Matthew 13

CHAPTER XIII

X

Christ Speaks Many Parables, Chapter 13

Matthew 13:1

1 On that day Jesus, having gone out from his home, was sitting by the sea. And there were gathered together unto him great multitudes so that, after entering a boat, he was sitting down. And all the multitude was standing along the beach. The two imperfects ἐκάθητο and εἱστήκει (a past perfect always used as an imperfect), together with the present infinitive καθῆσθαι, paint the scene before our eyes. It was the same day on which his relatives had tried to reach him (12:46). Ἀπὸτῆςοἰκίας is sometimes connected with ἔξω in 12:46: Jesus left the house in which he had been when his relatives came. But then the phrase “on that day” would seem to be superfluous. We take it that Jesus went home with his mother and his brothers and after a while, yet on the same day, walked to the seaside and sat down there.

Matthew 13:2

2 Soon the crowds gathered, facing him (πρὸςαὐτόν). They were so great (πολλοί) that Jesus stepped into a boat and took his seat there, the crowd standing along the beach. The Teacher, seated in Oriental manner, has his audience before him.

Matthew 13:3

3 And he spoke to them many things in parables saying, Lo, there went out the sower in order to sow. These parables Matthew now narrates. The best definition and the most thorough discussion of the parable are found in the introductory sections of Trench’s Notes on the Parables of our Lord. As far as we know, the first typical parable of all those uttered by Jesus is the one about the Sower. The exclamation “lo” calls our attention to the man now introduced and to his action. The article with ὁσπείρων gives the participle a generic or representative sense, R. 764: “the one whose business is sowing.” “He went out” at once places him in the field, but the present infinitive with τοῦ tells us that his purpose is to carry on the work of sowing; it says nothing about the completion of this work.

Matthew 13:4

4 And in his sowing some fell along the path; and the birds came and ate it up. And other fell on the rocky soil where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up on account of not having depth of earth, yet when the sun was risen, it was scorched, and on account of not having root it was dried up (ξηραίνω). And other fell upon the thorns; and the thorns came up and choked it off (ἀποπνίγω). The entire description is typically Palestinian. The wheat or barley is sown by hand. The patch to be sown is not extensive and is unfenced.

Along its side runs a path which, perhaps, divides it from a similar patch, and in the sowing some of the seed may fall at the side (παρά) of this path, escape being covered up, and thus be eagerly eaten up by the birds. The neuter plurals ἅμέν, αὐτά, ἄλλα need no formal antecedents, these being understood. Christ’s parables are gems; the language is filed down to the exclusion of every unnecessary word.

5, 6) So much of Palestine consists of rocky elevations that any tilled spaces may contain spots where the underlying rock comes close to the surface and has only a thin covering of soil. These are τὰπετρώδη, which lack sufficient earth, where the seed, indeed, sprouts quickly because of the underlying rock and the warmth it causes in the film of soil (διὰτὸμὴἔχεινβάθοςγῆς), but where the hot sun burns the seed and dries it up before it has attained sufficient rootage. Luke 8:6: “it had no moisture,” could not root properly.

Matthew 13:7

7 Other spots in the patch are infested with thorns, ἄκανθαι. Their roots escape the plow, but after the sowing they shoot up new growth amid which the grain is soon choked, being unable to maintain itself.

Matthew 13:8

8 And other fell on the excellent earth and went on to yield fruit, the one a hundred, the other sixty, the other thirty. He that has ears, let him be hearing. While in three places there is no yield and only in one a harvest, the proportion is not three to one. All that is pictured is the different type of soil and the resultant effect on the seed. Τὴνκαλήν means “excellent for its purpose,” and the repetition of the article makes the adjective an emphatic apposition to the noun (R. 776). The imperfect ἐδίδου is intentionally used after the aorist ἔπεσεν (R. 838, 883). The parable limits itself to the time of sowing, and the imperfect, starting from that time, pictures the development of the fruit.

In ὃμέν, etc., we have individual grains of seed (σπέρμα), corresponding to the neuter plural ἃμέν in v. 4, etc. One grain proceeds to produce a hundred, etc. This increase merely states the maximum, the medium, and the minimum, the figures being without symbolical significance.

Matthew 13:9

9 The parable closes with a call to the hearers to use their ears. The implication is that this simple narrative about the seed has a hidden meaning, and that if one applies his ears aright he will grasp this meaning, but if one has no ears, i.e., if his ears refuse to function aright, he will only be mystified. Mark 4:3 begins the parable with the call ἀκούετε, “be hearing” or “pay attention,” thus helping to bring out the thought that the real subject of the parable is the hearing of the Word. Jesus’ call to be hearing is interpretative of the parable, for it pictures the different kinds of hearers which the Word finds.

Matthew 13:10

10 We must imagine that a pause and an interval of time occurred between the different parables; note how this is indicated in v. 24, 31, 33; and in Mark 4:21, 26, 30. These parables were not given to the hearers in one mass, but were spoken in spaced succession, so that all might be enabled to get the full effect of each. This helps to explain v. 10–23. And having drawn near, the disciples said to him, For what reason doest thou speak in parables to them? From Mark 4:10 we learn that the Twelve, in company with other disciples, asked about the parables but that they did this when Jesus was alone. Both Matthew and Mark have the question deal with parables (plural) although they have as yet narrated only one.

The disciples even ask for the reason (διατί; not the purpose or aim, which would be ἱνατί) that Jesus is using parables. All this indicates that Matthew, like Mark, inserts after the first parable what happened afterward when Jesus was alone in his home (v. 36). Then they “drew near” and asked. The question was really a double one. They wanted to know why Jesus was using parables and what this first parable meant (Luke 8:9), likewise the second. Since the answer of Jesus contains a full and detailed exposition of the first parable, the standard for the interpretation of all parables, both Matthew and Mark insert this reply of Jesus here instead of at the end of the parable-sermon.

Matthew 13:11

11 And he answered (see 3:15) and said to them (recitative ὅτι), To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens (see 3:2), but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him shall be given and he shall be made to abound; but whoever has not, even what he has shall be carried away from him. For this reason I am speaking to them in parables, because, seeing, they do not see and, hearing, they do not hear nor understand. The mysteries of the kingdom are all the blessed realities contained in the divine rule of grace and of glory. These are “mysteries” because men by nature and by their own abilities are unable to discover and to know them. It must “be given” to a man “to know” them.

This divine giving is done by means of revelation, through the preaching and the teaching of the gospel of the kingdom. In the verb “has been given” lies the idea of pure grace, and the agent back of the passive is God. On the kingdom of the heavens see 3:2.

When Jesus now tells the disciples that to them the great grace has been given “to know the mysteries” while to the others, the Pharisees and the multitudes, this privilege “to know the mysteries” (the aorist γνῶναι to indicate actual inner grasp and appropriation) has not been given, he is speaking of the present condition of the disciples and of the others. Due to something that transpired in the past, the one group now has this gift to know, the other has it not. What had occurred in the past that caused this present difference? The Scriptures answer: no unwillingness on God’s part to give (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9; John 3:16; Matt. 28:19, 20) but only the unwillingness of so many to receive his grace and gift (23:37; Acts 7:51; Hos. 13:9). Persistently declining the grace and gift when it first came to them, these people remained without it. Thus they are now without the necessary requisites for receiving the knowledge of the blessed mysteries of the kingdom. To know these “has not been given to them” because they nullified every effort of God and of Christ to bestow this gift on them.

Matthew 13:12

12 With γάρ Jesus does not explain the past. All had nothing to begin with. This γάρ explains the present, it states why the disciples can and do receive more while the others now even lose what they may have. “Whoever has” by accepting what God first gave, “to him shall be given,” as being one who is willing and able to receive more, and so “he shall be made to abound” or “to superabound.” He shall roll in spiritual wealth. All that the kingdom has in the way of blessed realities shall be open to him. Both verbs are passive with God as the agent. He shall continue the stream of his giving, he shall fill their hearts with knowledge in superabundance even as he is doing now and in v. 18, etc., through Christ’s teaching.

But he who “has not” because he declined what the others accepted, because he thought he was rich and sufficient in himself, he shall not merely remain as he is, without all the riches that flow to the others, he shall lose even “what he has.” In our relation to Christ we either go forward or go backward; we do not stand still. “What he has” means whatever he may possess of moral endowments from God. The scribes and Pharisees and the foolish people who followed them instead of Jesus lost steadily as their contact with Jesus progressed (11:16–24; 12:38–45). They lost even the natural sense of fairness, right, and justice. Behind the healing of the demoniacs they thought they saw Beelzebul (12:24), and in spite of the noblest and greatest deeds of mercy they took counsel to destroy Jesus (12:14). The passive “shall be carried away from him,” i.e., by God (passive from αἴρω) refers to the divine judgment which works itself out in a man of this kind.

Matthew 13:13

13 Διὰτοῦτο may mean, “for the reason just stated,” or, which is preferable, “for the reason now stated,” since (ὅτι) they neither see nor hear so as to understand. Thus the question, “for what reason?” is answered directly. The work of Jesus has progressed so far that many have definitely rejected him and the kingdom and rule of grace he is establishing. What they have all along spurned is now being withdrawn from them. The parables begin to hide it from them. God’s judgment is beginning: what they would not know they eventually shall not know.

God’s grace has its limits. He will not always strive with men. It is absolutely useless, “because, seeing, they do not see” what Jesus shows them; “and hearing, they do not hear,” which is defined by adding, “nor do they understand” by inwardly appropriating (11:25, 26); συνιοῦσι from συνίημι.

Matthew 13:14

14 The quotation from Isa. 6:9, 10, which follows the LXX without attention to verbal exactness and yet reproducing its thought adequately, is not an insertion by Matthew but was spoken by Jesus and follows naturally after the ὅτι clause in v. 13 which already recalls Isaiah. And there is filled up for them the prophecy of Isaiah which says:

By hearing you shall hear and in no wise understand;

And seeing you shall see and in no wise perceive.

For the heart of this people was made dull,

And with their ears they did hear with difficulty,

And their eyes they did shut

Lest ever they might perceive with their eyes

And hear with their ears

And understand with their heart

And turn around again,

And I should heal them.

Since Jesus quotes and not Matthew, why expect the standard formula used by the latter (as seen in 1:22)? Nor is Jesus merely quoting, for he says that “the prophecy of Isaiah is being filled up” like a vessel that is almost full, into which enough is being poured to fill it completely. God was sending the nation to its doom. This doom was now fast approaching completion. The wrath of judgment would overflow forty years later at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. That seems to be the reason why Jesus prefers the LXX to the Hebrew. For the future tenses “you shall hear” and “you shall see” have the same imperative force as the Hebrew verbs; while the historical aorists of the LXX in v. 15, “was made dull,” “they did hear,” “they did shut,” express just what Jesus wants to point out, namely, what this λαός has done until this very time which now leaves only a little to be added to make the measure completely full.

The dative ἀκοῇ has the same force as the participle βλέποντες, which reproduces the Hebrew infinitive absolute (R. 94). When unbelief has progressed far enough, all its hearing and all its seeing will not only produce nothing but it is also God’s will (the voluntas consequens, not by any means the voluntas antecedens) that it shall be so. In other words, God casts off such people and in his judgment lets the very Word become for them a savor of death unto death. See the discussion on John 12:39, 40, Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel.

Matthew 13:15

15 What is said of the eyes and the ears, of course, pertains to the heart. The passive of παχύνω means that by casting off God these unbelievers made their heart fat, gross, utterly irresponsive, and thus they heard βαρέως, i.e., became “hard of hearing,” could not hear at all, and even deliberately shut their eyes. The description is true in every detail of the great representative part of the Jews at the time of Christ.

Μήποτε, “lest ever,” expresses the divine judicial purpose of the voluntas consequens, which, however, is the very purpose of this people. They are determined not to perceive, hear aright, and understand; therefore, too, God intends that they shall not. They are set on not turning around, ἐπιστρέφειν denoting conversion in the gospel sense: “to convert” (intransitive; more usually in our idiom “to be converted,” A. V.). Note the aorist subjunctives, all of which express actuality: “actually perceive,” etc. These are now followed by the future indicative ἰάσομαι, which is still dependent on μήποτε and is a quite regular construction in the Koine, R. 988, especially in the case of the last verb in a series of verbs: “lest I should heal them” spiritually and thus save them.

The Jews acted as though for them the greatest calamity would be to turn so that God might heal them. They needed to have no such fears: God intends to force no man into heaven.

Matthew 13:16

16 But blessed your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For amen, I say to you, that many prophets and righteous desired to perceive what you are seeing and did not perceive it, and to hear what you are hearing and did not hear it. Μακάριοι has exactly the same force that it has in the Beatitudes, see 5:3. The emphasis is on ὑμῶν which is placed prominently forward. The great contrast is drawn between the others who lose all blessedness by the way in which they see and hear and the disciples who have all this blessedness by the way in which they see and hear. But note that here the means are mentioned, the eyes and the ears being adjudged “blessed,” not the source of the blessedness which has been mentioned already in v. 11, the divine Giver and his giving. The source and the means should never be dissociated.

God uses the ordinary eyes and ears of the disciples when bestowing his blessedness and when increasing this to the highest degree (v. 12). That is why only the ordinary functions of the eyes and the ears are mentioned, βλέπειν and ἀκούειν. As far as the disciples are concerned, they do no more than the unbelieving Jews did, they just see and hear. The fact that through their eyes and their ears (the two ὑμῶν being placed chiastically, both being in the emphatic positions) they obtain the great blessedness is due solely to the divine giving of grace which the others might likewise obtain but lose because of their wilful and persistent unbelief.

Matthew 13:17

17 With γάρ Jesus explains how great the blessedness of the disciples really is. He adds the impressive formula for the verity and the authority of his statement: “amen,” etc., which is explained in 5:18. The greatness of the disciples’ blessedness becomes evident when it is compared with that of “the prophets and the righteous” of all past times. The prophets were certainly highly blessed by receiving immediately and directly the revelations God made to them. They saw and heard the Messianic promises. The righteous, who are declared such by the divine Judge, are the true believers that lived in the days of the old covenant, who accepted the revelations brought to them by the prophets.

Greater than the unquestioned blessedness of all these (and their number throughout the centuries was “many”) is that of the disciples at present. The former had only the promises, shadows, types, etc., on which to rest their faith and with which to delight their souls. Naturally, the higher they prized these, the more they longed for the fulfillment so that they might enjoy also this. But they died before it arrived.

This fulfillment, which is now in progress, the disciples see and hear (βλέπετε, ἀκούετε, durative presents). When stating what the ancient saints desired Jesus uses ἰδεῖν and οὐκεἶδον, which was intensified in v. 14, 15 by being contrasted with the mere βλέπειν. What the saints of old desired to see were not merely the outward features of the fulfillment now in progress but to see all with inner perception. That is why both in v. 14, 15, and now in v. 17 the tense of ἰδεῖν is the effective aorist, denoting actual perceiving. In v. 14, 15 mere hearing (ἀκούειν) is in the same way matched with hearing that really understands (συνίειν, B.-P. under συνίημι, 1266), the subjunctives are properly the aorist tense. But when speaking of the saints of old, Jesus could not say that, although they desired to hear (ἀκοῦσαι, constative aorist) what the disciples are now hearing, they “did not understand,” as he had immediately before this said that they “did not perceive.” This would have been wrong.

For they saw and heard with true understanding what revelation they had. Jesus says only, “They did not hear it,” οὐκἤκουσαν. Yet this aorist is to be understood in the same sense as the preceding οὐκεἶδον, they did not get to hear all that Jesus was now teaching with the added knowledge this hearing would have brought to them just as it was brought to the disciples by their hearing.

Matthew 13:18

18 Mark 4:10 tells us that the question of the disciples was comprehensive: “they asked of him the parable,” compare also v. 13. So Jesus expounds the first parable. Do you, therefore, hear the parable of the sower! Both the emphatic ὑμεῖς and the οὖν rest on v. 11, 12: “you, therefore,” to whom it has been given to know, you who have and to whom far more shall be given by divine grace. The aorist imperative ἀκούσατε is used with exactly the same force as the preceding aorist indicative ἤκουσαν: “hear with all the knowledge the hearing is intended to convey.” Jesus now makes this hearing possible.

Matthew 13:19

19 When anyone (no matter who, R. 744) hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand, the wicked one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one seeded along the path. We prefer (R. 1105) to regard παντός with the two genitive participles as a genitive absolute, the present tenses describing the hearing without understanding as being in progress. Satan does not wait until the hearing is completed, just as the birds do not wait until the sowing is done. He snatches the Word away while the man is still hearing it. Others regard the construction as an anacoluthon with a pendant genitive: “anyone hearing and not understanding.” The genitive participles are then resumed by the genitive αὐτοῦ.

This justification of the genitive is unsatisfactory. The parable presents persons, each being described according to what happens to the Word he hears. Matthew mentions one of each kind (οὗτος) although he indicates that each represents a class (παντός, “anyone”); Mark and Luke use plurals.

Matthew uses the expression “the word of the kingdom,” which latter is best regarded as a subjective genitive: the word spoken by the kingdom, by which the kingdom comes to a man’s heart. The kingdom is the Messianic rule of grace and salvation; see the exposition in 3:2. Luke calls this word the seed; it is sown every time a man hears it. The sower is not interpreted. Yet “kingdom” suggests Christ; for ἐξῆλθεν in v. 3 exactly describes his activity. The entire sowing is his, all that, too, which he does through others. The parable deals only with the preaching and the teaching of the true Word; we must not introduce perversions of the Word.

Now here is an individual who hears this precious Word and does not understand it. It is the identical Word that brings the richest fruit in another hearer. The fault of not being understood, therefore, lies, not in the Word, but in the hearer. What happens is this: “comes the wicked one and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.” Through his ears the Word was sown into this person’s heart. It does not stay there. Moved by his inordinate wickedness and opposition to God, the devil snatches away from the man whatever has been sown.

We need not regard the birds as devils (plural), they represent Satan in his different methods of snatching the Word away from a heart. At one time he tells a man that the Word which disturbs the conscience is mere exaggeration and only unbalances the mind; again, that it is uncertain, that there is no solid fact in it, that no up-to-date man believes it; then, that the preachers themselves do not believe it, that they preach it only to make an easy living and are really hypocrites as their own actions show. Endless are these birds through which Satan operates.

The passive masculine ὁσπαρείς is the man on whom the seed was sown “along the path.” Ὁσπαρείς is the counterpart to ὁσπείρων (v. 3). The latter does the seeding, the former receives the seeding, hence “was seeded,” der Besaete. Zahn’s objections that this aorist passive participle is found only in the poets is met by the fact that it here occurs four times in succession and in exactly this sense. The objection that the style forbids this sense, that it refers to a man immediately after another passive τὸἐσπαρμένον had referred to the seed, is not tenable, because the genders are so marked, and the ideas so clear and striking. Of course, the gender of the predicate participle is not attracted from the neuter τὸσπαρέν to the masculine of the subject οὖτος, so that we should read, “he is what was sown”—which would be senseless. Σπαρείς denotes the person. The interpretation which asks us to believe that in ὁσπαρείς the man and the seed are identified, asks the impossible, asks it four times, without being able to point to another similar usage in all literature.

Now we know whom Jesus has in mind when he speaks of seed falling along a path where the birds quickly pick it up: the man from whose heart Satan at once snatches away the Word he happens to hear.

Matthew 13:20

20 Now he that was seeded on the rocky soil (see v. 5), this is the one hearing the Word and immediately receiving it with joy; yet he does not have root in himself but is transient and, tribulation or persecution having arisen, immediately is caught. We have ὁσπαρείς with a phrase exactly as in v. 19: “he that was seeded,” was sprinkled with seed on the soil underlaid with rock. This is the one who hears the Word and at once receives it with joy, leading you to expect great things of him.

Matthew 13:21

21 But something is wrong from the start: this man “has no root in himself.” Let us not say that the man and the seed are identified in this expression, for “in himself” means in himself as the kind of soil he is. He received the seed but had no root for the seed. The seed was not at fault, it was entirely the soil. Hence this man is πρόσκαιρος, “for a season,” “transient.” How transient is at once stated. “Tribulation,” θλῖψις, when pressure is exerted upon us, and “persecution,” when we are made to suffer on account of the Word, arise, and then the trouble begins for this man who is without good, healthy roots in the soil of his heart.

The remarkable feature of this figure is the fact that the shining sun is here used to represent tribulation and persecution. The seed that is sown in the good soil must have the sun in order to grow as it should. That is what makes it bear fruit. Just as little as grain grows without the sun, so little the Word thrives in us without our suffering “because of the Word.” But where the soil is shallow, the ugly rock, the hidden hardness in the man’s heart are found, he “is caught.” The figure in σκανδαλίζεται is that of a trap which is sprung by a crooked stick to which the bait is attached. But this figurative sense is largely lost, as the present tense used here also shows. This tense is durative, hence it does not express the instantaneous act of being caught by the springing of the trap but the condition of lying caught in the trap: he is scandalized, offended by what is happening to him in this tribulation, etc. “He stumbles” (R.

V.) changes the figure of the verb; “he is offended” (A. V.) is much better.

Matthew 13:22

22 Now, he that was seeded into the thorns, this is the one hearing the Word, and the worry ofthe times and the deceitfulness of riches smother the Word, and it becomes fruitless. “Into” is correct. The man received the seed into a heart in which the sprouting runners of thorny growths were hidden. These shoot up thick and strong, far faster and higher than the grasslike wheat or barley, and quickly “smother the Word.” We have no reason to make anything but ὁλόγος the subject of γίνεται; the Word is prevented from producing fruit. Αἰών, a peculiar Greek term, always denotes an age or eon marked and distinguished by what transpires in it. And τοῦαἰῶνος is definite, equivalent to “this eon.” B.-P. 42 furnishes the best rendering: die Sorge der Gegenwart, “the worry connected with the times,” those into which one’s life is cast. The idea is that every age has its own types of worry, and whoever lets these fill his heart will surely smother the Word of the kingdom which deals with higher interests. Beside the broader expression is placed one that is more specific: “the deceitfulness of wealth” (in the Greek abstract nouns may have the article), 1 Tim. 6:6–10.

The two genitives may be subjective: the times worry the man, wealth deceives him; or simply possessive: worry belongs to the times, deceit to riches. Wealth as such, whether one has it or not, deceives. It promises a satisfaction which it can and does not bring, deceiving him who has it and who longs for it (19:23).

Matthew 13:23

23 Now he that is seeded on the good earth, this is the one hearing and understanding the Word, who, indeed, bears fruit and makes the one a hundred, the other sixty, the other thirty. Matthew says that this man understands the Word; Mark, that he accepts it; Luke, that he holds it fast. All three have the same thing in mind, but Matthew’s συνιών repeats this verb from v. 13–15, where it occurs three times in a marked way. The second article before καλὴν gives the adjective the emphasis (R. 776). “Who is just the man who” is a translation of δή (R. 1149), the German eben. R. 695 is right: we must have the reading ὃμέν, ὃδέ, neuters, but these are accusatives, not nominatives. The reading that has the masculines ὁμέν, ὁδέ, would give the sense that the one man produces a hundred, the other man sixty, etc.

But ὅς is already singular and cannot be divided; and this reading would leave “a hundred,” etc., undetermined—a hundred what? Jesus says that this man, in whose case the seed has been sown on the good earth, makes one seed a hundred, another seed sixty, another seed thirty seeds. Why should one object that one seed (one portion of the Word) produces (ποιεῖ) a hundred seeds (or portions of the Word) when the business of every believer of the Word is to testify to the Word and thus to spread the Word? The Word as such is, indeed, a fixed entity which is neither to be increased or decreased; its multiplication lies in its spread in one heart and from one heart to other hearts. This is how the Word bears fruit.

The question regarding the difference in yield when the hearer with a good heart makes one seed of the Word bear a hundred seeds, another only sixty, and another only thirty, is part of the greater question as to why the Word fares so differently in different hearers. In one it does not get beyond the surface; in another it gets only just beneath the surface; in a third its top is smothered; but in the fourth it flourishes, some of its parts producing from thirty to a hundred. The accepted view is that neither the parable nor its interpretation by Jesus offer any explanation of the differences described. Those who, nevertheless, attempt an explanation, restrict the parable to the very first contact of the Word with the human heart. Then even a man like Trench, who intends to hold most firmly to the unquestioned doctrine that all hearts are by nature wholly depraved, and none are made better save by the Word alone, gets into plain contradictions of this doctrine by calling some hearts “fitter for receiving the seed of everlasting life than others,” “latent sons of peace,” containing tinder which the Word may set afire, while others have no tinder; or containing “particles of true metal” which the magnet of the Word draws to itself, while other hearts have no such particles. Such an explanation leads to Pelagian views.

What the parable and its exposition describe is the final fate of the Word in the hearts of men. When life is done, some show a harvest, grains running from 30 to 100; all the rest show none. Some never let the Word in, some never let it root, some smothered its growth. But this final fate of the Word is shown us now, so that we may examine ourselves as to how we are treating the Word now, before life is done. And this is done because, though no man can change himself, God has means to change us all (trodden path, rocky places, briar patches) into good soil for his Word. This means of God is the Word itself as exhibited in this very parable.

Like all the Scriptural revelations of man’s sinful state, this one, too, aims at the conscience and repentance, thus opening the soul for the gospel. And the more it is opened, the more fruit will there be in the end.

Matthew 13:24

24 Another parable he placed before them saying, The kingdom of the heavens has become like a man that sowed excellent seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy came and re-sowed darnel among the grain and went away. The formula with which Matthew introduces this second parable is used also for the third and the fourth. It seems to indicate that there was an intermission between the parables which permitted the hearers to absorb each parable by itself. Παρέθηκεναὐτοῖς is used only in the case of these parables, each of which was presented to the hearers as being a thing by itself. The progress of thought in these parables, as well as the advance step by step in the imagery employed, are such as to shut out the view that these parables were compiled by Matthew from scattered discourses of Jesus. They hang together and thus also could be easily remembered by those who first heard them presented in this order.

The idea of the kingdom was in the previous parable introduced only in connection with its interpretation (v. 19: “the word of the kingdom”), but from now on “the kingdom of the heavens” (explained in 3:2), some one side or feature of it, is made the subject of each parable. The heavenly rule of the Messiah-King with his grace here on earth among men resembles this, that, and the other. But we must remember that none of these resemblances is merely accidental, the invention of a versatile mind; also and especially that it is not the heavenly that is patterned after the earthly, but the reverse (Trench, Parables, “On Teaching by Parables”). The aorist passive ὡμοιώθη is like ὁμοίαἐστίν, used in the presentation of the following parables. R. 835 explains that the stress is on the end of the action and thus calls such aorists “effective,” the opposite of “ingressive.” The passive is used in the sense of the middle as no agent is implied, and the English prefers the perfect to the Greek aorist. So we translate, “has become like.”

All this has an important bearing on the parable thus introduced, for the kingdom “became like” what is here narrated only after Satan did what is here stated. This aorist, therefore, is not timeless but historical. The sowing which Jesus had made was actually followed by the devil’s sowing. Since the parable presents the kingdom, the likeness here used centers in the King, the man who sows (see v. 19: the Sower is Christ), “the Son of man,” v. 37, and all that happens to his sowing.

The historical idea contained in ὡμοιώθη is retained throughout: we are told what has happened. Hence we have the aorist participle σπείραντι, “a man who sowed.” He put “good,” “excellent” seed into his field.

Matthew 13:25

25 But “while men were sleeping,” i.e., at night when no one was about to see his nefarious work, “there came his enemy and resowed” the field, ἐπί in the verb denoting that he sowed over the other seed. The compound preposition, ἀνὰμέσον adds the thought that the new seed was sown “between” the good grain. The ζιζάνια are “darnel,” most probably lolium temulentum, which has grasslike foliage resembling that of wheat and of barley. “And went away” adds a touch that emphasizes the criminal character of the act. In some of the parables acts are presented that never occur in ordinary life (21:37, for instance) but, although it is exceptional as being the act of the most vicious and cowardly hatred, the act here described has occurred. Trench reports that Roman law made such conduct a crime; he also reports cases that occurred in India and even in Ireland. The noxious weeds thus secretly sown were usually of such a nature as to come up before the good grain, crowd it out, ripen before the grain, and were most difficult to eradicate.

Matthew 13:26

26 Now when the blade sprouted and made fruit, then appeared also the darnel. The field showed nothing exceptional until growth was well advanced; ὁχόρτος the grasslike foliage of both the wheat and the darnel. Its sprouting up and making heads causes the darnel to appear, for this now begins to stand out from the wheat.

Matthew 13:27

27 Now follows the second part of the action. And the slaves (δοῦλοι, B.-P.) of the houselord, having come forward, said to him, Lord, didst thou not sow excellent seed in thy field? Whence then has it darnel? And he said to them, An enemy did this. Δοῦλοι and οἰκοδεσπότης correspond and indicate a wealthy landowner who had many slaves on his estate. The subordinate action is expressed by the participle. They are surprised to see the grain full of darnel.

It is an uncalled for remark to say that even the dullest farmhand would know how the darnel got into the grain. Dastardly acts such as that of the ἐχθρὸςἄνθρωπος, “an inimical fellow,” were not so common, and someone might have tampered with the good seed. The question and the answer bring out the flagrant nature of this enemy and of his act.

Matthew 13:28

28 And the slaves say to him, Wilt thou, then, that we go and gather them up? But he said: No; lest by gathering up the darnel you root up together with it the grain. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the season of the harvest I will say to the harvesters, Gather up first the darnel and bind it in bundles for burning it up. But the grain gather up into my storeroom. Θέλεις is not a substitute for the future, “shall we gather up,” but inquires after the owner’s Will, R. 878, and is joined to the deliberative subjunctive συλλέξωμεν without a connective, R. 924, 935. These slaves are entirely subject to their lord yet show their personal interest in his property.

Matthew 13:29

29 When οὔ is used in the sense of “no” it receives an accent, R. 1154; and only here is ἅμα used as a preposition. So concerned is the landowner about the wheat that he will not risk having any of it uprooted when the darnel is removed.

Matthew 13:30

30 The darnel does not worry him, he will take care of it in due time. We have ἄφετε combined with the infinitive, here an aorist, “do you let both finish growing.” In τοῦθερισμοῦ and τοῖςθερισταῖς we have a case of natural wordplay; also in δήσατεεἰςδέσμας (some texts omit εἰς, “bind bundles”). We must, however, recall the Oriental fashion of reaping either by means of sickles only, or by pulling up the grain with the hands roots and all—in 1925 the writer saw such grain with its roots pulled by hand in Palestine. In either way of reaping it would be easy to cull out the darnel. And that is what πρῶτον means: “first the darnel.” The idea is not that the wheat but that the darnel would be culled out. And while binding into bundles suggests the presence of much darnel, the picking out the darnel first suggests even more wheat. The aorists in the command to the harvesters are effective (R. 835), they look to the end of the action: gathered and tied up to the last bundle. Πρὸςτό with the infinitive is one way of expressing purpose: “to burn them up.” The interpretation of the parable follows in v. 36, etc.

Matthew 13:31

31 Another parable he placed before them saying (see v. 24), Like is the kingdom of the heavens to a mustard kernel which a man, having taken, sowed in his field. It, indeed, is smaller than all the seeds yet, when it has finished growing, is greater than the vegetables and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the heavens come and go tenting in its branches. Again a seed is used as an illustration, not, however, one of wheat or of barley but of the mustard plant, Sirnapis nigra, the garden variety, since it is compared with garden vegetables, and not Salvadora persica, the mustard tree. The kingdom (see 3:2) is like a mustard kernel because, like it, the rule of Christ’s grace among men has a phenomenal growth from the tiniest beginning. Instead of the ὡμοιώθη used in v. 24, Jesus from now on uses the form ὁμοία. The parable is very evident once it is stated: yet who of us would have detected the resemblance without having our attention called to it?

The comparison becomes the more striking when we see that this mustard kernel is Christ himself, for the entire kingdom grows from him as the King. Some think that the mustard seed was chosen for this parable, not only because of its size, but also because of its pungent taste. “Its heat, its fiery vigor, the fact that only through being bruised it gives out its best virtue, and all this under so insignificant an appearance and in so small a compass,” Trench thinks, may have prompted the choice. In the parable, however, the point of comparison is the growth of this small seed.

If the mustard kernel is Christ, then the man who planted the kernel cannot again be Christ, as has been thought in view of John 12:24. This man is surely the Father who gave his only-begotten Son and sent him that the world might be saved, John 3:16, 17. The field (Luke has “garden”) is the world, which is God’s because he made it although sin has filled it with weeds, briars, and stones. Luke seems to have a more specific sense in mind. Christ was planted in the world by being planted in the garden of Israel; salvation for the world is “of the Jews,” John 4:22. By special cultivation God made Israel his garden. The circumstantial participle λαβών is not without meaning. The kernel did not come from the field, nor was it dropped accidentally, compare λαβοῦσα in v. 33.

Matthew 13:32

32 The neuter ὅ may refer to the masculine antecedent and disregard its gender. Jesus is speaking of the seeds that were ordinarily planted in ancient gardens, hence the remark that botanists know about many seeds that are still smaller is pointless. Μικρότερον is the comparative “smaller” not the superlative “least” (R. V.).

Think of the little Babe in Bethlehem, of Christ’s small following when his work seemed to have come to an end by his death. In this despised corner of the world, from a carpenter’s home, came a teacher who gathered a handful of unlettered, ordinary disciples, then fell into the hands of his enemies and died a wretched malefactor’s death. This was no tower of Babel, nothing big in the eyes of the world. Yet this was the kingdom that was to encircle the world and is to shine in glory forever. 1 Cor. 1:27, 28.

The passive aorist subjunctive αὐξηθῇ is to be understood in the middle sense, and the aorist points to the end of the growing: “when it has finished growing” (the English prefers the perfect). The clause is prophetic of the vast extent of the coming growth. “Greater (not ‘the greatest,’ A. V.) than the vegetables” compares the kingdom with all other religious growths, none of which equals this kingdom. Read the fine description in Ezek. 17:22–24. This little kernel actually “becomes a tree,” and one of such size that the wild birds (called “birds of the heavens”) come (aorist to indicate the arrival) and go tenting in its branches (present tense to picture their sheltered stay). Only their stay is mentioned and not their eating of the seeds of this mustard tree.

Since the mustard tree itself is the kingdom, all who belong to the kingdom are part of this tree. The wild birds who also go tenting in it are not members of the kingdom but men in general who find the church beneficial and enjoy its beneficent influence in the world. The infinitives with ὥστε are here used to express actual, and not merely intended, result, R. 1000.

This parable shows the kingdom in its visible growth. A number of thoughts are directly involved or necessarily implied. The power of this kingdom is divine. It is a living organism, and its life and its power are undying—all other growths of earth have the germs of decay and death in them. The growth continues throughout time (24:14). As long as God’s kingdom was present in God’s Old Testament believers, it was confined to them; this parable describes the kingdom in the New Testament where it is unconfined and spreads over the whole world.

Vital growth is described and not outward organization which boasts great numbers (the ideal of Rome and of not a few Protestants). The kingdom, being Christ’s rule of grace, is always spiritual. This spirituality, however, is itself power, and, although it is invisible, it makes its presence manifest in many outward and visible ways. This parable stimulates faith, encourages us in our work, and fills us with hope and joy.

Matthew 13:33

33 Another parable he uttered for them, Like is the kingdom of the heavens to leaven which a woman, having taken, hid in three measures of flour until they were completely leavened. This and the preceding parable evidently form a pair. Matthew’s introductory formula is slightly varied. Leaven or yeast (ζύμη, from ζέω, to ferment) is used extensively in an evil sense to portray something that corrupts. Jesus uses it thus in Luke 12:1, and St. Paul in 1 Cor. 5:7, 8; Gal. 5:9.

It is impossible to use leaven in this sense when picturing the kingdom. This time leaven pictures the good power of Christ’s rule of grace which secretly yet effectively produces its beneficent results. “Lion” is thus used in an evil sense (1 Pet. 5:8), again in a noble one (Rev. 5:5); “serpent,” likewise (Rev. 20:2, compared with 3:14’); “dove” (silly, in Hos. 7:11; harmless, in Matt. 10:16). The world has many ferments, all of which are decomposing and destructive; Christ and his gospel (or in his gospel) alone penetrate with beneficient power.

Just as in the parable recorded in Luke 15:8, “a woman” cannot be the same as “a man” in v. 31. The latter is the Father, the former is the church, to whom the gospel of the kingdom is committed, to do with it what is here described. The idea that the woman pictures the divine Wisdom of Prov. 9:1–3, or the Holy Ghost is unsatisfactory. It would be lacking good taste to picture the Spirit as a woman.

The participle λαβοῦσα, like its counterpart in v. 31, is more than “picturesque vernacular” (R. 1110). It indicates that this leaven came from elsewhere, not from this earth, and that the act of mixing it with the flour was deliberate and done with specific intention. It was not a mere impulse that led this woman to put the yeast into the flour. The church preaches the gospel with most intelligent purpose. The verb ἐνέκρυψενεἰς (the preposition is static and merely means “in”) says more than that the yeast was mixed with the flour. The yeast disappeared completely, it worked secretly, invisibly, like a power that is wholly hidden from view.

In his gospel Christ works mysteriously, gradually, spreading silently. We have the history of the gospel’s permeating the ancient Roman world until even the emperor became a Christian. Its greater work, however, were the unseen inner changes, the removing of superstition, social evils, vice, and the lifting of all it touched to a higher plane. The church just applies the gospel, and through it the leavening takes place. This does not mean that the church is to enter the fields of politics, sociology, or public reform. When this is attempted, she loses her power.

The yeast does not work in that way. To many this process seems too slow and so they “take” something to hasten the working of the leaven along, thereby only hindering its silent, steady progress of fermentation.

A saton, Hebrew se’ah, the third part of an epha, is about 1½ peck, and three sata was the quantity used by Sarah in Gen. 18:6. Many fancies have been associated with the number three: the three sons of Noah; the three parts of the world as then known; Greeks, Jews, Samaritans; spirit, soul, and body; or simply the usual quantity of flour used for an ordinary baking—although the woman must have had a large family to require a baking of over a bushel of flour! It seems best to follow Gen. 18:6; Judg. 6:19; 1 Sam. 1:24, all of which mention the same quantity, and to combine with this flour what lies in ὅλον: although the baking used up no less than an entire epha of flour, the whole of it was completely leavened.

The aorist “was leavened” is prophecy. What shall come to pass Jesus states as already having been accomplished. Yet the verb must not be stressed to mean that all men in the whole world will eventually be converted and saved. This would confuse the woman and the flour. Chiliasm finds no support in this parable. It describes the silent, beneficent influence of the gospel in the world. We may instance many points: the overthrow of slavery, the improved status of woman, the appreciation of the child, the abolition of many barbarous practices, etc. Any land in which the gospel has an opportunity to exert its influence is raised to a higher level.

Here again ye see divine power; again it is wholly spiritual, and, while it operates altogether invisibly, produces any number of tangible effects, every one of them being wholesome. The gospel cannot but succeed, and the one work of the church is to preach, teach, and spread it in the world. The parable teaches faith, patience, hope, and joy. A perfect progression of thought runs through the four parables, showing that their order cannot be changed. First, the kingdom in its breadth, for the Sower casts his seed to the ends of the earth; next, the kingdom in its length, all grows until the final harvest; third, the kingdom in its height, the mustard seed becomes a tree that is higher than all else in the field or the garden; finally, the kingdom in its depth, penetrating all lands and all nations (Besser).

Matthew 13:34

34 These things all Jesus uttered in parables to the multitudes, and without parables he was uttering nothing to them in order that it might be fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet saying,

I will open my mouth in parables;

I will speak out what has been hidden from the world’s foundation.

The doubling of the statement is for the sake of emphasis: nothing was spoken to the crowds at this time except in parables. But ταῦταπάντα, which is not the same as πάντα or πάνταταῦτα (R. 705), informs us that “the mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens” (v. 11), these, though, indeed, all of them, were uttered in parables. Why Jesus used parables he himself explains in v. 10–17; here Matthew adds the detail that this mode of utterance was in accord with prophecy. The aorist ἐλάλησεν states the fact as such; the imperfect ἐλάλει lets it unroll before our eyes like a moving picture.

Matthew 13:35

35 On Matthew’s formula of quotation see 1:22. The attempt of Zahn to substantiate the reading: “through the prophet Isaiah,” which would permit Matthew or some ancient copyist to say that Ps. 78:2 was spoken by one who did not speak it, is frustrated by the weight of textual authority and much else. “Isaiah” was introduced from 3:3; 4:14; 8:17; 12:17. Jerome’s substitution of “Asaph” for “Isaiah,” does not establish what Matthew originally wrote; nor does the scoffing remark of Porphyrius. The fact that Asaph is called “a prophet” (hachozeh, “seer,” LXX, προφήτης), as is actually done in 2 Chron. 29:30, just as Acts 2:30 calls David a prophet, does not make him the writer “of a prophetical book,” as Zahn contends; and therefore to quote from him without naming him is certainly not proof that Matthew wrote “Isaiah” by mistake. Aside from Inspiration, the honest assumption would be that Matthew made no mistake such as this; and another equally strong assumption would be that, if he had, those about him would have detected and at once corrected it.

Asaph’s second line reads, “I will utter dark sayings (chidoth, riddles) of old,” which Matthew renders in his own way. Asaph defines mashal by chidah, “a pointed, pithy saying,” “a riddle.” His psalm shows that he drew these from Israel’s history, and they all had a meaning for the people for whom he composed this psalm. The parable is both a mashal and a chidah, a form of presentation long known to the Jews.

Asaph was a type of Jesus, and in this sense his word is a prophecy. This does not imply that Asaph said that the Messiah would do what he was doing, but the implication is that what Asaph was doing would be repeated and far more perfectly done by Jesus. Divinely intended correspondences, such as this, antitype crowning type, are classed as prophecy and fulfillment in the Scriptures (see 3:17, 18). Asaph says ’abbi‘ah, “I will bubble forth” riddles; Matthew has ἐρεύξομαι, “I will spit or spue out,” a rough word, but one that like σκύλλω, τρώγω, χορτάζω, was greatly softened by use: “I will utter aloud,” and thus it is contrasted with κεκρυμμένα, “things hidden,” that one would pass on only in secret. But even then, unless one had the key (v. 11, 12), these things would be and remain only riddles to him. This brings out the two features of parables: they are unsolved riddles to some (unbelievers) but are highly illuminating illustrations for those having or receiving the solutions (believers).

The kingdom began “of old.” Asaph refers to things that were taken from Israel’s history only. So Matthew writes “from the world’s foundation.” This is not a free translation, as it is usually termed. It is a frank statement of what the type means regarding the antitype. Asaph’s “dark sayings of old” were for Jesus “things hidden from the world’s foundation.” They were in God’s mind and plan so early, at the time of the very birth of creation and of the kingdom, but were kept hidden until they were now uttered aloud by Jesus, and even then they are still hidden from the unworthy but are seen and received by the disciples.

Matthew 13:36

36 Then, dismissing the multitudes, he went into the house; and his disciples came to him, saying, Make clear to us the parable of the darnel of the field. Jesus returned to his own home, whence he had come (v. 1). Here, in private, he expounded everything to his disciples, Mark 4:34. Verse 10, etc., was spoken in this house. The disciples asked especially to have the parable of the darnel made clear to them.

Matthew 13:37

37 And he answered (see 4:15) and said, The one sowing the excellent seed is the Son of man; and the field is the world; and the excellent seed, these are the sons of the kingdom. The exposition states with all clearness just what the imagery of the parable means. Fault has been found with the exposition because it does not stop with this but goes on into a description of the judgment (v. 40–43). Critics call these verses additions made by Matthew, the very language being like that of Matthew, etc. But the climax of the parable is, indeed, the final judgment. There is no law that would prevent a teacher from elaborating on any point, to say nothing of the main point.

The language Matthew uses is the language he learned from Jesus. The ethical object of this parable should be kept in mind, just as the ethical purpose of the first parable was in the foreground of Jesus’ thinking. Jesus wants you to ask yourself, “What kind of soil am I?” So here, “Am I a son of the kingdom or a son of wickedness?” and, “How will I fare at the final harvest?” We may also remember that Judas was one of the Twelve. All the teaching of Jesus, however, clear and lucid as it is intellectually, has an ethical or spiritual aim, i.e., it seeks to save.

That the sower should here be “the Son of man” (see at length on 8:20) is what we expect. This title also fittingly describes his work: he who is man and yet infinitely more than man fills the world with believers.

Matthew 13:38

38 Of supreme importance is the statement that the field is ὁκόσμος, “the world,” and, therefore, not “the church.” This is so vital because it excludes two serious errors: the one, that the sons of wickedness may remain undisturbed in the congregation (no church discipline, no expulsion); the other, that the sons of wickedness may be removed from the world (the use of the sword against heretics, either by the church herself or by her use of secular power). When Jesus forbids his douloi to go out into the field to pull up the darnel he does not forbid church discipline (18:17–19; 1 Cor. 5:3–5); what he forbids is that these douloi do what is reserved for the angels and the final judgment. The remarkable thing is that “the excellent seed are the sons of the kingdom,” not the Word or the gospel but persons, true believers. They are placed into the world by the King who rules this domain. The parable itself does not deal with regeneration and the origin and birth of these sons; that is not illustrated.

Jesus does not call them members or subjects of the kingdom, for these terms do not fit the idea of his kingdom and substitute for it the ideas we connect with mere earthly kingdoms. He does not even use τέκνα, “children,” but υἱοί, “sons,” which term always involves a legal right, the right of inheritance. As sons we are princes of the kingdom not subjects; the kingdom is ours by inheritance. We ourselves are kings and rule in this kingdom (1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 1:6; 5:10; see the author’s Kings and Priests). Christ’s rule of grace here on earth places such kings into the earth or world at this time.

But the darnel are the sons of the wickedness. We might translate, “of the wicked one” (our versions), but “of the kingdom” is abstract and not personal “of the King,” so we make also the other statement abstract. And the wicked one is not so named in the next verse but is called “the devil.” Here υἱοί has the same idea of legal right and inheritance. These people are not merely the unregenerate in the world, sinners as they are by nature. Then the entire parable would be difficult to interpret. All men are such sinners at the start, even those who afterward are made sons of the kingdom.

The parable deals with two opposite sowings: the one establishes sons of the kingdom everywhere; the other, the direct opposite of these, men who reject the kingdom. They have met the kingdom, have been touched by its powers of grace, and have turned from it, preferring wickedness instead (John 3:17–21).

It required a special sowing on the devil’s part to scatter the sons of wickedness among the sons of the kingdom. Not until after Christ had sown did the devil do this sowing. And that explains why the two kinds of sons are always found side by side. Satan never sows his sons off in a corner of the world by themselves. While both genitives are, of course, possessive: belonging to the kingdom—to the wickedness, they are at the same time qualitative: characterized by Christ’s rule—by the influence of the wickedness.

Matthew 13:39

39 And the enemy that sowed it is the devil. And the harvest is the consummation of the world-age (αἰών, see v. 22). And the reapers are angels. On Judas, as sowed by Satan, compare John 6:70, 71; 13:27; Luke 22:3; on Ananias, Acts 5:3. It is the harvest as such, the final judgment, which forms the συντέλεια, “the completion,” when all things shall reach their goal and end. When saying that “angels” are the reapers, Jesus cannot intend to assert that they will be competent to distinguish the wheat from the darnel, for the slaves were quite able to do this when they reported to their lord.

The point is that the separation is to be delayed until the end of the world and is not to take place before that time. At the last day the douloi will be part of the wheat over against the darnel. Thus the angels, who are throughout the Scriptures represented as the ministers of the judgment, shall do both: tie up the darnel for the burning and carry the wheat into the storeroom.

Matthew 13:40

40 Jesus dwells on the fate of the darnel, thereby impressing it on the disciples so that everyone might search his own heart for secret unbelief. Just as, therefore, the darnel is gathered up and burnt up with fire, so will it be in the consummation of the world-age. There will be just such a gathering up of darnel and just such a burning up with fire. In v. 30 only the verb is used, here in the interpretation the noun “fire” is added, and even more is said in v. 42.

Matthew 13:41

41 Let no disciple be uneasy. Jesus tells him how he will attend to the sons of wickedness when the time comes. The Son of man will commission his angels, and they shall gather up out of his kingdom all the offenses and those that work lawlessness and shall throw them into the furnace of fire. There shall be the wailing and the gnashing of the teeth. Here “the Son of man,” to whom the final judgment is committed (John 5:22, 27), appears in all his divine power and majesty, commanding the angels that are “his” to cleanse the kingdom that is also “his.” This King and Judge tells the disciples in advance just what he will have done; ἀποστελεῖ is voluntative not merely futuristic. “Out of his kingdom” refers to the kingdom as it now exists in the world where it is like gold mixed with dross. The preposition ἐκ does not imply that the darnel, cheat, and cockle, are part of the wheat, R. 598.

There is a tendency to read the neuter πάντατὰσκάνδαλα as a reference to persons because “those that work lawlessness” are persons. This is correct in so far as the offenses are part of the lawlessness perpetrated by these persons. What Jesus says is that their entrapments as well as they themselves shall be finally and completely gathered up out of the kingdom they have helped to distress. The remarks on σκανδαλίζεται in v. 21 apply to the noun as well. The plural “all the things that entrap,” i.e., are liable to catch and destroy the godly, is summed up in a unit by ἡἀνομία. The plural speaks of what these actions are with reference to the godly, to which the singular adds what they are in regard to God, the contradiction of his law, which is the expression of his holy will.

Matthew 13:42

42 These men, with all the works that make them what they are, the mighty angels of the Son of man “shall throw into the furnace of the fire,” the two articles leaving nothing indefinite as to what furnace or what fire are here referred to. “Whatever ‘the furnace of fire’ may mean here, or ‘the lake of fire’ (Rev. 19:20; 21:8), ‘the fire that is not quenched’ (Mark 9:44), ‘the everlasting fire’ (Matt. 25:41; Luke 16:24; Mal. 4:1), elsewhere, this at all events is certain, that they point to some doom so intolerable that the Son of God came down from heaven and tasted all the bitterness of death that he might deliver us from ever knowing the secrets of anguish, which, unless God be mocking men with empty threats, are shut up in these terrible words: ‘there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth’ (22:13).” Trench. Those who in some way—no matter how—eliminate from the Scriptures the terrors here described, plus all that they say concerning Satan and the demon kingdom, destroy the entire structure of the Scripture and with hell and the devil eliminate the very Savior who delivers from both. On weeping and gnashing of teeth see 8:12, and note 22:13; 24:51; 25:30; Luke 13:28. The statement is stereotyped, and the anguish described includes the bodies of the damned, hence implies their bodily resurrection. The descriptions of hell are necessarily figurative to a large extent (note “the furnace”), as are also the descriptions of heaven, because the realities transcend all human experience. Like the parable of the Sower, this about the Tares is heavy with warning.

Matthew 13:43

43 But the end is bright with hope and joy. Then the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He that has ears, let him be hearing! “Then” means: when the final separation takes place. “The righteous” are “the wheat” of v. 30. The term δίκαιοι, which is always forensic, denotes those who possess the quality of righteousness by virtue of having the divine verdict in their favor, that verdict pronouncing their acquittal. See 5:20 on this righteousness. Note ἐκ in the verb: from within the righteous a wonderful light shall shine “out.” The glory that became theirs when they were declared righteous shall at last break forth as did the glory of Jesus at the time of his Transfiguration (17:2).

The expression is modeled after Dan. 12:3, “sun” being substituted for “brightness of the firmament.” Read 1 John 3:2. The Scriptures constantly connect fire with darkness, the devil, and hell, and light and its shining with God, Christ, and heaven. “Like the sun” brings in a simile that is taken from an earthly phenomenon to portray what is beyond our experience. Yet we think of the sun’s brilliance and splendor! The kingdom a moment ago called that of the Son of man, is now called that “of their Father,” making all the righteous princes and inheritors of this kingdom (“sons,” v. 38). When that glorious day arrives, then shall be fulfilled Isa. 52:1; 60:21; Rev. 22:14, 15, and many other promises.

As he did in v. 9, but now at the end of the exposition of this parable, Jesus calls on him who has ears to use them. Both parable and exposition need open and receptive ears, different from those mentioned in v. 13. The divine instruction and illumination calls upon all our faculties, plus the will that directs their use. The durative present imperative calls for no mere single act but for a constant attitude, and every word Jesus utters operates to produce and to justify that attitude.

Matthew 13:44

44 How Jesus came to add these three parables we see from v. 51, 52. Like is the kingdom of the heavens to a treasure having been hidden in a field, which a man, having found, hid, and for the joy of it he goes and sells all ‘whatever he has and buys that field. Ὁμοίαἐστίν indicates a parable, and the likeness is always found in the whole action then described. The four preceding parables show how the kingdom is bestowed (sowing seed) and how it operates (growing, permeating). Now Jesus shows how it is acquired. On the kingdom see 3:2, and note that this and the following parable describe how one becomes an owner of this kingdom; on “sons of the kingdom” see v. 38.

The points of the parable are: treasure—hidden—field—finding—securing ownership. The practice of hiding great treasure, such as gold and jewels, was far more frequent in ancient days, especially in the East, due to war, changes of rulers, and the like. Trench reports that men of wealth often divided their wealth into three parts: one for doing business, another part converted into precious stones with which to flee, if necessary, a third part to be buried in a safe place. Thus it could happen that someone died, and with that all trace of the buried hoard was lost until by accident another stumbled upon it. That is the situation in this parable.

The perfect participle has its usual present implication: “having been hidden” and thus being still hidden. The likeness does not lie merely in the tremendously valuable treasure as such but in this treasure being hidden away where no one would supect it to be, buried in an open field. The term “treasure” is comprehensive, so that we may think of all the precious things in the kingdom: righteousness, pardon, peace, etc., all that is spiritually priceless. The tertium comparationis stops with the hiding and does not extend back to the owner. He hid it for himself in a place where he alone could find it, and he is now long dead and gone, nor is his connection with the hidden treasure any longer known.

God’s treasure, hidden, indeed, is to be found by us (11:25; Col. 4:3, 4; Luke 19:42); his connection with the treasure remains and is obvious the moment it is uncovered. “In the field” thus serves two purposes. As part of the imagery it fits the man who buried the treasure, for it is most unlikely that others would hunt for his treasure there. As regards the reality the field brings out the thought that God did not hide his treasure far off in the heavens where no human being could even come near it but in a common, lowly place, where it could, indeed, be found, but certainly not by the earthly wise, proud, and self-sufficient. 1 Cor. 1:27–29, also v. 22–25. B.-D. 255, 1 calls the article in the phrase “in the field” incorrect; but we may certainly regard it as the generic article. In this case, however, the article does not refer to some field; Jesus has a very specific field in mind just as did the human owner who selected just this and no other field.

The field is undoubtedly the Scriptures, John 5:39. The fact that the field is bought is not an objection, for buying denotes the real, true appropriation of the Scriptures once a man knows the treasure they contain. Since the church has the Scriptures, we may add her preaching and her teaching when interpreting the field. How plain, common, ordinary is this Scripture field! Many walk over it again and again in their reading or in their hearing and find precious little in it. But the great treasure is there.

And lo, “a man,” ἄνθρωπος, found it. He was just “a man,” one of the “whosoever” so often named in the Scriptures. These terms are really blank spaces in which you are to write your name. Follow the word “find” in John 1:41, etc. You will see that this finding excludes all human merit and effort. Its divine counterpart is giving.

It seems accidental, this finding. Was the man merely walking across the field, or was he hired to work in it? No matter—he found. God placed the treasure, led the man to it (John 6:44, 65), and so he found it.

The man’s actions are dramatically described: he hid the treasure, and for the joy of it goes and sells all he has and buys that field. Just why the aorist ἔκρυψεν should be gnomic (B.-D. 333; R. 837) is difficult to see; this is certainly not due to the fact that it is followed by vivid present tenses. This aorist is just as little gnomic as is its attendant participle εὑρών. This aorist tells us what the man did in this case (historical aorist) not what happens in every case of this kind (gnomic). His whole action is directed toward securing the treasure and doing that in a legitimate way, because the kingdom can be secured in no other way. He covers the treasure instead of carrying it off surreptitiously.

Then, his heart being filled with joy because of his tremendous find, he goes and buys the field, making the treasure legally and rightfully his. The moral obliquity that some find in this action and in its employment by Jesus does not exist, because the whole presentation intends to describe the very opposite. Since the owner of the treasure is dead and forgotten, who according to law or to morals has a claim to the treasure except this happy finder?

The field was not so high in price but what the man, selling all that he had (see this repeated in v. 46), could buy it. Purposely Jesus says that he sold “all whatever he has.” See Phil. 3:7, Phil. 3:8, 8. The Scriptures know of two extraordinary ways of buying: one is, without money or price, Isa. 55:1; Rev. 21:6; the other is to give up for the sake of the eternal treasures of God all that would prevent our possessing them. Both are the same, for both imply the acceptance of God’s gift, the latter adding only the thought that the vessel must be empty so that God’s grace and gift may fill it. The field, not the treasure, is bought. Both the value of the treasure and its being without an owner that might be reached, precludes its being bought.

Christ and the treasures of salvation shut out any and all payment and purchase on our part. But by giving up every self-made, human doctrine and philosophy, however deep these may seem to be, we may make the Word our own and in and with it all the treasures of salvation.

Matthew 13:45

45 Because the preceding parable could not bring out all the points concerned in acquiring the kingdom, Jesus adds a companion parable in order to cover especially these points. Again, like is the kingdom of the heavens to a merchantman seeking excellent pearls; and having found one pearl of great price, he went away, has sold whatever he had, and bought it. “Again” introduces this as a second comparison. “Like to a treasure” and “like to a merchantman” are only formal differences because the likeness consists in the actions: what is done by the man regarding the treasure, and what the merchant does regarding the pearl. An ἔμπορος is a wholesale merchant, one who travels (ἐν plus πόρος) and imports, and ἄνθρωπος is pleonastic, like our “merchantman”; the opposite is κάπηλος, a retailer or a peddler. This wealthy merchant is out to acquire “excellent pearls,” it being his business to deal in them. In order to appreciate this point one must know the esteem in which pearls were held by the ancients, sums almost incredible being paid for a single pearl when it was a perfect specimen of its kind. Great skill was required to gauge the value of a pearl, noting its defects in shape, tint, smoothness, etc.

There was evidently a difference between “a man” mentioned in v. 44, a mere ordinary peasant or laborer, of whom the world has a large number, and this rich merchant, whose profession it was to inspect and to buy pearls in foreign cities, a man such as the world has but few. The “excellent pearls” he seeks represent all the higher things of this earthly life which are prized accordingly by men: philanthropy, humanitarian work, peace, moral living, justice, better social conditions, science, art, and the like. These pearls this merchantman knew, sought, and bought.

Matthew 13:46

46 But herein he is like the other man: he knew absolutely nothing of “the pearl of great price,” and the way in which he came upon it is again the same: he found it. Where, when, and how makes no difference; it all seems accidental and yet is not. God lets even those who seek high things in the world just “find” Christ. Alas, most of this class (1 Cor. 1:26), poets, philosophers, literati, scientists, artists, etc., fail to recognize the priceless pearl when they do stumble upon it; yet not all.

In the expressions “excellent pearls” and “one pearl of great price or value” the thought is that Christ and his salvation are to be ranked with the very highest and best in this world, they are a pearl among pearls; but also that this pearl absolutely outranks all other pearls the world has ever seen. It is “one” (ἔνα, the numeral); there is and can be no second. Note that here the unity is stressed, whereas in treasure the multiplicity of spiritual values is indicated. Each idea is a necessary complement of the other. This pearl is really beyond all price, beyond any possible equivalent. In the parable this is reduced to a very great price, otherwise the likeness would be destroyed.

The sequence of the verb forms found in this verse is highly interesting although it is impossible to reproduce it in English, which in a wooden way eliminates all the psychological play of the imagination in the shading of the Greek forms and reduces everything to drab past tenses (R. 847). The momentary act of finding, subordinate to what follows, is the aorist participle εὑρών, likewise the act of hurrying away ἀπελθών. Then the vivid dramatic historical perfect πέπρακεν (R. 900): “he has already sold,” not one of the common pearls is now left; εἶχε, the imperfect to denote the long while he was in possession of them. And finally the final, decisive aorist to expres the great fact: ἠγόρασεν, “he bought”—completing everything and bringing it all to rest. The selling has the same force that it had in the other parable (Isa. 55:1; Matt. 25:9, 10; Rev. 3:18; Prov. 23:23). Only an empty vessel can God fill. “Sold” means that his whole heart was transferred from other noble interests to the one supreme interest, Christ. The idea is not that we cannot devote time and attention to great and good earthly interest and at the same time own Christ, but that for good and all these interests leave the soul wholly free for Christ.

We are to understand the imagery properly and must stop where it stops and not go beyond. Thus the buying of the pearl does not deprive another man of its use; for though the pearl is but “one,” every one of us is to buy it and to own it irrespective of others. There is nothing in this parable which corresponds to the field in the other, the Word being sufficiently illustrated there.

Matthew 13:47

47 The last one of the seven parables is not the last link in this chain only but reaches back through all the previous parables and in one comprehensive sweep presents the kingdom (see 3:2) from its beginning to its end. Again, like is the kingdom of the heavens to a seine that was thrown into the sea and collected of every kind; which, when it was filled, having hauled up on the beach and having sat down, they gathered together the excellent into vessels while the worthless they threw outside. The σαγήνη, “seine” or “dragnet,” is the largest kind of net, weighted below with corks on top, sweeping perhaps a half mile of water, the opposite of the small ἀμφίβληστρον, or casting net, mentioned in 4:18. The two aorist participles, like the temporal clause in v. 48, describe the net after its work has been accomplished: “it was thrown out and it did collect” all kinds of fish. This net is the gospel. The sea is the world, and “of every kind” means: some (partitive ἐκ) of every kind, race, type, social and intellectual grade of men.

Being the gospel, the net belongs to God or Christ and, of course, is handled by all who promulgate the gospel, i.e., the church. But the parable omits mention of these, as not belonging in the picture at this time. To bring them in, nevertheless, spoils the whole comparison, for all the members and the pastors of the church are also the fish caught in the net.

What the first three parables picture as sowing, the fourth as leavening, is here pictured as catching in a net, and this catching takes in the entire work of the gospel—the whole of it is one great sweep of the net through the waters of the sea. The picture is not that of repeated casting.

Matthew 13:48

48 Note the success of this grand sweep of the net: “it was filled.” The gospel does its work. What now follows is an ordinary scene of the activities of fishermen: the net hauled to the beach, the fishermen sitting down and picking out all the edible and salable fish, throwing them into vessels and throwing all the worthless fish “outside,” on the ground. The subject is again left indefinite because the comparison lies not in the persons who do all this but in the acts alone. The net is hauled up on the beach; the gospel era and work are done. When we note the natural limitations of every comparison, we shall not think of dragging the net through every ocean, lake, and river of the world in order to secure the universality of gospel grace.

The “vessels” (ἀγγεῖα) are the counterpart of the “storeroom” in v. 30, the “many mansions” (John 14:2), the everlasting habitations (Luke 16:9). As the opposite of καλός, σαπρός cannot mean “rotten.” We have seen this when trees and their fruit were the subjects in 7:17, 18, and here the same word is used with regard to fish. The word means “worthless,” and what it implies Jesus himself explains.

Matthew 13:49

49 Thus shall it be in the consummation of the world-age (see v. 40): the angels shall go out and shall separate the wicked from the righteous and shall throw them into the furnace of the fire; there shall be the wailing and the gnashing of the teeth. The Lord’s exposition deals with what shall happen at the consummation, for all that precedes this has already been made plain. The net and its great catch are brought in as being necessary to understand what happens at the end. When they are fishing, the fishermen handle the net and pick out the good fish. But the gospel is preached by the church, and the separation of the godly from the wicked is made by the angels. The fact that the latter belongs to the angels is the constant teaching of the Scriptures (25:32, 33). The all-sufficient reason is that the entire church is a part of those who are to be separated.

Τὰσαπρά, “the worthless (fish),” are οἱπονηροί, “the wicked”; and τὰκαλά, “the excellent (fish),” are οἱδίκαιοι, “the righteous.” In what sense the former are wicked the second term shows: they lack the righteousness that avails before God. The parable deals with all those who are caught by the great gospel net. All kinds and conditions of men are swept into its meshes, but these are of two classes. Here on earth both are mixed together in the outward body of the church. They all confess and profess faith, but not all are vere credentes and thus pronounced “righteous” by the divine Judge. Some are hypocrites, sham Christians, mere adherents of the church, etc.

Church discipline cannot eliminate them, for we cannot judge men’s hearts. The demands of Donatistic minds are failures of the worst kinds. The other extreme is the liberalism which discards the Scriptural church discipline. Therefore in two of these first seven parables (v. 24, etc.) Jesus points us to the consummation with its divine separation of the false Christians from the true. In ἀφοριοῦσι note the preposition ἀπό which is followed by the compound preposition ἐκμέσου; the separation is “from” in the sense of taking the wicked “out of the midst” of the righteous (R. 578, 648). These wicked are the ones that shall be done away with as being “worthless.” In v. 30 the darnel is “first” collected and tied in bundles.

The imagery used requires this dealing first with the wicked; yet it agrees with 25:32, 33.

Matthew 13:50

50 The fate of only the wicked is here described, and this is done by repeating v. 42 (which see). This means that, in addition to the instruction which it conveys, the parable is intended chiefly as a mighty warning. All you who are in contact with the gospel, what kind of fish are you? How will the judgment day find you? What if you should be thrown into that furnace? How some are found to be “excellent” and others “worthless” is not detailed in the imagery, but it is indicated in the exposition.

Every proclamation of “the kingdom of the heavens” is a call to repent (3:2; 4:17) and to accept the righteousness by faith in Christ (5:20) and thus to become “righteous.” The wickedness of “the wicked” lies in this very point; outwardly they accept the gospel but inwardly they refuse to repent and to rest their faith on Christ. They are like the hard path, the rocky soil, the briar patch in v. 4, etc. See v. 23, also the last paragraph.

Matthew 13:51

51 This group of parables had reached its end. The fact that there are seven seems to be intentional, this sacred number symbolizing the kingdom (three to present God in his rule of grace plus four to show the world of men to whom this rule comes). The idea that they represent seven periods of history is a fancy. They picture the great work of the gospel-rule of Christ from start to finish, its success and the reason why it fails in some men. Hiding much from the unspiritual, these parables are full of the clearest light for true disciples.

Jesus now asks: Did you understand these things all? with the final πάντα (R. 705) inviting any question that might yet be asked; συνήκατε, first aorist, R. 310, 1216. They answer him, Yes.

Matthew 13:52

52 And he said to them, For this reason every scribe, trained as a disciple of the kingdom of the heavens, is like to a houselord who brings forth out of his treasure things new and old. With διὰτοῦτο Jesus refers to what he has accomplished in his disciples, having brought them to the understanding they have just acknowledged. In effect Jesus says, “This is what makes each of you like a houselord who,” etc. But he states it in the third person and thus objectively—perhaps he was thinking of Judas. The title “scribe,” used to designate rabbis who were educated in the law in the peculiar Jewish fashion, is here used in a broad sense to designate anyone who is versed in the Word. This is made evident by the specification “trained as a disciple of the kingdom,” etc.

The passive μαθητεύομαι with the dative means to become someone’s disciple, and the aorist participle one who has graduated as such a disciple (B.-P. 763), gone through the school of the kingdom and imbibed its full spirit. Variant readings with ἐν or εἰς should not lead us to think the dative is locative, as R. 521 supposes. To be “discipled to the kingdom” makes the kingdom the teacher, which is not strange when we know that the kingdom centers in the King.

And now another little parable which is no more than a simile follows. Such a real disciple himself becomes a teacher, the very thing for which Jesus was training the Twelve. He is thus “like a houselord” (ἄνθρωπος being added pleonastically as in v. 45), and ὅστιςκτλ., shows in what respect he is like such a man: as these are needed by those of his household, he brings forth out of his treasury things new and old. So the well-trained disciple has acquired a rich fund of all kinds of spiritual knowledge from the kingdom and its King, and puts it forth for use as it is needed. “Things new and old” are by no means only new and old comparisons from nature and the life of man but truths, some new, not known and taught before, others old, long known and often taught, yet the former resting on the latter, hence the two are mentioned in this order.

Matthew 13:53

53 And it came to pass when Jesus finished these parables he departed thence, i.e., left Capernaum. Mark 6:1 agrees with this and shows that Luke 4:16, etc., occurred when Jesus was at the height of his ministry as also v. 14, 15 indicate. The first words are the same as those found in 7:28, and in 11:1.

Matthew 13:54

54 And having come into his native town, he was teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were amazed and said, Whence to this man this wisdom and the works of power? The πατρίς of Jesus is Nazareth where he had been brought up, Luke 4:16. Here, on a Sabbath (Mark and Luke) he engaged in teaching (ἐδίδασκεν, imperfect) “them,” his old town people. The effect (ὥστε with the infinitive to express actual effect, R. 1091) was utter amazement and the question whence he had this astounding wisdom. When he had left them, they had noted nothing wonderful about him. Luke indicates that Matthew’s σοφία refers to the substance as well as to the form of teaching, in particular to what Jesus said concerning himself. They add “the works of power,” the miracles (see 11:20–23), of which, at least for the greater part, they had only heard; some may have seen a few miracles wrought in other places.

Matthew 13:55

55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Miriam, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Juda? and his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence, then, to him these things all? A τέκτων, faber, is one who makes things out of hard material, but even in the papyri (M.-M. 628) this word always means a carpenter, yet only one who makes furniture, utensils, and house fittings, for in Palestine all houses were constructed of stone. The view that Joseph was a stonemason lacks support. According to Luke he was also mentioned although he had been dead this long time.

Mark 6:3: “Is not this the carpenter?” adds only the detail that some knew that Jesus himself had worked at his father’s trade. Note the derogatory tone in both τούτῳ (v. 54) and οὗτος, meaning, “How does this fellow set himself up to be so much?”

Matthew writes Μαριάμ, (B.-D. 53, 3) Aramaic Miryam, namely Mary. Note that Mark 6:3 unites “son” only with “Mary” and does not connect Joseph with Mary, thus joining Jesus and his mother in a special way. On the ἀδελφοί and the ἀδελφαί see 12:46, the names of the latter are not known. Not long before this time the brothers and Jesus and Mary had moved to Capernaum.

Matthew 13:56

56 The sisters remained πρὸςἡμᾶς, being married and having settled in their husbands’ homes in Nazareth; πᾶσαι reads as though there were at least three. After thus detailing their familiarity with the whole family, these people of Nazareth recur to the question: “Whence, then (considering all these facts), to this man these things all?” abutting τούτῳταῦτα and adding πάντα (see R. 705).

Matthew 13:57

57 What all these questions and their implied answers involve is stated: and they were caught in connection with him, ἑσκανδαλίζοντοἐναὐτῷ, as in a trap which is sprung by a crooked stick holding the bait; see v. 21. In a modified sense this verb means that they took offense in connection with Jesus. Knowing him as they did, they could not bring themselves to think that his widom and his works of power were of divine origin, they were sure there was something wrong. The imperfect states that they continued in this offended and hostile attitude.

But Jesus said to them, A prophet is not honorless except in his native town and his own house or family. This sounds like a proverbial saying, except for the addition “and his own house.” Familiarity breeds contempt. The fact that Jesus here classes himself as a prophet is perfectly in order, for the contempt arose during his teaching. Mark 6:6 adds that he marvelled at their unbelief. The right answer to their question “whence” lay so near the surface that they were wholly without excuse for rejecting it.

Matthew 13:58

58 And he did not do many works of power there because of their unbelief. He was ready to do many, as he had done elsewhere, but could do only a few. Note, however, that he did some. It has become traditional to assume that faith precedes every miracle although this tradition is disregarded every time a miracle is wrought where faith is plainly not present (as for instance in 8:28, etc.) How unbelief prevented the performance of many miracles is shown in Luke 4:28–38. The people of Nazareth rose up, thrust Jesus out of the city, and tried to kill him.

This incident closes the chapter on the parables, revealing in a glaring way the opposition that had developed which had also caused him to resort to parables, v. 10, etc. The whole idea of this chapter is thus rounded out. In Nazareth even the sisters of Jesus and their families refused him faith.

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.

B.-P. Griechisch-Deutsches Woerterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments, etc., von D. Walter Bauer, zweite, etc., Auflage zu Erwin Preuschens Vollstaendigem Griechisch-Deutschen Handworterbuch, etc.

B.-D Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage besorgt von Albert Debrunner

M.-M. The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, Illustrated from the Papyri and other Non-Literary Sources, by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan.