taken from the historical books, arc of the lower and narrower type, merely representing the action of men under images drawn from the same human action in its simpler forms. The last, which belongs to the pages of the Evangelical Prophet accords most nearly with the higher idea of the Gospel parable, as illustrating by the ordinary action of the husbandman the dealing of God with the souls of His people. In all cases it may be noted that the interpretation of the parable is explicitly given. In the first three parables, addressed to an individual hearer, the object is simply to draw from him a judgment, intended for the imaginary case of the parable, but applicable to his own. The last approaches more closely to the character of an allegory, as suggesting from the first the hidden meaning, which is afterwards declared.

I. 2 Samuel 12:1-15. "And the Lord sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto him, and said unto him. There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds : but the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up : and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own morsel, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock, and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him, but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him. " And David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this is worthy to die : and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.

"And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul; and I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added unto thee such and such things. Wherefore hast thou despised the word of the Lord, to do that which is evil in his sight? thou hast smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon

"And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die."

Every student of Holy Scripture must recognise in the occasion of the famous parable of Nathan the turning-point of David’s life. Up to that time he had continually advanced in glory and prosperity, " in favour with God and man." His last crowning victory (2 Sam. 10.) over the great Ammonite and Syrian confederacy had just established his empire over the surrounding nations; he had received, not long before, the glorious promise (2 Sam. 5.) "of a kingdom to be established for ever," known hereafter as sealing " the sure mercies of David." But the unclouded sun of prosperity had suddenly ripened in him the besetting temptations, to which his ardent, impassioned, and energetic nature was peculiarly liable, but which he had hitherto kept under by the grace of God. According to the old proverb, Corniptio optimi pessiina, his noble character, sinning against light and grace, had fallen into an unexampled depth of wickedness. In his crime itself, hideous as it was, we may indeed recognise a type of crime of which Eastern despotism offers but too many examples. To the eye of the ordinary historian of his reign, it might have seemed but a little thing, hardly to be noticed in comparison with the larger interests of military and social advance, and the political changes, which were transforming the little kingdom of Israel into a great empire. But the sacred history, written under the inspiration of God, and therefore from the point of view of His moral government, shows us in it, and in the punishment which it brought with it, the very crisis of David’s life. From that time onward, a dark cloud passed over the brightness of his glory: his domestic happiness was shattered; rebellion shook his throne, and drove him for a time into exile; his character lost, as it would seem, the boldness and confidence in God’s favour, which had hitherto been its strength, and conscience made a coward of the man who had known no fear.

There is something especially striking in the whole tone of the sacred narrative at this point. It records (2 Sam. 11.) simply and without one word of comment the horrible story of David’s adultery with Bathsheba; the base attempt to cover it, foiled by a point of military honour in the brave Uriah; the treacherous slaughter of that faithful servant by the sword of the children of Ammon; and, at last, the miserable success won by this series of crimes, when, after a formal mourning for her murdered husband, David took the adulteress to be his wife. Then there is a solemn pause, before the historian adds, with an emphasis terrible in its quiet simplicity, “the thing which David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan unto David." There is a sublime irony in the record of the parable of Nathan, appealing by its pathetic beauty to the natural indignation against wrong, still lingering in the sinner’s heart, and drawing forth his unconscious self-condemnation; till at last the awful, " Thou art the man," falls on him, like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. If, in the words of the Scripture itself, the sin of David has indeed “given occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme," yet the word of God recording it has spoken in trumpet tones of warning to the sinner, and has had its Divine message, at once of chastisement and of pardon, to the penitent.

There is also something striking in God’s choice of a messenger. Nathan had been the bearer to David of God’s great promise (2 Sam. 7); here he is the awful minister of rebuke and punishment. On other occasions he appears as David’s servant — now as the chronicler of the reigns of David and Solomon (2 Chronicles 29:29; 2 Chronicles 9:29) — now as the courtier and statesman, obeying the king’s least command (1 Kings 1:10-45) j here he speaks in the authority of the Divine mission, and his conscience-stricken master quails before his word. In the Vulgate he is represented as prefacing his parable with the words, Responde mihi judicium — appealing to the king as a judge, and then in God’s Name pronouncing judgment upon him. Like Elijah before Ahab in the vineyard of Naboth — like St. Ambrose before Theodosius after the massacre at Thessalonica, — he discharges here the noblest function of the Prophet, as the guardian of God’s righteous law, and the avenger of innocent blood. The story of the parable is told with exquisite simplicity and beauty. The ewe lamb of the poor man is to him far more than the many flocks and herds to the rich man. It has a personality, as the darling of the house, the playmate of the children, cherished with an almost fatherly love, and (with a kind of foreshadowing of the interpretation of the parable) becoming “to him even as a daughter."

Again, in the conduct of the rich m an there is this touch of peculiar baseness, that he robs his poor neighbour in order to show apparent generosity to the traveller in the ready hospitality of the East — much as Ananias and Sapphira " lied to the Holy Ghost," in order to obtain the credit of free Christian beneficence (Acts 5:1-9).

It is apparently this last touch, which calls out the wrath of David — interrupting, as it seems, the speaker before he can ask for judgment upon the rich man. At first sight there is a strange anti-climax in the king’s words, “The man who hath done this thing shall surely die; and he shall restore the lamb fourfold." But it looks as though the former sentence was the ebullition of his rightful indignation, estimating not the legal, but the moral, aspect of the cruel injustice done; while the latter, carrying out the express ordinance of the law (Exodus 12:1), implies the sudden recollection that, after all, the king was but the minister of the law, and might perhaps have no right to do more than vindicate it by the appointed penalty. There are cruelties which no legal punishment can avenge. To the law the poor man’s lamb was but as any other lamb; and the outrage on his affections could be valued by no legal estimate. It is notable that in the sentence on David himself, the penalty of death is suggested in the very words, " Thou shalt not die": and it is also declared that his sin shall be visited by the penalty of even a heavier suffering of the same kind of wrong as that which he had done — in the pollution of the royal house, and in the devastation of it by the sword. The interpretation of the parable is concentrated in the words, “Thou art the man," unveiling to the awakened conscience of David the true nature of his sin, as known and condemned before God. In the unfolding of these words which follows, it is to be noted how, as usual in Holy Scripture, evil is regarded exclusively as sin; the consciousness of the crime against man is lost in the consideration that it is a "despising of the word of the Lord." Only in the truth, which is implied in this view of evil, can human morality have its right basis and its strong inspiration. The vice which disgraces and pollutes self, and the crime which outrages and destroys man, are both sins against “the image of God” in man (comp. Genesis 9:6), and thus (so to speak) sins not only against the Law, but against the Person, of God. So David at once acknowledges in his reply. He can find no words of confession except the brief, pregnant acknowledgment, “I have sinned against the Lord” — unfolded in the great Psalm of his penitence (Ps. 51.), which looks throughout to God and to God alone. “Against Thee only have I sinned, and done evil in Thy sight" In that consciousness — more than in the touching sorrow over his dying child, and in the horror of the hideous fulfilment of the sentence, " I will take thy wives before thine eyes and give them to thy neighbour," by the outrage of Absalom (2 Samuel 16:21-22) — lay the real punishment of David’s sin. From this parable there are three lessons — the first critical, the second moral, the third spiritual — which it may be worth while to draw out.

(a.) The first is conveyed by the light thrown upon the true scope of correspondence between the type and the antitype in all teaching by parable. On the one hand, it must be clear to every one that many of the details of this parabolic narrative are inapplicable to the actual history of David’s sin, and are merely introduced to give life and colouring to the narrative. Yet, if this parable were interpreted with the excessive minuteness of application, which has been conspicuous in some interpretations of the parables of the New Testament, we should have had to ask, " Who, or what, is represented by the traveller who came to the rich man?" and either to find or to make some faint resemblances, which might give plausibility to an artificial and fantastic answer. On the other hand, it is equally clear that the narrative fails to express with any pretence to completeness the worst features of David’s sin. There is no word in it of foulness, of treachery, or of murder. The parable is content to indicate in a comparatively simple form the principle of a rapacious selfishness, from which sprang in the actual history that threefold development of sin. Yet how often has a Scriptural parable been taken to express with perfect completeness the whole idea which it shadows out, and gravely argued upon as a full exposition of the absolute truth! It may, indeed, be observed that in Nathan’s parable these characteristics, both of redundance and defect in the narrative, are necessarily brought into unusual prominence; for it was the object of the prophet to lead David to an impartiality of judgment, which a premature suspicion of the drift of the parable might have impaired. But, nevertheless, they belong to the idea of parable as such. As has been already pointed out, no type can perfectly correspond to an antitype; and, if it did, being as complex as the antitype, it would be useless for its essential purpose, of leading from the plain and simple to the obscure and intricate. It would be well if these considerations had always been kept in mind, as in respect of parabolic interpretation, so also in the kindred work of interpreting those metaphorical expressions, by which the great mysteries of the Gospel are truly, but from the nature of the case imperfectly, set forth to us. Half the theological errors which have vexed the Church have risen from pressing a metaphor too far, or insisting on regarding it as perfectly expressive of the whole mysterious truth.

(b) The second lesson is a moral lesson, teaching the close connexion of the two forms of covetousness (πλεονεξία) — the covetousness of avarice, of which the narrative itself speaks, and the covetousness of lust, which was actually exemplified in David. It is possibly characteristic of the position of woman in the ancient world, that the analogy of the parable suggests no other consideration than the thought of the wrong done to the husband, by the taking from him that which he loves. Of the wrong done to and by the partner of David’s guilt there is no mention. The very phrase used of the lamb, " It was to him as a daughter," while in itself a delicate shadow of approach to the likeness of the thing signified, yet is one which could hardly be used except under the view of woman as an inferior being, belonging to " the hardness of men’s hearts " in those ancient days. But this does not touch the main lesson (so often suggested by the context, in which the word " covetousness " is used in the New Testament), that there is one root, both of licentiousness and of avarice — the latter of which so often replaces in the coldness of advanced age the former sin, more characteristic of the hot blood of youth. That root is lust or concupiscence — the temper of indulged and uncontrolled desire — not in itself sin, but " having in itself the nature of sin" [rationem peccati). The whole spiritual tragedy is described by St. James (James 1:15), in words which might be an inspired comment on the sin of David. "When lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin : and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." The indications of that temper in David are perhaps seen in the polygamy, of which he and his son Solomon are the first conspicuous types. Under the unresisted temptation of Bathsheba’s beauty it burst out, and, once indulged, it forced (so to speak) the subsequent moves of the unhappy sinner in the onward career of sin. Taking to itself two other tendencies in him — to deceit, such as he showed to Ahimelech or to Achish (1 Samuel 21:2, 1 Samuel 27:10-12, 1 Samuel 29:6-9), and to that fierceness of anger against all that barred his way, which flamed out in his rage against Nabal (1 Samuel 25:13) . — it hurried him on blindfold to a dark extreme of treachery and murder, from which, when his eyes were opened, he recoiled in deep self-loathing and horror. Yet in itself, as the parable suggests, it is the same sin, which showed itself in a mean and trivial form in the hardhearted selfishness of the rich man, sparing his own abundance, and serving himself out of the poor man*^s single treasure. In the spiritual, as in the physical, sphere, it is the same law of God which is obeyed (or resisted), both in great and in little things.

(c) These lessons belong to the parable itself. But there is also a spiritual lesson to be learnt from the concluding verse of the history — the immediate answer of mercy to the brief expression of penitence which broke David’s awestruck silence: “I have sinned against the Lord." How much intensity was concentrated in that brief confession we may learn from that most touching Psalm (Ps. 51.), by old and constant tradition ascribed to the hour of David’s repentance, which sets forth all the gradations of the spiritual experience of the true penitent — passing from the simple cry (Psalms 51:1-1-4) for pardon in the utter self-abasement of sin, to the consciousness of the contrast within, between the inborn sinfulness of man and the higher life of sanctification, which by God’s gift can overcome it (Psalms 51:5-8), and finally breaking out, first into the prayer for spiritual renewal, then into a vow of future praise and sacrifice (Psalms 51:9-18). How truly that repentance grasped the true idea of evil as sin against the Lord, forgetting for the time his own self-degradation and the crime against Uriah, we have already seen. In this, as there is the only adequate conception of the black horror of evil, so also is there that hope of cleansing and renewal, which distinguishes repentance from mere shame and remorse. It is to this clear apprehension of the true and ultimate character of evil, that there comes the immediate promise of forgiveness — " The Lord hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die " — not the less welcomed by the penitent soul, because accompanied by the denunciation of a well-deserved punishment, both as a chastisement to the repentant sinner himself, and as a manifestation of God’s wrath against sin, lest “His enemies should blaspheme." In this utterance we read the true principle of God’s dealing with the penitent in righteousness and love. Just because his sin is forgiven, therefore it is to be punished. The righteous law of retribution can never be put aside. Our "sin will find us out " in its inevitable consequences — touching not ourselves only, but also those whose life is bound up with ours — whether the consequences of outward disgrace and sorrow, or the worse consequences of the bondage and pollution which sin brings upon the soul within. But to the impenitent and hardened sinner these consequences are simply earnests of God’s vengeance, bringing with them " a fearful looking-for of judgment to come "; to the penitent they are the chastisement of God’s mercy, sent in love to teach deeper repentance and faith in Him, and to aid in the purification of the soul, even to " the princely heart of innocence" given by the Holy Spirit. Such were they to David. From that hour, as has been said, the fair flower of his prosperity began to fade, smitten like the innocent child of his sin. There was a heavier punishment still in the deadly fruit of his example, reproduced in the revolting sins of Amnon and Absalom. There was the severest of punishments — the loss of strength, elasticity, bravery, and kingliness of soul, which the after-history shows but too plainly. But these things could be borne patiently and even gladly. They did not impair the fulness of God’s mercy. He had God’s forgiveness, and the hope of the renewed sanctification for which he prayed. On these he, and those who have been like him in sin and repentance, could rest and be satisfied.

II. 2 Samuel 14:4-14. — "And when the woman of Tekoa spake to the king she fell on her face to the ground, and did obeisance, and said, Help, O king. And the king said unto her. What ailcth thee? And she answered, Of a truth I am a widow woman, and mine husband is dead. And thy handmaid had two sons, and they two strove together in the field, and there was none to part them, but the one smote the other, and killed him. And, behold, the whole family is risen against thine handmaid, and they said, Deliver him that smote his brother, that we may kill him for the life of his brother whom he slew, and so destroy the heir also : thus shall they quench my coal which is left, and shall leave to my husband neither name nor remainder upon the face of the earth.

"And the king said unto the woman, Go to thine house, and I will give charge concerning thee. And the woman of Tekoa said unto the king. My lord, O king, the iniquity be on me, and on my father’s house: and the king and his throne be guiltless. And the king said, Whosoever saith aught unto thee, bring him to me, and he shall not touch thee any more. Then said she, I pray thee, let the king remember the Lord thy God, that the avenger of blood destroy not any more, lest they destroy my son. And he said. As the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the earth.

"Then the woman said. Let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak a word unto my lord the king. And he said. Say on. And the woman said. Wherefore then hast thou devised such a thing against the people of God ? for in speaking this word the king is as one which is guilty, in that the king doth not fetch home again his banished one. For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God take away life, but deviseth means, that he that is banished be not an outcast from him." The parable of the wise woman of Tekoah resembles the parable of Nathan in this— that, by asking David’s judgment on an imaginary question of crime and penalty, it leads him to pronounce sentence unconsciously on his own conduct. It is, however, not only infinitely inferior in beauty, but destitute of all spiritual instructiveness to us. The antitype in it is, we may remark, all but identical with the type; in nothing, except the station of the actors, does the one rise above the other. The moral drawn is defective in at least one important consideration; for it takes no cognisance of the duty of the king to his crown and to his people, which, as usual, restrains his liberty of forgiveness within narrower limits than the less responsible action of a private man. It bears throughout the impress of “the wisdom," that is, the cunning and superficial cleverness, of its author, the mere tool of Joab. The occasion of the parable brings before us one stage in the gradual working out of the judgment pronounced by Nathan on the great sin of David. Amnon, his first-born, had followed the hideous example of one part of that sin, by deliberate and incestuous outrage on his half-sister, Tamar. David, though “very wroth," takes no measure to punish the offender. The Septuagint version of 2 Samuel 13:21, adds, “he did not vex the spirit of Amnon his son, because he loved him, because he was his first-born." Excessive paternal affection (such as he afterwards showed towards Absalom) — united, perhaps, with some uneasy consciousness of his own guilt — draws him aside from his kingly duty. Absalom, the full brother of Tamar, and so, in default of David, her natural avenger, takes the law into his own hands, and follows the other part of David’s evil example, by treacherously inveigling Amnon to his house, and there murdering him, in defiance both of natural relationship and the sacredness of hospitality. After this crime he flees into banishment for three years. In his absence we read that the soul of the kine yearned after him. “His soul longed to go forth unto Absalom." " For " (it is added) " he was comforted concerning Amnon, seeing that he was dead," — much as when he said of his dead child, " Now that he is dead, wherefore should I fast.’’ Can I bring him back again t " The image of the living son has effaced the memory of the dead : perhaps the idea that Absalom’s crime was but a rough kind of justice, rendered necessary by David’s own laxity, pleads in his favour. Joab, his faithful and unscrupulous servant, perceives that the king’s heart is towards Absalom, and sends a “wise woman of Tekoah" to help him by this parable to a conclusion almost foregone already in his own mind. The parable itself has some historical interest and much subtlety. The question proposed bears on the institution of the God or Avenger of Blood. The recognition of the right and duty of vengeance for bloodshed belonged to the ancient custom of the East generally, as, indeed, it is still found in various forms in half-barbarous races; probably it was a rough but not inefficient means, in days of unsettled government, of guarding the sacredness of human life. In accordance with the spirit of all ancient law, it regarded the individual, neither in himself, nor as a member of the whole community, but as an integral part of the family, to which, as represented in the nearest of kin, belonged the right and duty of avenging his death. The Mosaic Law, in this case as in others, dealing with an imperfect condition of society, confined itself to regulating, controlling, and purifying the institution, which it was not yet time to supersede. For, in the first place, it drew a clear distinction (see Numbers 35:16-25; Deuteronomy 19:4-13) between deliberate murder and accidental or unpremeditated homicide, thus rising from cognisance of the mere fact of bloodshed to the consideration of the moral character of the crime. In the next place, it limited the spread of the blood-feud, by enacting that it should touch only the homicide himself, and should not extend to his children (Deuteronomy 24:16). In the third place, for the lighter crime it provided the cities of refuge (Num. 25:23), imposing, indeed, the mild penalty of a temporary exile there on those judged guiltless of wilful murder, but otherwise staying the hand of the Avenger of Blood.

It is clear, moreover, from the parable that, when the settled government of the kingdom arose, the king had the power to judge the cause on its merits, and, if he thought fit, to supersede the ancient right and duty of the Avenger of Blood. In so doing, he was held to take upon himself (see 5:9) " the iniquity," if without grave cause he suffered the bloodshed to go unpunished. For “blood," said the Law,” defiled the land," and the land could not be cleansed of the blood that was shed therein but by the blood of him that shed it (see Numbers 35:33, and comp. Genesis 9:6). But, if he would take that responsibility, and really look to the merits of the case, he had a right to abrogate the rough ancient method of wild justice, and to order that not a “hair of the head of the blood-shedder should fall to the earth."

Now the argument of this parable turns entirely aside from the higher aspect of the question, and regards the question of the slaying of the bloodshedder wholly from the point of view of the family. The one consideration dwelt upon is, that if he were slain, an institution meant to guard the existence of a family would be used to extinguish it, " to destroy the heir," " to quench the coal which was left," and to " leave neither name nor remainder on the earth." Of the punishment of the criminal, as such, according to the degree of his guilt, there is no word. Yet clearly to the king this should have constituted of right the one supreme consideration. In the first instance, David seems to have some feeling of this; for he simply assumes the responsibility which he had a right to take upon him, and promises to sit in judgment on the question — " Go to thy house, and I will give charge concerning thee." But the woman, unsatisfied, pleads still for a decision in favour of her surviving son, praying that, if he be spared, " the iniquity” of unavenged blood may " rest on her and her house," and that " the king and his throne may be guiltless." The plea is clearly unsound: for the responsibility of the king, if he assumed the task of judgment, could not be transferred. But it tells on David’s heart by the cry of apparent parental love, which finds an echo there; and he promises her, as again he had a right to promise, immediate protection. “Whosoever saith aught unto thee, bring him to me, and he shall not touch thee any more." Still, however, ultimate judgment is suspended; and, therefore, the petitioner ventures on another adjuration by God, which draws out the final promise, " As the Lord liveth, there shall not a hair of thy son’s head fall to the ground." In this promise — antecedent to all such investigation as the law expressly ordered, before it could be rightly decided whether the hand of the avenger should be stayed — the kingly sense of justice is at last overborne by the impulse of a heart sensitive, even to weakness, to the pleading of family affection, and at the very time pre-occupied with the yearning to forgive a blood-shedder, so near and dear to it.

It is clear from the application of the parable that the cunning speaker sees, and presumes upon, the secret wish of the father’s heart concerning Absalom. There is a chartered audacity in her rebuke of the king, as guilty by his own sentence, not only against the offender, but against the whole " people of God," in leaving the unnatural murderer under the mild penalty of banishment — a penalty, moreover, exactly corresponding to that which was ordained by the law, even for accidental homicide. There is an even greater audacity in comparing the unpremeditated crime of the parable with the wilful and treacherous murder of which Absalom (with whatever excuse of foul provocation) had been guilty. For such a crime was expressly excluded by the law from pardon; it was even said of one who “came presumptuously on his neighbour to slay him with guile," " Thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die " (Exodus 21:14). Nor can we fail to see that the plea that what is done cannot be undone, "We must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground," and the appeal to the law, " God does not take away life, but devises means that the banished may not be altogether expelled from Him" (2 Samuel 14:14, marg. reading), are ventured upon by the woman in confidence that the feelings of the judge are already enlisted on her side — " comforted concerning Amnon, seeing that he was dead," and longing to " bring back his banished." There is, to our ears, a ring of conscious or unconscious irony in her address to the king, “as an angel of God to discern the good and bad." For in the whole narrative of David’s dealings with Absalom, justice is overborne by an exaggeration of parental affection almost to idolatry, and a weakness utterly unworthy of the bold and righteous convictions of his better days. In this case we note that the king immediately discerns not only the purpose, but the true authorship, of the parable; and unhesitatingly yields to the desire of Joab. It is true that for two years he still keeps the guilty son at a distance, till his cool audacity forces once more the Intercession of Joab. But the half-measure, as usual, gives way. The crime is fully condoned, and Absalom restored to the princely position, of which he makes traitorous use. The parable obviously contains no depth of meaning, no moral or spiritual lesson. It is simply a cunning device for an Immediate purpose; in that purpose it succeeds only too well.

III. 1 Kings 20:38 to end. — " So the prophet departed and waited for the king by the way, and disguised himself with his headband over his eyes. And as the king passed by, he cried unto the king : and he said. Thy servant went out into the midst of the battle; and, behold, a man turned aside, and brought a man unto me, and said. Keep this man : if by any means he be missing, then shall thy life be for his life, or else thou shalt pay a talent of silver. And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone. And the king of Israel said unto him, So shall thy judgment be; thyself hast decided it. And he hasted, and took the headband away from his eyes; and the king of Israel discerned him that he was of the prophets. And he said unto him, Thus salth the Lord, Because thou hast let go out of thy hand the man whom I had devoted to destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people. And the king of Israel went to his house heavy and displeased, and came to Samaria." This parable resembles the two preceding parables as drawing out from a king a judgment which condemns himself. It belongs to the time when Ahab-— clearly, in spite of his spiritual weakness and wickedness, a brave warrior and not unprosperous king — had passed triumphantly, under direct prophetic guidance, through a great national crisis. Twice he had, like David in old times, defeated a formidable Syrian confederacy of kings, under the supreme rule of the king of Damascus. Israel had been once more the instrument of the power of God against a presumptuous idolatry. In the flush of victory he had, without consulting the prophetic advice through which he had actually triumphed, let Benhadad go, only exacting a promise — apparently never fulfilled (see 22:1) — of cession of cities and acknowledgment of fealty. It was a step recklessly unwise and fatal; and it is rebuked in this parable, spoken by one of the "sons of the prophets." The speaker is with much probability identified by Josephus with Micaiah, the son of Imlah, of whom Ahab afterwards says, " I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil" (1 Kings 22:8). The parable itself needs little explanation. It is clearly implied that the man who gives charge to the supposed soldier is a man in authority, who had a right to use his service, and make him answerable for the prisoner or his ransom. Hence the application to the Lord Himself, as the true leader of Israel, whose soldier Ahab professed to be, and who had a right to direct through His prophet how the victory, which was His, should be used. Even in itself a false and reckless magnanimity to a national enemy may be a crime. But, as in the sparing of Agag by Saul against express command, or the hasty league with Gibeon without " inquiring of the Lord," it is here represented as a presumption against the true King of Israel. There are times when (to use the words of Ps. 136.) God " smites kings and slays mighty kings," just because " His mercy endureth for ever." ’ To spare an oppressive and tyrannical empire, put into our power, may be to resist His righteous vengeance, and sin against His high purposes for the 2 blessing of all families of the earth. The parable must have almost told its own story, even without the express interpretation given. That Ahab’s character was an impulsive and impressible character is evident from the whole of his history; that he felt how it had betrayed him in this case to culpable weakness is seen by his reception of the prophetic rebuke, " heavy and displeased " in sullen anger,[1] but with no word of defence or exculpation. In this case, again, the type and the antitype are all but coincident. The carelessness of the private soldier, and the neglect of the kingly duty by Ahab, are in essence of the same nature. The judgment must have been anticipated, as soon as the prophetic character of the speaker was known. How signally it was fulfilled is seen in the subsequent history. The day of Ahab’s fall at Ramoth-Gilead marked the turning of the tide of conquest. Literally he paid the penalty on that day by his own life and the slaughter of his people. From that time, till the great revival of Israelitish power under Joash and Jeroboam II., Syria was the scourge and the tyrant of Israel. The parable stands out still as a warning, especially to those who have the responsibilities of authority, that there are times when severity is true mercy, and when a hasty, ostentatious magnanimity may be worse than folly. They are times which have special need of " taking counsel of the Lord.”

IV. Isaiah 5:1-7. Let me sing for my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill : and he made a trench about it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also hewed out a wine-press therein : and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. " And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vine-yard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes ? And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard : I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; I will break down the fence thereof, and it shall be trodden down : and I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned, nor hoed; but there shall come up briers and thorns : I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. " For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the I house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant : and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry." In passing to the parable of Isaiah, we rise at once into a higher region. The object of our contemplation here is the dealing of God with His people, illustrated by the image of the cultivation of one of those vineyards, which were the chief glory of Judah, clothing with fruitfulness and beauty the terraces of her now desolate hills (see Genesis 49:11-12). The parable itself is called " a Song," and it breathes the spirit of one of the most beautiful of the Psalms of Asaph (Ps. 80). But the two treatments of the one subject are converse to each other. The Psalmist pleads with God by His past mercies against His present wrath. He describes the tender care with which the "vine brought out of Egypt was planted," with "room made ready for it," and depth of root given, "till it filled the land, sending out its branches unto the sea, and its boughs to the great river." He asks why all this should be vain — why it should be exposed to rapine and havoc, and at last "burned with fire, and cut down." The Prophet similarly dwells on God’s tender care of His vineyard, but it is to ask in the name of God — the " well-beloved"[1] of His Jewish Church — why, after all had been done for it, it should bring forth wild grapes ? The vineyard, we may remark, supplies our Lord with the groundwork of two of His parables (Matthew 20:1; Matthew 21:33). But, in both cases, the leading idea is wholly different from that of the Psalmist and Prophet; it turns upon the duty of the fellow-working of man with God in the cultivation of the vineyard. The parabolic saying from His lips, which corresponds most closely to the idea, both of this passage and the 80th Psalm, is the celebrated saying, " I am the True Vine, and my Father is the husbandman " (John 15:1). By the position which it occupies in the book this parable appears to be one of the earliest utterances of Isaiah, at the close of the reign of Uzziah or in the reign of his successor Jotham . These two reigns had seen in the kingdom of Judah a singular revival of temporal prosperity, corresponding to a similar, perhaps an even greater, revival under Joash and Jeroboam II. in the kingdom of Israel. God had once more given to His vineyard all the external helps and blessings, which could minister to its fruitfulness. But the whole tenour of the prophetic writings belonging to that age shows that there had been no true moral and spiritual revival — that, under an outward semblance of religion, the canker of a splendid worldliness was eating out the heart of the nobles and the people. There was the appearance, not the reality, of the spiritual fruit, which the great vinedresser desired, and had a right to demand. He had given it the fence and the tower of protection against havoc and robbery. He had blessed it with a soil of fruitfulness, and the inner life of His covenanted blessing. He " looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes." The song itself appears, by the change alike of style and person, to end with the second verse. The next three verses are an appeal by the Lord to the consciences of the people themselves, for a judgment between Him and His vineyard — in words which remind us of " the controversy of the Lord with Israel" in Hosea (Hosea 4:1, Hosea 12:2), and the more solemn and tender pleading with Israel in that same controversy, which we find in Micah 6:1-9. The appeal needs not — perhaps cannot receive — an answer. The sentence of unwilling judgment is pronounced. But both the appeal and the sentence preserve the imagery of the song, and pass in the fifth and sixth verses into the same form of poetic symbolism, except that in the words, " I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it," it unveils the Divine Person of " the Well-Beloved."

Then comes the solemn application in the seventh verse. The complaint against the vineyard is that it brings [forth "wild grapes " — grapes which have no sweetness, and are incapable of ripening into perfection — like " the degenerate plant of the strange vine" spoken of by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 2:21). In the original Hebrew of this application there is a subtle appropriateness in the fact that the opposed words, "judgment " and " oppression," " righteousness " and " a cry," are nearly identical with each other in sound and spelling — thus, it would seem, indicating (what in our Version is lost) that these evil fruits, like the wild grapes of the parable, and the tares in the wellknown parable of our Lord (Matthew 13:24-30), simulate the appearance of the good fruit.

How true was this charge against the age, to which Isaiah was witnessing, we have already seen. The penalty was to be first the removal of the misused blessings; and then — a far heavier punishment — the abandonment of the vineyard to the spiritual fruitlessness, which had chosen for itself It came first in the downfall of all strength and glory, and in the reckless abandonment to various kinds of false worships and idolatries of the days of Ahaz. It came finally and utterly in the yet more disastrous days of the great Captivity .

It is also to be noted here, as, indeed, in the general tone of the prophetic utterances of this age and the age preceding, that the sins which draw down the condemnation of the Lord are not solely, or even principally, the sins of religious corruption and apostasy, but rather the sins of luxury and uncleanness, oppression and cruelty and bloodshed.[1] So in the first chapter Isaiah exhorts those who bring vain oblations, " Cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed; judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" (1:16, 17). So Micah describes the true service of the Lord, " to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God " (6:8). So Jeremiah declares of the men of his day, " They are waxen fat; they shine . . . they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless . . . and the right of the needy do they not judge"; and asks, " Shall not I visit for these things, saith the Lord; shall not my soul be avenged of such a nation as this ? " (5:28, 29.) For in the union of religion and morality lies the strength of both. If they be separated religion becomes superstition, and morality passes into a dead system or a noble dream. In this parable, therefore, we approach to the form and spirit of the parables of our Lord. But in its construction it is looser and less complete, verging on mere metaphor and allegory. Beautiful as it is it still suggests the conclusion that this type of the parable — the most perfect and instructive of all — belongs especially to the New Testament, and is virtually the new creation of the Great Teacher Himself

V. In connexion with these distinct examples of the true parable, it may be well briefly to glance at two less-known passages, which certainly embody the idea parabolic, though in less fully developed form. One occurs in the Book of Proverbs, at the close of the first collection of its proverbial maxims. It is a poetical expansion into explicit narrative of many a biting proverb on the sluggard and his folly.

Proverbs 24:30 to the end. — " I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, the face thereof was covered with nettles, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I beheld, and considered well : I saw, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep : so shall thy poverty come as a robber; and thy want as an armed man." The picture is graphic, and has been often visibly represented in painting. As in all parables, its literal meaning in the material sphere has its close analogy in the spiritual. In both the lesson is read, which is so terribly enforced by our Lord in His great triad of parables (Matt. 25:), spoken to His disciples on the eve of the Passion, that, if positive sin slays its thousands, sheer indolent neglect slays its tens of thousands; and that, accordingly, heaviest condemnation falls on those, who had the opportunity of work for God, and simply " did it not." Every point in the illustration of this great principle in the parable is close and subtle in its appropriateness. In both the inner and the outer life, the very luxuriance of Nature’s forces, intended to subserve the work of human energy, runs riot by neglect, till it overbears and masters human indolence. What should bear fruit, material or spiritual, yields only the " thorns and nettles " of what is worse than fruitlessness; and the rank growth breaks down the very wall, which was intended to be the protection of the good seed. The wilful sleep of apathy lasts on; its " little slumber" extends indefinitely; till at last it is broken suddenly by the onset of " the robber " and " the armed man " of disgraceful failure, flagrant sin, hopeless disaster. As in other cases, no abstract description, however strongly worded, could tell with half the power of this graphic picture of the concrete. The other passage comes from the Book of Ecclesiastes — a vivid illustration of its dismal burden of the " vanity " even of the spiritual gifts of this life; in which " the race is not always given to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; nor yet bread to the wise . . . nor favour to men of skill."

Ecclesiastes 9:13-16. — "I have also seen wisdom under the sun on this wise, and it seemed great unto me : there was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it : now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man. Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength : nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard." The narrative may be of fact — of some historical I experience like that of Archimedes at Syracuse — or it maybe an imaginary story. In either case, it is made a parable at once of the prevalence of wisdom over material strength, and of its fruitlessness, if it depends simply on the harvest of man’s gratitude. Like the whole teaching of the gloomy writer of Ecclesiastes, it conveys but half the truth, and that the more superficial half. The world is not always " ignorant of its true benefactors." The wisdom of the poor man is not always despised, or himself forgotten even by men. Time tries and establishes reputations. But, were it otherwise, there still remains the truth, which Milton has so nobly expressed : —

“Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies; But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, And perfect witness of all-judging Jove : As He pronounces lastly on each deed. Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." The time will come, soon or late, in this world or the next, when the " praise of men " will follow that higher " praise of God "; and the cross of apparent failure will be seen to be the throne of triumph and kingship over men.