Bible Commentaries

Ch. Matthew 13:1-9. Jesus teaches in Parables. The Parable of the Sower

Mark 4:1-9; Luke 8:4-91. sat] The usual position of a Jewish teacher.

by the sea side] At the N. end of the Lake of Gennesaret there are small creeks or inlets “where the ship could ride in safety only a few feet from the shore, and where the multitudes seated on both sides and before the boat could listen without distraction or fatigue. As if on purpose to furnish seats, the shore on both sides of these narrow inlets is piled up with smooth boulders of basalt.” Thomson, Land and Book, p. 356.

2. a ship] According to the received Greek text, the ship or boat.

3. in parables] Up to this time Jesus had preached repentance, proclaiming the kingdom, and setting forth the laws of it in direct terms. He now indicates by parables the reception, growth, characteristics, and future of the kingdom. The reason for this manner of teaching is given below, Matthew 13:10-15.

A parable (Hebr. mashal) = “a likeness” or “comparison.” Parables differ from fables in being pictures of possible occurrences—frequently of actual daily occurrences,—and in teaching religious truths rather than moral truths.

4. by the way side] i. e. along the narrow footpath dividing one field from another.

24–30. The Parable of the Tares. Confined to St Matthew

25. while men slept] i. e. during the night. The expression is not introduced into the Lord’s explanation of the parable.

sowed tares] Travellers mention similar instances of spiteful conduct in the East, and elsewhere, in modern times.

tares] Probably the English “darnel;” Latin, lolium; in the earlier stages of its growth this weed very closely resembles wheat, indeed can scarcely be distinguished from it. This resemblance gives an obvious point to the parable. The good and the evil are often undistinguishable in the visible Church. The Day of Judgment will separate. Men have tried in every age to make the separation beforehand, but have failed. For proof of this read the history of the Essenes or the Donatists. The Lollards—as the followers of Wyckliffe were called—were sometimes by a play on the word lolium identified by their opponents with the tares of this parable. A friend suggests the reflection: “How strange it was that the very men who applied the word ‘Lollard’ from this parable, acted in direct opposition to the great lesson which it taught, by being persecutors.”

The parable of the Tares has a sequence in thought on the parable of the Sower. The latter shews that the kingdom of God will not be co-extensive with the world; all men have not the capacity to receive the word. This indicates that the kingdom of God—the true Church—is not co-extensive with the visible Church. Some who seem to be subjects of the Kingdom are not really subjects.

5. stony places] Places where the underlying rock was barely covered with earth. The hot sun striking on the thin soil and warming the rock beneath would cause the corn to spring up rapidly and then as swiftly to wither.

7. thorns sprung up] The scholar will remember that Vergil mentions among the “plagues” of the wheat,

“Ut mala culmos

Esset robigo segnisque horreret in

arvis Carduus.”

Georg. i:150–153.

8. some an hundredfold, &c.] The different kinds of fertility may be ascribed to different kinds of grain; barley yields more than wheat, and “white maize sown in the neighbourhood often yields several hundredfold.” See Thomson’s Land and Book, p. 83.

10–17. The Reason why Jesus teaches in Parables

Mark 4:10-12; Luke 8:1010. parables] The parable is suited (1) to the uninstructed, as being attractive in form and as revealing spiritual truth exactly in proportion to the capacity of the hearer; and (2) to the divinely wise as wrapping up a secret which he can penetrate by his spiritual insight. In this it resembles the Platonic myth; it was the form in which many philosophers clothed their deepest thoughts. (3) It fulfils the condition of all true knowledge. He alone who seeks finds. In relation to Nature, Art, God Himself, it may be said the dull “seeing see not.” The commonest and most obvious things hide the greatest truths. (4) The divine Wisdom has been justified in respect to this mode of teaching. The parables have struck deep into the thought and language of men (not of Christians only), as no other teaching could have done; in proof of which it is sufficient to name such words and expressions as “talents,” “dispensation,” “leaven,” “prodigal son,” “light under a bushel,” “building on sand.”