Matthew 13:24

Mat 13:24-30. Another parable put he forth unto them — In which he further explains the case of unfruitful hearers, and shows that persons of various characters would profess to receive the gospel, and be accounted members of the Christian Church; but that there should be a final separation between them in the other world, however they might be blended together in this. The kingdom of heaven — This expression, as has been observed before, sometimes signifies the gospel dispensation, sometimes true religion under the gospel; sometimes the Church of Christ, and that as well in its militant as in its triumphant state. The phrase is also often used for a person or thing relating to any of those. Here the meaning seems to be, that Christ, preaching the gospel, may be likened to a man sowing good seed, &c. Or, that the state of things in the gospel Church may be illustrated in the following manner. Which sowed good seed in his field — God formed our first parents upright, and sowed nothing but good in his whole creation. And Christ sowed only the good seed of truth in his Church, and planted it with such as were truly righteous. But while men slept — Who were set to watch, namely, magistrates and ministers, the servants of the husbandman. Observe, reader, Satan hath a power to persuade, allure, seduce; but not to force. If the servants of Christ watched, and did their duty, there would be much less open wickedness in the world, and less secret sin in the Church than there is. His enemy came and sowed tares — Rather darnel, as it seems ζιζανια ought to be rendered. “It appears,” says Dr. Campbell, “from the parable itself, 1st, That this weed was not only hurtful to the corn, but otherwise of no value, and therefore to be severed and burnt. 2dly, That it resembled corn, especially wheat, since it was only when the wheat was putting forth the ear that these weeds were discovered. Now neither of these characters will suit the tare, which is excellent food for cattle, and sometimes cultivated for their use; and which, being a species of vetch, is distinguished from corn, from the moment it appears above ground. Therefore, as it cannot be the tare that is meant, it is highly probable that it is the darnel, in Latin lolium, namely, that species called by botanists temulentum, which grows among corn, not the lolium perenne, commonly called ray, and corruptly rye grass, which grows in meadows. For, 1st, This appears to have been the Latin word by which the Greek was wont to be interpreted. 2dly, It agrees to the characters above mentioned. It is a noxious weed; for when the seed of it happens to be mingled and ground with the corn, the bread made of this mixture always occasions sickness and giddiness in those who eat it; and the straw has the same effect upon the cattle. It is from this quality, and the appearance of drunkenness which it produces, that it has the specific name given it by botanists. And probably for the same reason it is called by Virgil, infelix lolium. It has also a resemblance to wheat sufficient to justify all that relates to this in the parable.” “The only English translation,” adds the doctor, “in which I have found the word darnel, is Mr. Wesley’s.”

When the blade was sprung up, &c., then appeared the tares, rather, the darnel, also — It was not discerned before, but now could easily be distinguished. So the servants of the householder — Or, of the proprietor of the estate, as οικοδεσποτης seems to signify here: came and said, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? — That is, good seed only; the seed of pure wheat, without any corrupt mixture? whence then hath it darnel? — He said, An enemy hath done this — A plain answer to the great question concerning the origin of evil. God made men (as he did angels) intelligent creatures, and consequently free either to choose good or evil; but he implanted no evil in the human soul. An enemy (with man’s concurrence) hath done this. Darnel in the Church is properly hypocrites, or mere outside Christians, such as have only the form of godliness without the power. Open sinners, such as have neither the form nor the power, are not so properly darnel as thistles and brambles, which ought to be rooted up without delay, and not suffered in the Christian community. Whereas, should fallible men attempt to gather up the darnel, they would often root up the wheat with it.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

SECOND PARABLE — The Wheat and Tares, Mat_13:24-30.

This parable explains the entire structure of the system of probation under the Christian dispensation, or perhaps through all time. As the former parable describes the planting of the dispensation, so this describes its struggle with evil in the world until the judgment day. It is not so much a parable of the Church as of the world and the Church under the Messiah; for the field is the world. While probation lasts, wickedness is permitted to develop itself. There is to be no organic destruction of wicked men by God or angels; there must be no persecuting them to destruction by the servants of God; they must be allowed to live and work their destiny. Nor will they be forcibly changed or irresistibly regenerated in their nature.

To do either of these things would violate the very fundamental principles of probation. But at the end of the world the final separation of good and evil will take place, by the command of Christ, and the execution thereof by angels. The parable is therefore a brief, simple moral history of the world.

24. The kingdom of heaven — The system of human probation or the divine government. Likened unto a man — Not likened to the man alone, but to this whole parabolic transaction which begins with the man. The man represents the Divine Ruler of the universe. Sowed good seed — This properly goes back to the period of the Creation, when God planted man pure upon the field of the world.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mat_13:24-30

The seeds of error.—The explanation of the last parable is, in part, the explanation of this. It teaches us, e.g. what is meant in this parable by sowing the seed, viz. the dissemination of truth. In the same general way, therefore, it enables us to consider this parable as it stands, and without entering, at present, into that copious explanation of it which was afterwards given to the disciples in private (Mat_13:36-43). So regarded, it will be found to tell us, first, of a remarkable discovery in the field of the “kingdom”; and secondly, of an equally remarkable decision about it.

I. A remarkable discovery.—A discovery which seems to have caused those who made it to stand still, and cry out, “What is the meaning of this?” For truly serious, in the first place, according to what we are taught, was the nature of the appearance they beheld. It was the appearance of one set of plants where other plants had been sown. More than this, according to the interpretation of some, it was the appearance of a noxious plant instead of a wholesome one. Instead of wheat there was darnel—and that a kind of darnel, it is said, which, when taken into the system, produced vertigo and sickness. Instead of profit, therefore, there was the appearance of loss. Instead of food, the development of poison. Equally serious, in the next place, was the time of this appearance. Not till the grain had been formed in the ear (Mat_13:26), because not till then, so it is said, could the distinction be made—not, therefore, till the harvest was approaching, and so till long after all possibility of prevention was over, was this discovery made. But most serious of all, in the third place, was the origin to which it pointed. That this appearance should be due to any action on the part of the “householder” himself, was wholly out of the question. He had never put anything whatever but “good seed” in his field. The only possible way, therefore, of accounting for this appearance was by supposing that an adversary had caused it. This was the conclusion of the householder himself, immediately that he heard of it. And this is the point, therefore, the great point, on which our final thoughts are to be fixed. In the householder’s own property, where he himself had never put anything but that which was good, someone utterly hostile to him had put that which was evil. “An enemy hath done this” (Mat_13:28).

II. A remarkable decision.—This was remarkable, first, because a far more obvious course had first presented itself to men’s minds. That first idea had been to go at once and root out the bad seed. To the servants of the householder this appeared the most natural thing in the world. If “an enemy” hath done this, shall not we who are friends go and undo it at once? Therefore it is that they suggest it at once to the householder himself. “Wilt thou then”—that being the case—“that we go and gather them up?” Nothing appears to them, in the circumstances, a more proper proceeding. All they wait for is leave to adopt it. All the more remarkable, therefore, in the next place, is the decisive way in which this proposal of theirs is put to one side. The thing proposed by his servants, on the one hand, is not to be attempted by them at all. “He saith” unto them “nay.” It is as though he would prevent them from taking even a first step in that line. It is not to be attempted by them, on the other hand, because of the fact that such an endeavour would lead, inevitably, to more evil than good. It might, or it might not, remove some of the darnel. With eyes such as theirs, with hands such as theirs, whatever the excellence of their purpose, it would certainly eradicate some of the wheat. What they are to do for the present, therefore—all they are to do for the present—is to let the field remain as it is. Let “both” kinds continue to “grow together” as they do now. And even hereafter—this is what he says to them lastly—when the time of harvest shall have arrived, and with it, therefore, the time for separating the evil from the good without any fear of mistake, and of binding them together in separate “bundles” for those widely different final uses, for which they are respectively meant—he does not mean that separation to be effected by those he is speaking to now. “In the time of harvest, I will say to my reapers”—to my reapers, then, and therefore not to you now—let this division be made. Can anything be more decisive from beginning to end? The parable, thus viewed, may very well teach us:—

1. To moderate our expectations.—What the Saviour thus foretold, and thus found true also in His own case (Joh_6:70), will be found true in all others. Whether we look at the church at large, or at any particular branch of it, no matter how large on the one hand, or how select on the other, it will never be without “tares.” Often and often their presence is a surprise to the servants. It is never so to the Master.

2. To limit our efforts.—If He permits the “tares” to be sown, let us permit them to grow. Let us refrain, at any rate, from violent efforts to remove them from the field. That is not the task for our hands. Nor yet for our time. To attempt it is only to do harm to the wheat.

3. To encourage our faith.—If the “tares” are never absent all the more wonder at the amount of good that exists. If things are always so mingled all the higher the wisdom and all the greater the power which preserves that which is good! In this sense the very imperfection of the church proves the truth of its message!

HOMILIES ON THE VERSES

Mat_13:24-30. The parable of the tares.—

I. The origination of the kingdom of God, or of Christian society, in its widest sense, is likened to an act of sowing. Seed does not, as in the former parable, stand for the truth of the gospel, but for the men who receive it. At first one might suspect that our Lord is only playing with the emblem in an arbitrary fashion, making it mean just what He chooses. Not so. The wheat plants are just the seed in a changed form. Somewhat parallel is it with the new life and character that are produced upon the soil of human nature by the accepted truth of God’s gospel. That new life-character in a Christian man is morally a product of the truth he has taken into his being. The place which the Son of man has destined for the ripening place of His plants, i.e. His “field,” is the world. Few words in Scripture have been more stumbled over than this. Let us take it in two distinct senses, both of them, no doubt, intended.

1. The field for the kingdom of Christ is, in extent, the whole world of mankind, and not the limited, bounded area of a single people.

2. In a second sense as well, is the world Christ’s field, wherein His precious plants are to grow and ripen. He sows them not merely in all the wide world, but in this present world, such as it is. That is but a sickly idea of Christianity which treats it like a hothouse plant. But there is a hidden night-sower too. This illustration answers perfectly to the character which Scripture ascribes to the originator of human sin. From the first he is represented as a circumventor of God’s fair designs; a spoiler and blaster of what was created very good; a sower of weeds among corn. For it is characteristic of evil that it can make nothing to profit; can only unmake, mar, and waste. Now the setting up on earth of Christ’s kingdom gave occasion to a new manner of mischief-making, the point of which lay in its mimicry of the new work of God. This was men with the appearance of Christians, speaking Christian words, and growing up inside the Christian community, hardly to be distinguished from others, who yet were in their real nature, men of an unchanged, evil heart, and yielded at the last bitter or unwholesome fruits. It is in perfect keeping, also, with the whole of Christ’s teaching, thus to represent human character in its great contrasts of good and bad, as no isolated spiritual phenomenon, but as somehow reclining against a superhuman background. A Spirit of grace and light regenerating men, if they will, by the word of truth; no less, another spirit of darkness and malice, misleading men, if they will, to the service of a lie. The revelation of this contact of an upper and lower spiritual world with human character, has done nothing to solve the old, dark, hopeless mystery of evil. The question of the servants in the parable, is just the last and deepest question with which the reason of man has at all times approached the eternal God: “Lord, didst not Thou sow good seed in Thy field? Whence then hath it tares?” All we can know, and for practical uses need to know is, “An enemy hath done it.” “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.”

II. The progress of the kingdom of God.—The interest of the parable passes swiftly on to the close of the history. All that lies between is, so to say, natural development, and, therefore, is in this parable touched with a light finger. What we do gather concerning this growing time, is only the negative lesson that it must be “let alone.” Christ meant the juxtaposition of good men with bad to continue in this world. As a religious community, the church is bound, no doubt, to expel the openly wicked and unchristian from her own membership. That is undoubted from other texts. But she is to strive after no unnatural or forced separation from society.

III. The close of the kingdom of God.—The weight of the passage, as a lesson to individuals in the kingdom of God, lies in the awful severance of false from true at last by unerring celestial servants of the King. The Master’s objection to human weeders was simply that they could not be trusted to discern between the evil and the good. How true has that been found!—J. O. Dykes, D.D.

The parable of the tares.—I. The sowing.—The field originally had no seed in it; it could not produce any seed; it was necessary to sow the good seed in it. In like manner goodness is not innate to human nature; there are not inhering in it any germs of goodness.

1. “He that soweth good seed is the Son of man;” there is not one sound seed in your nature, but it has been deposited there by the Son of man.

2. “The field is the world.” Within the church discipline must be upheld; the bad, so far as practicable, must be separated from the good, believers from unbelievers. That is often taught us in the New Testament; the Apostles cast men out of the communion of the saints. It is about the world, and not about the church, that Jesus Christ is speaking. He does not say, Do not cast bad men out of the church; but, Do not cast them out of the world.

3. “The good seed are the children of the kingdom.” According to the preceding parable, the good seed is the word of God; according to this parable, the good seed are the children of the kingdom. The Saviour here contemplates the seed in its full growth. It is quite right to say, the acorns are the seed of the forest. But it is equally right to say, the acorns are the trees of the forest. In the first stage the good seed are the good thoughts sown in your mind, the good principles instilled into your nature; but in the last stage the good seed are the good men.

4. But another is sowing. “While men slept,” etc. “The tares are the children of the wicked one.” The sowing here, too, begins with evil thoughts and ends with evil men.

5. “The enemy that sowed them is the devil.” Good is not indigenous to our nature, it has been implanted in us by the Son of man. Neither is evil indigenous to our nature, it has been sown in us by the devil.

II. The growing (Mat_13:26).—The difference between the wheat and the tares became manifest only after a period of growth. “The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?” etc. Here is brought into proximity the human method and the Divine method of dealing with sin. Good men and bad are wonderfully mingled in the world; you cannot destroy the bad without seriously damaging the good. They are mingled in the family; you cannot kill the father without hurting the mother. They are mingled in society; you cannot shoot the tenant without injuring the landlord, etc.

III. The reaping.—“Let them grow until the harvest.” “The harvest is the end of the world.” Good will continue to grow better, and evil to grow worse, till the harvest time. I do not know that evil will continue to grow in bulk, that is, by the multiplication of bad men. I hope not. But it will grow in intensity, in bitterness, in subtlety, in poisonousness (2Th_2:6-10). When good and evil shall have fully ripened, then will begin the process of separation: “The Son of man shall send forth His angels,” etc. “Bind them in bundles and burp them.” Is there here an intimation that in eternity sinners shall congregate together according to their sinful propensities—that misers shall be gathered to misers, drunkards to drunkards, adulterers to adulterers?—J. C. Jones, D.D.

Mat_13:25. The tares.—No weed is so troublesome to the Syrian farmers as a kind of wild rye-grass, which they call zuwân. It grows abundantly in cornfields, and is so extremely like wheat in its earlier stages that even a farmer’s eye cannot tell the difference with certainty till it is shot. Then the peasants know it by its blacker heads. By that time, however, they find it hazardous to pull it up by hand, because its rootlets are too closely twisted about those of the corn. When harvest comes it is necessary to pick out the stalks with care, and finally to winnow its pickles from the seed; because this weed is really a bitter intoxicant poison, so strong that even a pickle or two, ground among the flour, will cause in the eater giddiness and nausea. One sees what a truly Oriental refinement of revenge it would be deliberately to oversow a neighbour’s field with such a weed the night after he had been sowing his wheat. One sees how exquisitely this atrocious piece of mischief sets forth the malice and cunning of the devil.—J. O. Dykes, D.D.

Sowing tares among the wheat.—We are not without this form of malice nearer home. Thus, in Ireland, I have known an outgoing tenant, in spite at his ejection, to sow wild oats in the fields which he was leaving. These ripening and seeding themselves before the crops in which they were mingled, it became next to impossible to get rid of them.—Archbishop Trench.

Mat_13:27. Ministerial watchfulness.—Our Saviour here shows the servants’ care; to teach us that ministers ought to be watchful. Wherein doth this watchfulness consist?

I. In a daily watchful visiting of their fields and flocks.

II. In a rejoicing when the wheat thrives, i.e. when they see the Lord to bless and prosper His own word and give an increase to that which they sow.

III. In a sorrow for the springing up of tares.—These servants come (and certainly not without grief) and tell their master that there are tares amongst the corn. Thus faithful ministers, when they see errors, heresies, hypocrisies, and formality in religion to begin to spring and spread itself among their flocks, must seek unto God, and do all that lies in their power to redress it.—R. Ward.

Mat_13:28-30. Human intolerance and Divine patience.—I. What men would do.—“Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?” It should always be remembered that there is an arrogance of virtue, as well as the sauciness and presumption of vice. Men may have pure intentions, but their proposed methods of giving effect to their intentions may corrupt them. It is of the essence of pride and effrontery, for men to propose to do God’s work in their own way.

II. What would be the result of such impatient action?—“Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up the wheat with them.” Men may not only do evil that good may come, but good, and evil may be the result, and, if judged by this, may be condemned as tares. The intermixture of good and evil by the conditions of life and the relations and institutions of society is a problem and a difficulty. If we could cut down evil as the mower cuts the grass, if its forms all grew together, the field of the world could soon be cleared. But this intermixture of good and evil forbids rashness and haste. Besides, every man, perhaps, is a tare to some other man in some aspects of his character. None are all wheat in human judgment, and not so even in fact. If we would remove all the tares, we must remove one another off the face of the earth, or consign one another to certain conventional hells, social, political, or sectarian. The truth is, though we are no better than we should be, yet we are unquestionably better than we think each other to be. Hence comes the grand function of the church—preferring one another in love, nurturing the feeblest virtues, feeding babes in Christ, helping each other on to the perfect stature of men in Christ Jesus.

III. What the Master does.—“Let both grow together until the harvest.” How Godlike is this large patience, like the firmament of heaven, serene and vast, while the storm of men’s passions rages beneath. And yet the very largeness and fulness of this patience irritate us. There are certain crimes committed by certain men which perhaps no human law can touch, and we feel as if God ought to come out of His hiding-place and smite or brand the criminal as in the case of Cain. But if the man we think of was branded, he would perhaps be the wrong man, or, not knowing the whole circumstances of the case, we might overwhelm the most urgent extenuations.—Jos. Shaw.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

2. The Second, Third, and Fourth Parables, and Interpretation of the Second Parable. Mat_13:24-43

24     Another parable put he forth unto them,13 saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which [who] sowed14 good seed in his field: 25But while men slept, his enemy 26came and sowed [over]15 tares16 among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit,17 then appeared the tares also. 27So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou [thou not] 28sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?18 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? 29But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

31     Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: 32Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs [greater than the herbs],19 and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

33     Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.

34     All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not [he spake nothing]20 unto them: 35That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet,21 saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.

36     Then Jesus [he][22] sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. 37He answered and said unto them,23

38     He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed [these, οὗτοι] are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of 39the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the24 angels. 40As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this [the]25 world. 41The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which [that] do iniquity; 42And shall cast them into a [the] furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43Then shall the righteous shine forth26 as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Mat_13:24. The kingdom of heaven is likened, or made like, ὡμοιώθη.—A delineation of the trials to which the kingdom of heaven was exposed from its first introduction into the world, and unavoidable connection with it. Hence the sower, who is the chief figure in the parable, cannot prevent the enemy from sowing tares among the wheat. The same expression is also used, Mat_18:23. The representation of the kingdom of heaven by “a certain man” recurs again in Mat_13:45, and in Mat_20:1. It is an entire mistake to interpret the passage as implying that the kingdom of heaven was “at the time not yet founded.”

Mat_13:25. While men slept;—i.e., at night, when evil-disposed persons would try to injure the property of their neighbors. Hence, the application of this clause to the negligence of Christian teachers, who were appointed to watch and guard the field (Chrysostom, Augustine), is incorrect.27 Still less does it refer to the sleep of sin (Calovius). Nor is it, on the other hand, merely a rhetorical figure (Meyer). It alludes to the weakness of men, through which the enemy succeeds in mixing up errors with saving truth, without this being perceived. Or perhaps it may denote, that professors of religion too frequently seek exclusively their personal comfort, without seriously reflecting upon, or being zealous for, the truth of the doctrines propounded.

Mat_13:25. Tares [lit.: darnel].—The weed growing among wheat, ζιζάνιον, lolium temulentum, darnel. The only species of grass which in Eastern countries springs up wild among oats or wheat (Virg.: “infelix lolium,” Georg. i. 154). At the first it looks like wheat, but its fruit is black, not yellow, and its effects are intoxicating and otherwise detrimental. If allowed to grow till the harvest, it is extremely difficult to separate it from the wheat; and, accordingly, it happens not unfrequently that it becomes mixed up with the flour. The Talmudists regarded it as a degenerate wheat. See the Art. in the Encycls. [St. Jerome, who resided long in Palestine, speaks in loc. of the striking similitude between triticum and zizania, wheat, and bastard wheat. Dr. Hackett (Illustrations of Scripture, p. 130) collected some specimens of this deceitful weed, and found, on showing them to friends, that they invariably mistook them for some species of grain, such as wheat or barley. Hence the rabbinical name, bastard (i.e., bastard wheat).—P. S.]

[The sowing of tares among wheat is a kind of injury frequently practised to this day in the East, from malice and revenge. Roberts (Biblical Illustrations, p. 541, as quoted by Trench) relates of India “See that lurking villain watching for the time when his neighbor shall plough his field; he carefully marks the period when the work has been finished, and goes in the night following, and casts in what the natives call pandinellu, i.e., pig-paddy; this, being of rapid growth, springs up before the good seed, and scatters itself before the other can be reaped, so that the poor owner of the field will be for years before he can get rid of the troublesome weed.” Trench (Notes on the Parables, p. 83, 9th Lond. ed.) relates a similar trick of malice from Ireland, where he knew an outgoing tenant, who, in spite of his ejection, sowed wild oats in the fields of the proprietor, which ripened and seeded themselves before the crops, so that it became next to impossible to get rid of them. Dr. Alford, too, in loc., 4th ed., mentions that a field be longing to him in Leicestershire, England, was maliciously sown with charlock, and that heavy damages were obtained by the tenant against the offender.—P. S.]

And went his way.—The devil or his emissaries sow the seed and go their way; those who afterward hold the errors which they have sown, entertertaining them rather in consequence of their natural darkness and folly than of set hostile purpose. [Trench: “The mischief done, the enemy ‘went his way,’ and thus the work did not evidently and at once appear to be his. How often in the Church the beginnings of evil have been scarcely discernible; how often has that which bore the worst fruit in the end, appeared at first like a higher form of good!”—P. S.]

Mat_13:26. Then appeared the tares also;—i.e., it became then possible to distinguish them. The most fascinating error is seen in its true character whenever its poisonous fruit appears.

Mat_13:29. Lest ye root up also the wheat.—Gerlach: “Our Lord allows both to grow together, not because His servants might be apt to mistake the tares for the wheat,—which would scarcely be the case if they knew anything of the matter, and which, at all events, would not apply to the reapers ( Mat_13:30),—but because, however different the plants in themselves, their roots are so closely intertwined in the earth.” This remark is very important; but some other elements must also be taken into account, such as the excitement and haste of these servants—they are not angels, as the reapers spoken of in Mat_13:30; and, lastly, that the difference between wheat and tares is not so distinct as at the time of the harvest.—The same commentator refers this verse exclusively to excesses of ecclesiastical discipline, for the purpose of excluding all unbelievers and hypocrites, and constituting a perfectly pure Church. He denies all allusion to the punishment of death for heresy, since the Lord spoke of the Church, and not of the secular power. But the Church here alluded to is the Church in the world, and tainted more or less with secularism.

Mat_13:30. In the time of the harvest, ἐνκαιρῷ, etc.—At the right and proper time, and hence in the time of the harvest.

Mat_13:31. A grain of mustard-seed.—The mustard-plant, τὸσίναπι (sinapis orientalis, in Chaldee חַרְדֵּל),—a shrub bearing pods, which grows wild,28 but in Eastern countries and in the south of Europe is cultivated for its seed. Three kinds of mustard were known, the black and the white being most in repute. The Jews grew mustard in their gardens. Its round seed-corns (4–6 in a pod) were proverbially characterized by them as the smallest thing (Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. 822); “which, indeed, holds true so far as the various kinds of seed-corn used in Jewish husbandry are concerned, though scientific botany knows still smaller seeds” (Winer). In hot climes the mustard-plant sometimes springs up to the dimensions of a small tree. Meyer and Royle refer the expression to the mustard-tree called Salvadora Persica. (Comp. Winer, and Ewald, Jahrbücher for 1849, p. 32.) But this view is manifestly inapt, as it would destroy not only the popular character, but also the point of the parable. We cannot believe that the Lord would introduce a tree growing in Persia into a picture drawn from common life in Judea.[29] Besides, nobody would deem it strange that a tree should grow up to its proper dimensions; but that the small shrub which had sprung from the least of all seeds should spread into a tree, and that the birds of the air should seek a lodgment in its branches, might well form ground of surprise, and serve as the basis of this parable. Heubner: Think of the mustard-seed of Eastern countries, not that of Europe, which grows to the height of from nine to fifteen yards.

Which a man [handling it] took; λαβών.—Meyer: “Circumstantiality and pictorialness of detail.” In our opinion, it alludes to the fact, that a man was obliged cautiously and carefully to take up the seed, lest he should lose hold of it. So small as scarcely to admit of being handled.

Mat_13:32. Lodge in the branches thereof.—Not merely, nestle or seek shelter, but lodge and remain, κατασκηνοῦν.

Mat_13:33. Unto leaven; ζύμη.—Referring to the unperceived power and efficacy of the gospel, pervading, transforming, and renewing the mind, heart, and life. Starke: “The term leaven is used in other passages (Mat_16:11; 1Co_5:6-7) in the sense of evil. Accordingly, some commentators understand it as also referring in this parable to the corruptions which have crept into the Church, and ultimately perverted it; and the woman as alluding to the Papacy and the Romish clergy (Rev_2:20; Rev_17:1), who, with their leaven of false doctrine, have leavened the three estates of Christendom (the three measures of meal). However, the gospel may also, in many respects, be likened unto leaven; as, for example, with reference to its pervading influence (Heb_4:12), to its rapid spread (Luk_12:49), to its rendering the bread palatable and wholesome, etc. According to Macarius, the parable before us alludes to both these elements” (the leaven of original sin, and its counter-agent, the leaven of grace and salvation).—Rieger (Betracht. über d. N. T. i.) better: “In other passages of Scripture the term leaven is used as a figure of insidious and fatal corruption, finding its way into the Church. But manifestly this cannot be the case in the present instance. The passage does not read: The kingdom of heaven is like unto three measures of meal, with which leaven became mixed up; but, The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven—showing that the leaven, which in itself is not noxious and evil, but, on the contrary, highly useful and wholesome, serves here as a figure of the secret but all-pervading and subduing power of the gospel. In point of fact, the same idea recurs in Heb_4:2, where we read of the word being mixed with faith in them that hear it.” To these remarks we add: 1. It were contrary to the rules of hermeneutics to treat an allegorical figure like a dogmatic statement. Thus in different passages the lion is used as a figure of Satan, but also of Christ; the serpent as a figure of the enemy, but also of the wisdom needful to the Apostles; birds as a figure of believing trustfulness, but also of the devil catching away the word. 2. All the parables in this section bear upon the development of the kingdom of heaven. Hence, if Starke’s supposition were correct, the parable under consideration would be quite out of its place in this context. 3. It is impossible to conceive that the kingdom of heaven could be leavened by evil as by a power stronger than itself, and thus be hopelessly destroyed. 4. Leaven may indeed be employed as a figure of sin and evil in the sense of being stronger than individual Christians, when left in their own strength to combat with error, etc. (Mat_16:6; 1Co_5:6-7), but not in that of being more powerful than the kingdom of heaven. 5. Leaven as such is nowhere in the Bible a figure of evil, but a neutral figure of an all-pervading, contagious power. Mark also Lev_23:11 : “They shall be baken with leaven; they are the first-fruits unto the Lord.”

Three measures.—Σάτον, סְאָה, a hollow measure used for dry substances; according to Josephus, equal to 1½ Roman measures. The expression, three measures, is not accidental, but intended to denote the large quantity which the leaven has to pervade. Three is the symbolical number for spiritual things. The Spirit of Christ pervades and transforms our spirits in an unseen and spiritual manner. “The Fathers interpreted the number three allegorically.” Theod. of Mopsuest. referred it to the Jews, the Samaritans, and the Greeks.30 This, however, is, strictly speaking, not an allegorical interpretation; comp. Act_1:8. Olshausen approves of a reference of the number three to the sanctification of the three powers of human nature [body, soul, and spirit] by the gospel. Similarly it might be applied to the three grand forms in our Christian world—individuals (catechumens), Church and State, and the physical Cosmos. The main point, however, is to remember that the whole domain of mind, heart, and life, in all their bearings, is to be pervaded and transformed by the Spirit of God.

Mat_13:34. He spake nothing (οὐδέν) unto them;—i.e., to the people concerning the kingdom of heaven, especially at that particular period. Hence also the use of the imperfect. Meyer.

Mat_13:35. By the prophet.—A free quotation of Psa_78:2. Meyer reminds us that in 2Ch_29:30 Asaph is designated a “seer,” or prophet.

Mat_13:38. The good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one.—Fritzsche: fruges ex semine enatœ. As in the explanation of the first parable, so here also the seed is identified with the souls in which it was sown. Our life becomes identified with the spiritual seed, and principles assume, so to speak, a bodily shape in individuals. Such a concrete mode of presenting this truth is all the more suitable in this place, since our Lord is further developing and applying this parable.—The children of the wicked (literally here the tares) are sown by the wicked—of course, in a moral sense, not according to the substance of their human nature, just as the sons of the kingdom are specifically “the seed” sown by the Saviour in the moral and religious sense. These men have become what they are by the principles which they have embraced. This appears from the expression in Mat_13:41 : “They shall gather out of His kingdom πάντα τὰσκάν δαλα καὶ τοὺς ποιοῦν τας τὴν ἀνομίαν.” The scandala are offences in respect of doctrine, heresies, and seductive principles; the anomists are those who represent or embrace these principles (among whom Christ also included the representatives of Jewish traditionalism).

Mat_13:40. At the end of the world, or rather, of this Æon.—2 Esra 7:43: Dies judicii erit finis temporis hujus et initium temporis futurœ immortalitatis, in quo transivit corruptela.

Mat_13:41. Out of His kingdom,—clearly showing that the συντέλεια must be regarded as an interval of time, and hence indicating that there is a period intervening between the reappearing of Christ and the first resurrection connected with it, and the last resurrection, or that transformation of the present Æon, which marks the close of the final judgment; Revelation 20, compared with 1Co_15:23. Meyer: “The separation of which the Lord speaks, is that of the good and the evil (individuals), and only thereby a separation of good and evil (things).” But in the text the σκάνδαλα are mentioned before the ποιοῦντες, who are here identified with these σκάνδαλα. Similarly also the righteous are identified with that heavenly brightness which now shines forth in them.

Mat_13:42. A furnace of fire.—Not Sheol, or Hades, but Gehenna, or Hell, Rev_20:15; Mat_25:41; the place of punishment and Æon of those who are subject to the second death. [Trench: Fearful words indeed! and the image, if it be an image, borrowed from the most dreadful and painful form of death in use among men. David, alas! made the children of Ammon taste the dreadfulness of it. It was in use among the Chaldeans, Jer_29:22; Dan_3:6. Antiochus resorted to it in the time of the Maccabees, 2 Maccabees 7; 1Co_13:3. In modern times, Chardin makes mention of penal furnaces in Persia.—P. S.]

Mat_13:43. Then shall the righteous shine forth, ἐκλάμψουσιν.—Then the brightness of their δόξσ shall visibly break forth; Dan_12:3; Romans 8; and other passages.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The Parable of the Tares among the wheat.—The basis of this parable is the natural tendency of the ground to produce noxious weeds, thorns, and briers, or to degenerate. Hence the parable is intended to represent the obstacles with which the kingdom of heaven meets, and which it has to overcome. As in the natural earth tares and weeds rapidly spread, till they threaten to destroy the precious grain, so the seed of natural corruption in the heart and life threatens to choke that of the kingdom of heaven. The parable embodies three leading ideas. In opposition to the heavenly sower we see His adversary similarly employed; by the side of the good seed which Christ scatters we have that of the tares and the weeds of the devil; while the noxious plants, as they spring up, threaten to choke or to spoil the precious fruit. In other words, the kingdom of God is opposed by another kingdom—that of conscious malice, of which Satan, the adversary of Christ, is the head. His seed are the σκάνδαλα, or spiritually seductive principles, here represented by the tares, which look like the wheat, just as heresies resemble the truth. This seed he scatters at night; i.e., the enterprise, dictated by the malice of the enemy, succeeds through the weakness and folly of man. Protected by the darkness of night, the noxious weed, scattered all through the wheat, springs up, and, resembling the good fruit, grows up luxuriantly, till it threatens to choke the wheat, or to spoil it by foreign and dangerous admixture. In passing, we have already hinted that the picture of men sleeping may refer to the contrast between the religious comforts and enjoyments indulged in by the Church, and the watchfulness of schools on behalf of purity of doctrine.

2. Movement on the part of the servants.—This constitutes the second great feature of the parable. Their proposals arose partly from indignation against the enemy, partly from an impatient zeal for outward appearance of purity—from pride in the field, and partly from apprehension for the good seed. They were desirous of removing the tares. The Lord prohibited it, lest they should also root up the wheat. These considerations have been matter of the utmost importance in the history of the Church of Christ. It is well known that Novatianism on the one hand, and the papal hierarchy on the other, have addressed themselves to this work of uprooting, despite the prohibition of the Lord, and that the Romish Church has at last ended by condemning to the flames only the best wheat. But from this passage we learn that, according to the ordinance of the Lord, the Old Testament punishment denounced upon false prophets and blasphemers does not apply to the New economy.31 It is contrary to the mind and will of Christ to pronounce a ban, in the sense of denouncing final judgment upon men, by way of removing them and their errors from the Church. This toleration must not, however, be regarded as implying that evil and sin are to escape all punishment in the Church: it only implies that we are to remember and strictly to observe the distinction between the sowing and the reaping time. But within the limits here indicated, it is our duty to correct all current mistakes, Jam_5:19; to refute every error and heresy, 1Ti_4:1-6; and either to remove from the Church anti-christian doctrine and practical offences, with all who are chargeable therewith, or else to induce such persons to leave the Church by refusing to own and acknowledge them, Mat_18:15; 1 Corinthians 5; 2 John Mat_13:10.

But all these arrangements are only intended by way of discipline during the course of the development of the New Testament economy—in hope, not as a punitive economy of judgment. It is scarcely necessary to add, that they bear no reference whatever to the civil administration of justice (Rom_13:4).

[Dr. Lange might also have referred to the famous Donatist controversy in the African Church during the fourth and fifth centuries, whose chief exegetical battle-ground was this parable of the tares. The Catholics, represented by St. Augustine, claimed the whole parable, and especially the warning in Mat_13:29-30, against the disciplinarian rigorism and ecclesiastical purism of the Donatists; while the Donatists tried to escape the force of the parable by insisting that the field here spoken of is not the Church but the world, Mat_13:38. The parable, they said, has no bearing on our controversy, which is not whether ungodly men should be endured in the world (which we all allow), but whether they should be tolerated in the Church (which we deny). The Catholics replied that the mixture of good and bad men in the world is beyond dispute and known to all; that the Saviour speaks here of the kingdom of heaven, or the Church which is catholic and intended to spread over the whole world. Trench speaks at length on this important disciplinarian controversy in his Notes, p. 84 sqq., and defends throughout the Augustinian view (as does Wordsworth); but there was an element of truth in the puritanic zeal of the Donatists and kindred sects in their protest against a latitudinarian, secularized state-churchism. Comp. the forthcoming second volume of my History of Ancient Christianity, ch. vi. §§ 69–71.—P. S.]

3. Until the harvest.—A final and complete separation shall certainly be made. But it requires the heavenly clearness, purity, calmness, and decidedness of angels properly to accomplish this process.—“Then shall the righteous shine forth.” This shining forth is brought about by the deliverance of the Church from the burden of its former connection with evil, by its complete redemption (Luk_21:28), and by the change and entire transformation now taking place in everything around,—thus combining at the same time inward blessedness with outward, glorious manifestation of spiritual life, in all its fulness and perfectness.

4. The enemy that sowed them is the devil.—This passage has rightly been adduced as one of the strongest proofs that Christ propounded the doctrine concerning the devil as of His own revelation, and not from accommodation to popular prejudices. For, (1) Our Lord speaks of the devil not in the parable, but in His explanation of its figurative meaning, which, of course, must be taken in its literal and proper sense; (2) He speaks of him not in presence of the people, but within the circle of His intimate disciples; (3) He refers to the devil as the personal founder and centre of the kingdom of darkness, and as opposed to the person of the Son of Man, the centre and founder of the kingdom of light. Other passages show that, on many occasions, Jesus of His own accord bore witness to this doctrine (comp. Matthew 4; Joh_8:44, etc.).

[Trench, Notes, p. Matt 89: “We behold Satan here not as he works beyond the limits of the Church, deceiving the world, but in his far deeper skill and malignity, as he at once mimics and counterworks the work of Christ: in the words of Chrysostom: ‘after the prophets, the false prophets; after the Apostles, the false apostles; after Christ, Antichrist.’ Most worthy of notice is the plainness with which the doctrine concerning Satan and his agency, his active hostility to the blessedness of man, of which there is so little in the Old Testament, comes out in the New; as in the last parable, and again in this. As the lights become brighter, the shadows become deeper; not till the mighty power of good had been revealed, were we suffered to know how mighty was the power of evil; and even here it is in each case only to the innermost circles of disciples that the explanation concerning Satan is given.” Bengel (Gnom. on Eph_6:12) makes a similar remark: “Quo apertius quisque Scripturœ liber de œconomia et gloria Christi agit, eo apertius rursum de regno contrario tenebrarum.”—P. S.]

5.The furnace of fire, into which the wicked are to be cast at the manifestation of the new Æon, is probably intended as a counterpart to the fiery furnace to which, during the best period of the old Æon, the faithful had so often been consigned (Daniel 3). If from the one furnace a hymn of praise and thanksgiving rose to heaven, from the other resounds the wailing of anguish and pain, and the gnashing of teeth in rage and malice; comp. Rev_9:2. The fiery torments which the righteous underwent afforded a view of heaven as in and among men; those which the wicked endure bring out the inward hell existing in the bosom of humanity. Similarly the “outer darkness,” where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mat_8:12, etc.), forms an antithesis to the sacred darkness in which Jehovah dwelleth, Exo_20:21, amidst the praises of Israel, Psa_22:3; and to the darkness of trials and sorrows which the Lord lightens up, Isa_58:10. All these contrasts point to the fact, that it is the wicked who make hell what it is. The autos da fe of the Middle Ages were only a horrible caricature and anticipation of that fiery judgment.

6. Then the righteous shall shine forth as the sun. With the separation at the judgment, the Christian life, subjectively and objectively considered, appears in its full heavenly glory. [Trench: “As fire was the element of the dark and cruel kingdom of hell, so is light of the pure heavenly kingdom. Then, when the dark, hindering element has been removed, shall this element of light, which was before struggling with and obstructed by it, come forth in its full brightness. Col_3:4; Rom_8:18; Pro_25:4-5. A glory shall be revealed in the saints: not merely brought to them and added from without; but rather a glory which they before had, but which did not before evidently appear, shall burst forth and show itself openly, as once in the days of His flesh, at the moment of transfiguration, did the hidden glory of our Lord. That shall be the day of ‘the manifestation of the sons of God.’ ”—P. S.]

7. The Grain of Mustard-seed.—The first two parables were intended (just as Mar_4:26-29) to delineate the succession of events in the development of the kingdom of heaven; that of the grain of mustard-seed bears reference principally to its extension in space, not in time, while at the same time it depicts the conquering power of the gospel. At first it seems as if the hostile principle had now wholly disappeared. The grain of mustard-seed—so small and despised in the outward appearance of Him who bore the form of a servant, or rather, in that of His disciples—shoots up, and the smallest of seeds grows into a high bush, so as even to resemble a tree. But in consequence of this very growth, the birds of the air mistake the bush for a tree, and seek to make a lodgment in its branches. This was verified in the ecclesiastical establishment which Constantine founded, in the mediæval Church, and indeed applies to the visible Church generally. Not only sweet songsters, but even birds of prey, seek to build their nests on this heavenly tree.

[Alford: “This parable, like most others respecting the kingdom of God, has a double reference—general and individual. (1) In the general sense, the insignificant beginnings of the Kingdom are set forth: the little babe cast in the manger at Bethlehem; the Man of sorrows with no place to lay His head; the crucified One; or again the hundred and twenty names who were the seed of the Church after the Lord had ascended; then we have the Kingdom of God waxing onward and spreading its branches here and there, and different nations coming into it. ‘He must increase,’ said the great Forerunner. We must beware, however, of imagining that the outward Church-form is this kingdom. It has rather reversed the parable, and is the worldly power waxed to a great tree, and the Churches taking refuge under the shadow of it. It may be, where not corrupted by error and superstition, subservient to the growth of the heavenly plant: but is not itself that plant. It is at best no more than (to change the figure) the scaffolding to aid the building, not the building itself. (2) The individual application of the parable points to the small beginnings of divine grace; a word, a thought, a passing sentence, may prove to be the little seed which eventually fills and shadows the whole heart and being, and calls ‘all thoughts, all passions, all delights,’ to come and shelter under it.”—P. S.]

8. The Leaven.—Heubner: “If the former parable presents the extensive power of Christianity, this exhibits its intensive, dynamic force.” See also the list furnished by that author (p. 199) of works on the effects of Christianity, and the works of writers on Apologetics, Missions, etc. The woman is an apt figure of the Church.32 Leaven, a substance kindred and yet quite opposed to meal,—having the power of transforming and preserving it, and of converting it into bread, thus representing the divine in its relation to, and influence upon, our natural life. One of the main points in the parable is the “hiding,” or the mixing of the leaven in the three measures of meal. This refers to the great visible Church,33 in which the living gospel seems, as it were, hidden and lost. It appears as if the gospel were engulfed in the world; but under the regenerating power of Christianity it will at last be seen that the whole world shall be included in the Church. Here, then, the transformation of human nature, of society, of institutions, of customs, in short, of the whole Cosmos—or the gradual “regeneration” (Mat_19:28)—forms the principal point in view.34 But this Christianization of the whole world is not incompatible with the development of Antichrist in the world, nor with the unbelief and the hardening of individual sinners. Nay, this very dedication of life as a whole, in consequence of which the Church will at last possess and claim everything, only becomes a judgment, unless it be made ours by personal regeneration, just as unbelief transforms the most glorious truths into the most awful and the most dangerous errors, 2 Thessalonians 2.

[Alford: “The two parables are intimately related. That was of the inherent, self-developing power of the kingdom of heaven as a seed containing in itself the principle of expansion; this, of the power which it possesses of penetrating and assimilating a foreign mass, till all be taken up into it. And the comparison is not only to the power but to the effect of leaven also, which has its good as well as its bad side, and for that good is used: viz., to make wholesome and fit for use that which would otherwise be heavy and insalubrious. Another striking point of comparison is in the fact that leaven, as used ordinarily, is a piece of the leavened loaf put amongst the now dough—(τὸ ζυμωθὲν ἄπαξ ζνμη γίνεται τῷ λοιπῷ πάλιν. Chrys. Hom. xlvi. p. 484 A)—just as the kingdom of heaven is the renewal of humanity by the righteous Man Christ Jesus.—The parable, like the last, has its general and its individual application: (1) In the penetrating of the whole mass of humanity, by degrees, by the influence of the Spirit of God, so strikingly witnessed in the earlier ages by the dropping of heathen customs and worship;—in modern times more gradually and secretly advancing, but still to be plainly seen in the various abandonments of criminal and unholy practices (as e.g. in our own time of slavery and duelling, and the increasing abhorrence of war among Christian men), and without doubt in the end to be signally and universally manifested. But this effect again is not to be traced in the establishment or history of so-called Churches, but in the hidden advancement, without observation, of that deep leavening power which works irrespective of human forms and systems. (2) In the transforming power of the ‘new leaven’ on the whole being of individuals. ‘In fact the Parable does nothing less than set forth to us the mystery of regeneration, both in its first act, which can be but once, as the leaven is but once hidden; and also in the consequent (subsequent?) renewal by the Holy Spirit, which, as the ulterior working of the leaven, is continual and progressive.’ (Trench, p. 97.) Some have contended for this as the sole application of the parable; but not, I think, rightly.—As to whether the γυνή has any especial meaning (though I am more and more convinced that such considerations are not always to be passed by as nugatory), it will hardly be of much consequence here to inquire, seeing that γυναῖκες σιτοποιοί would be everywhere a matter of course.”—P. S.]

9. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet (not as a verbal, but as a typical prophecy).—Asaph was a seer, and the Psalm here quoted was prophetic, tracing in a series of historical pictures the disobedience and the hardening of Israel; the divine judgments, and the subsequent compassion and mercy of God. This prophecy was fulfilled in the parables of Christ, so far as concerned both their form and their matter. In reference to their form, Christ unfolded in them all the mysteries of the kingdom of God; in reference to their matter, the first parables bear chiefly on the hardening of the people, while the subsequent parables exhibit His infinite and glorious compassion.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

A. The Parable of the Tares, Mat_13:24-30, and interpretation of the same in Mat_13:36-43.—The tares among the wheat in the field of Christ: 1. What is their character? (outwardly they resemble the wheat, but in reality they are quite different and opposed.) 2. How did they come among the wheat? (through the malice of the devil and the weakness of man.) 3. What are the dangers accruing from their presence? (they injure the wheat by robbing it of its beauty and strength; and, indirectly, through the imprudent zeal of the servants, they even endanger its existence.) 4. Still they are made to subserve a good purpose (teaching us to watch, to discern, to live, and to spare life, and to wait in humility and patience). 5. They assuredly shall be separated in the day of harvest (judged by their own fruit, by the sentence of Christ, by the angels of heaven, by fire).—And he went his way (cowardice, malice, calculation).—How the seed of the evil one frequently assumes the appearance of human nature, and even of the divine life.—Mark! it is not the wheat among the tares, but the tares among the wheat (in answer to the charges of ancient and modern Novatianism against the Church).—An enemy hath done this.—Impatience of the servants in the kingdom of God: 1. Its higher and nobler motives; 2. marks of its carnal and sinful origin.—Spurious zeal (fanaticism) the worst enemy we have to meet in the Church.—Satan accomplishes more by calling forth false zeal in the disciples than even by sowing tares.—Has the Church of Christ always obeyed this injunction of the Master?—Let both grow together: 1. Absolutely and unconditionally; yet, 2. within how narrow limits!—How the tares and the wheat mutually protect each other till the time of harvest.—How the godly and the ungodly serve and assist each other in the kingdom of God.—Freedom of religion must be connected with religion of freedom.—A proper religious toleration, at the same time a proper discipline, in the spirit of the gospel.—Let us seek to distinguish the visible and the invisible Church, but not to separate them upon earth.—The whole world is the field of Christ.—As the seed in our hearts, so are we.—Final judgment upon the offences in the kingdom of God, and the glorious manifestation of the Church of Christ.

Starke:—Osiander: God spares the wicked for the sake of the godly who live among them.—Chrysostomus: Fortem diabolum facit nostra negligentia, non illius potentia.—When the watchmen sleep, the devil is awake, Act_20:29-30; Nova Bibl. Tub.—Quesnel: Let faithful ministers be careful to point out the tares.—Cramer: The devil is the cause of all the evil in the world, Joh_8:44.—It is not every kind of zeal for the glory of God which deserves commendation.—Zeisius: The good seed must not be neglected on account of the tares: one sincere and earnest Christian is worth far more in the sight of God than a thousand hypocrites and sinners.—It is impossible to transform the tares into wheat; but the grace of God may, through the earnest zeal of the disciples, convert the ungodly into humble followers of Jesus.—The ungodly despise Christians, but they are indebted to them for preservation and immunity from judgments, Gen_18:26.—Canstein: If we would understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God, let us in retirement seek enlightenment from the Lord.—The Church is the husbandry of God.

Heubner:—The enemy goeth his way.—How the evil one succeeds in craftily concealing his presence!—Along with the spread and extension of good, evil also increaseth.—The will of the Master is, Nay!—The long-suffering and patience of God puts them to shame, and worketh patience in them.—Here Christ bears witness to that divine toleration which He manifests in the government of His Church.—Reasons of this prohibition: 1. The servants might commit a mistake (confound the wheat with the tares)—some may have the root of the thing in them; 2. they might root up the wheat along with the tares (since good and evil are often very closely intertwined): 3. the godly are to be tried; 4. the wicked may yet be saved.—They are bound in bundles: indicating their fellowship in misery.—The real and internal dignity of God’s people does not yet appear.

Dräseke:—The enemy comes when people are asleep.—What a strange mixture in the kingdom of heaven!—Bachmann: The mixture of the godly and of sinners in the Church of Christ.—Reinhard: On the view which Christ Himself entertained of His kingdom upon earth.

B. The Parable of the Grain of Mustard-seed.—The kingdom of heaven under the figure of a grain of mustard-seed: 1. The least of all seeds (poverty and humility of Christ; His Apostles, publicans and fishermen; His message, reconciliation through a crucified and risen Saviour). 2. The greatest among herbs (the Church universal and a universal religion): a. The richest and best among herbs (the planting of the Lord); b. appearing to be a tree (so strong as to be able to bear even that worldly spirits should lodge in its branches).—Christianity, as reflecting both the humility and the majesty of its Founder (at first so small in its outward appearance, that men could scarcely seize it; then so large, as to comprehend all: thus, both in history and in the life of the individual Christian).—The contrast between the infinite smallness of the seed and the greatness of the herb, an evidence of the intensity of the principle of growth in the plant.—Christianity twice misunderstood and twice glorified: at first in its smallness, and then in its vast extent.—The commencement of all the works of God small in the eyes of the world: commencement of creation (the light), of humanity (the first pair), of the covenant-people (Isaac, the younger of the two brothers), of the Church (the confession of fishermen), of the new life (faith).—Contrast between the commencement of Christianity and that of the kingdoms of this world.

Starke:—Marginal note of Luther: There is not anywhere a word more despised than the gospel; yet there is none more powerful, since it justifies those who believe in it, which neither the law nor works could do.—This passage may be applied either to the gospel or to the Church.—Canstein: This is the work and wisdom of God, that He makes something of things which are not, and mighty things of those which are weak, while He humbleth and abaseth the things which are high and great, 1Co_1:26-27.—Zeisius: The weakest faith will grow and extend, and comprehend more than heaven and earth, even Christ Himself, with all that He is, and all that He hath, Eph_3:17; 1Pe_5:10.—Majus: No human power is able to obstruct or prevent the extension of the Church.

Lisco:—Small the beginning, gradual the progress, but great and glorious the issue.—Nations shall flock into the Church of Christ, where they will find safety, salvation, peace, and true happiness.—Heubner: The great things of God have always had a small beginning (to outward appearance).—When commencing, in humble confidence on the Lord, what seemeth a small work, always remember that it may grow into a mighty blessing to those who are near, and to those who are afar off. This, indeed, is the proper way of triumphing: a small beginning and a mighty ending. The opposite is a lamentable failure.

C. The Parable of the Leaven.—Christianity the hidden power of regeneration both in the world and in the life of believers.—The Church under the figure of the woman hiding the leaven among the meal: 1. The woman; 2. the leaven; 3. the three measures of meal; 4. the hiding of the leaven among them; 5. the result.—The life from God in its progressive victory over the natural life of the world.—The more fully the leaven is hid, and the more completely it seems to have disappeared, the more rapidly and powerfully does it penetrate and leaven the whole mass.—The work of regeneration: 1. On what it depends (leaven stronger than meal); 2. its process (hidden, gradual, all-subduing); 3. the result (all the measures of meal leavened, the divine life penetrating everywhere and everything).—The regeneration of humanity does not necessarily imply that of every individual.—The higher society as a whole is elevated by Christianity, the lower may the individual sink.—The transformation of the heart must correspond to that of the world.

Starke:—The eye of the Lord is not only upon important affairs of state, but also upon our common and humble employments.—Hedinger: Not only vices, but also good examples are infectious.—If the word of God is to appear in all its power and efficacy it must be mixed with faith in the heart.

Lisco:—Man remains man, but he becomes partaker of the divine nature, 2Pe_1:3-4; and hence an entirely changed being.—This power works invisibly, gradually, effectively, and irresistibly, till the whole nature of man, from its principle to its individual faculties, is penetrated, transformed, subdued, and assimilated, and until every foreign and ungodly element is expelled.—Indissoluble communion between what is leavened and the leaven: between believers and Christ.

Heubner: The all-penetrating power of the gospel and of its economy, especially of the blood of reconciliation in the death of Jesus.—Even avowed enemies of Christianity have been obliged partly to own the power of the gospel.—Where the leaven of Christianity is wanting, the whole mass will become corrupt.—Each Christian should operate as leaven upon all around.

D. Fulfilment of the prophecy ( Mat_13:34-35).—Christ the revelation.—Christ the revealer of all secrets: 1. Of those of God; 2. of humanity; 3. of the history of the kingdom of God; 4. of the kingdom of heaven.—The parables of Christ revealed secrets of God.—Even the parabolic form used by Christ, partly for concealing the truth, became a new revelation.

Starke:—Osiander: Whenever we see natural things, let us elevate our minds to heavenly realities.—Quesnel: The mysteries which from all eternity had been hid in God, and which from the beginning of the world had been presented in types and prophecies, were at last revealed by Christ, and are more and more fulfilled in and by Him, Rom_16:25.

Footnotes:

[13] Mat_13:24.—[Παρέθηκεν, He set or laid before them another parable as a spiritual riddle, challenging the close attention and solution of the hearers; comp. Mar_4:34, ἐπέλυεν πάντα, he solved all, viz., the parables, E. V.: he expounded all things to his disciples.—P. S.]

[14] Mat_13:24.—B., M., X., al. σπείραντι. [So also Lachmann and Alford, following the Vatican Codex, etc. Tischendorf in his edition of 1859, reads σπείροντι (seminanti, instead of qui seminavit). Perhaps he will in a new edition adopt the other reading, since the Cod. Sinaiticus, as published by him in 1868, reads σπιρ αντι, a provincial (Egyptian?) spelling for σπείραντι, as the same Cod. frequently has ι, for ει, e.g., φοβισθε for φοβεῖσθε in Mat_10:28; Mat_10:31.—P. S.]

[15] Mat_13:25.—Cod. B., [also Cod. Sinait.], Lachmann, Tischendorf: ἐπ έσπειρεν for ἔσπειρε. [Vulg.: superseminsvit; Rhemish Vers.: over sowed; Lange: säete darauf; sowed over the first seed.—P. S.]

[16] Mat_13:25.—[Ζιζάνια (probably a Hebrew word), i.e., darnel; lolium temulentum; Germ.: Lolch, Tollkorn; French: ivroie, so called to indicate the vertigo which it causes when eaten in bread. See the Exeg. Notes. But tares is more popular, as the German Unkraut in Luther’s version is better understood than Lolch or Tollkorn. Hence the propriety of a change in this case might be questioned. I would prefer the term bastard wheat.—P. S.]

[17] Mat_13:27.—[Conant: “The form in the Common Version: didst not thou, gives a false emphasis; for, in the Greek, the negative verb qualifies the verb, and not its subject.”—P. S.]

[18] Mat_13:27.—The ancient testimony is decidedly against the article in τὰ ζιζάνια. [Lange misplaces this note to ver 26, where the critical authorities have the article. The Engl. Vers. is right in both cases.—P. S.]

[19] Mat_13:32.—[In Gr.: μεῖζον τῶν λαχάνων; Lange: grösser als die (andern) Kräuter (alle andern Gartengewächse) i. e., larger than any herb.—P. S.]

[20] Mat_13:34.—B., C., M., [Cod. Sinait], Lachmann, Tischendorf read οὐδέν [instead of οὐκ].

[21] Mat_13:35.—The addition: Isaiah, is false in fact and on critical grounds. [Comp. the critical note in Tischendorf’s large edition in loc., vol. i., p. 59.—P. S.]

[22] Mat_13:36.—Ὁ Ἰησοῦς is an explanatory addition not found in the oldest MSS.

[23] Mat_13:37.—Lit.: He answering said; αὐτοῖς (to them) is omitted in the critical editions.

[24] Mat_13:39.—[Angels, without the article which is omitted in the Greek: ἄγγελοί εἰσιν.—P. S.]

[25] Mat_13:40.—Lachmann, Tischendorf, following B., C., D., al., read simply τοῦ αἰῶνος [omitting τούτου. Alford, however, retains it against the decided weight of authorities, including Cod. Sinait.—P. S.]

[26] Mat_13:43.—[Shine forth, ἐκ λάμψουσιν, which is more than λάμψουσι, effulgebunt (not simply: fulgebunt, is the Latin Vulg. translates), herrorslrahlen, and signifies the sudden bursting forth of the inherent glory of the righteaus. Comp. Dan_12:3, and Meyer in loc.—P. S.]

[27][It should be observed that the Saviour says: “while men slept,” not: “while the men (belonging to the owner of the field). or the servants slept:” and that, in the exposition of the parable. He brings so charge of negligence against them, although there is, alas! always more or less of it in all ages and branches of the church. Trench: “The phrase is equivalent to ‘at night,’ and must not be further urged (Job_33:15; Mar_4:27). This enemy seized his opportunity, when all eyes were closed in sleep, and wrought the secret mixbief upon which he was intent, and having wrought it undetected, withdrew.” So also Alford.—P. S.]

[28][And to a very considerable size, in the fertile soil of Palestine, as high as the horses heads.—P. S.]

[29][But the Salvadora Persica was also found by Irby and Mangles on or near the peninsula of the Dead Sea. See Royle in Journal of Sacred Lit., 1849. p. 271, and Robinson, Dict. sub σίναπι. But if the mustard-tree had been intended, it would hardly have been numbered among the herbs, λάχανα, Mat_13:32, which grow in the garden.—P. S.]

[30][Augustin, and quite recently Slier, refer it to the three sons of Noah.—P. S.]

[31][The mediæval divines who defended the capital punishment of heretics, found a loophole in the words: lest ye root up also the wheat with them; from which they inferred that the prohibition was binding only conditionally. But unfortunately for this inference, the Saviour continues: Let both grow together until the harvest, and makes no exceptions at all. On the other hand, however, this passage must not be abused and misunderstood so as to sanction the Erastian latitudinarianism and to undermine discipline which is elsewhere solemnly enjoined by Christ and the apostles, and is indispensable for the spiritual prosperity of the Church.—P. S.]

[32][So already St. Ambrose (Expos. in Luc. vii). Trench (Notes. p. 115) remarks: “In and through the Church the Spirit’s work proceeds: only as the Spirit dwells in the Church (Rev_22:17) is that able to mingle a nobler element in the mass of humanity, in the world.” .. “The woman took the leaven from elsewhere to mingle it with the lump: and even such is the gospel, a kingdom not of this world, not the unfolding of any powers which already existed therein, a kingdom not rising, as the secular kingdoms, ‘out of the earth’ (Dan_7:17), but a new power brought into the world from above; not a philosophy, but a Revelation.”—P. S.]

[33][Lange calls it Weltkirche, by which he does not mean either the church secularized nor the various established or state-churches. But the large body of nominal Christendom.—P. S.]

[34][Dr. Trench (p. 16) aptly illustrates this feature of the parable from the early history of Christianity, whose working below the surface of society was long hidden from the view of the heathen writers and yet went on with irresistible force until the whole Roman world was leavened by it. And yet the external conversion of the empire was only a part of the work. Besides this, there was the eradication of innumerable heathen opinions, practices, and customs which had entwined their fibres round the very heart of society. This work was never thoroughly accomplished till the whole structure of Roman society went to pieces, and the new Teutonic civilization was erected on its ruins.—P. S.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 13:24-43.

The Tares, The Mustard-Seed, The Leaven

After explaining the parable of the Sower, our Lord proceeds to utter several other parables. The first three of these were clearly spoken on the same occasion as that of the Sower; for the ’multitudes’ of Mat 13:34 and Mat 13:36 seem to be plainly the same as those of Mat 13:2; and the ’house’ of Mat 13:36 the same as that of Mat 13:1; the language of Mat 13:51 and Mat 13:54 makes it probable that the other three also were spoken on the same occasion. Mark (Mar 4:26-29) has at this point another parable drawn from sowing seed, which forms a sort of pair with that of the Sower. Here then are eight parables, in four pairs, since that of the Net closely resembles that of the Tares. Keim urges that the parables of the Mustard-seed and the Leaven, asserting the victorious extension of the kingdom of heaven throughout the world, could not have been delivered in the same breath with the Sower and the Tares, which are "resigned and melancholy." But why may not the Great Teacher have naturally introduced more hopeful views for needed relief to his own mind and to his hearers? Such quick reactions of strong feeling easily occur. There is thus here no occasion for rejecting Matthew’s order.

I. Mat 13:24-30. The Parable Of The Tares Given

Put he forth unto, or set before, them, an image derived from setting food before persons, as the word is used in Mar 8:6 Act 16:34, 1Co 10:27. (Compare Mat 13:51) Jerome carries out the image, comparing the different parables to different articles of food, suited to one guest or another. ’Them’ here means not the disciples only, (Mat 13:10) but the people in general again. (Mat 13:34, Mat 13:36) As to the parable of the Tares (which is given by Matthew only), we must notice here the illustration itself, reserving its interpretation for the Notes on Mat 13:37-43.

The kingdom of heaven is likened, literally, was likened. This kingdom or reign has been already begun, and so the resemblance may be spoken of as existing in the past. Or, we may understand it in the sense that the kingdom of heaven was likened, became like, and so is now like. Nicholson understands it to mean that some such parable as this already existed; and so in Mat 18:23 and Mat 22:2. But the phrase does not at all require such a supposition, and while Jesus used some current ideas and expressions, there is no reason elsewhere to suppose that he borrowed an entire illustration; and this parable and that of Mat 22:2, are in themselves particularly unlikely to have been given by any previous teacher, being so utterly at variance with current Jewish thought and feeling. The future tense is used, shall be like (likened), in Mat 7:24, Mat 7:26, Mat 11:16, Mat 25:1; and the present tense in Mat 11:16, Mat 13:31-52, Mat 20:1. Unto a man. The Messianic reign (Mat 3:2) resembles not simply the man who sowed, but the parable as a whole; the comparison is simply affirmed, here and elsewhere, with reference to the leading personage of the story, or the object it is natural to mention first. Compare Mat 13:44-45, Mat 13:47, Mat 18:23, Mat 20:1, Mat 25:1. But while men slept, (compare Job 33:15) viz., at night, when there was none to observe. There is no reference to any particular men as negligently sleeping; it is simply meant that the enemy selected an opportunity for secretly doing an injury. The word rendered tares has been the subject of much discussion, but it is pretty generally agreed that it denotes darnel, a plant of the same family as wheat, and not readily distinguished from it in the early stages. Jerome, who lived in Palestine AD. 385-420, states that it was quite difficult to distinguish them until the head of the wheat appeared. Robinson, journeying in Galilee in April, 1852, says, "Our path now lay through fields of wheat of the most luxuriant growth; finer than which I had not before seen in this or any other country. Among these splendid fields of grain are still found the tares spoken of in the New Testament. As described to me, they are not to be distinguished from the wheat until the ear appears. The seed resembles wheat in form; but is smaller and black. In Beirut poultry are fed upon this seed; and it is kept for sale for that purpose. When this is not separated from the wheat, bread made from the flour often causes dizziness to those who eat of it. All this corresponds with the lolium temulentum, or bearded darnel." So the seeds of the tares were not merely useless for human food, but noxious, which tact (Plumptre) adds to the point of the parable. Thomson, ii., p. 395, says that often "the roots of the two plants are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate them without plucking up both." The notion that the tares were a degenerate wheat, and by cultivation could be made to become wheat again, has been very pleasing to some minds, because it corresponds to the fact that wicked men are fallen and may be restored. Such a notion as to darnel appears in the Talmud, and is entertained by some persons in Palestine now; and also by some American wheat growers as to what they call "cheat." But (Thomson) it is not supported by adequate evidence, and the fancy may be abandoned without regret, for it would introduce an idea quite apart from the design of the parable. Among the wheat, in the Greek a strong expression, all through the midst of the wheat—making the separation particularly difficult. And went his way, away, so that no one knew what he had done. This practice of sowing noxious seeds in an enemy’s wheat field is said to be still found in the East, though Thomson has never been able to hear of an instance,—and is not unknown in other countries. The blade, the word rendered grass in Mat 6:30, Mat 14:19. And brought forth fruit, not here the ripe grain, but the heads containing the grain, which would show the character of the plant. Servants, slaves, see on "Mat 8:6". Householder, see on "Mat 10:25", where it is rendered ’master of the house.’ Sir, see on "Mat 8:2". An enemy, literally as in margin Rev. Ver., a man hat is an enemy. The harvest, more exactly, the season of harvest, see on "Mat 11:25". Gather together and gather in Mat 13:30 represent different words, but amounting to the same thing; the first might be translated ’collect.’ Into my barn, rendered ’garner’ in Mat 3:12.

We might suppose that so many different parables spoken on the same occasion would confuse the minds of the hearers, and thus fail to be understood or remembered. But only a part of them were spoken to the people at large, (Mat 13:36) and these not in immediate succession. (Mat 13:10 Mar 4:10)

II. Mat 13:31-33. Parables Of The Mustard Seed And The Leaven

The former is found also in Mar 4:30-32; and both in Luk 13:18-21, as spoken on a later occasion. Some critics wonder why other parables were introduced between the parable of the Tares and the interpretation of it. Do not these, in correcting a common Jewish error, help to prepare the mind for understanding the important correction and instruction given by the parable of the Tares? Lutteroth suggests that the disciples, after the rebuke of Mar 4:13, delayed asking the interpretation to see if they could think it out; a notion which may not be wholly fanciful. Probably they did see the meaning of the parables of the Mustard-seed and the Leaven, which is comparatively obvious, and so did not ask an interpretation of them. (Mat 13:36) It will be found interesting to compare the four successive parables derived from the growth of seeds, viz., the Sower, the Tares, the Seed growing of itself, (Mar 4:26-29) the Mustard-seed.

Put forth, etc. Set before them, see on "Mat 13:24". The kingdom of heaven, the Messianic reign, see on "Mat 3:2". A grain of mustard-seed. This is most likely the common mustard, which in the hot countries of the East is sometimes found eight or ten feet high. Thomson : "I have seen it on the rich plains of Akkar as tall as the horse and his rider." Hackett ("Illustrations of Scripture") saw stalks seven and nine feet high, and before his eyes a bird came and perched on a branch and sung. (Compare Clark.) Theme son, ii., p. 163, mentions one that was more than twelve feet high. Some expressions in the Talmud go beyond this, but Edersheim accounts for them as exaggerations. Maldonatus (sixteenth century) speaks of seeing great mustard-plants in Spain, with numerous birds sitting on the branches and eagerly devouring the seeds. Meyer and others think that a tree is meant, now called Salvadora Persica, which abounds on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. It grows twenty-five feet high, but has a small seed of pungent taste, used for the same purposes as mustard. But if a real tree were meant, it would be useless to say that it "is greater than the herbs, and becomes a tree." So we must understand the real mustard-plant. Field, the Greek denoting a piece of cultivated ground, whether large or small. Less than all seeds is equivalent to a superlative (as in Mat 11:11). Greatest among—literally greater than the—herbs must be taken strictly as a comparative; it rises above its own class of plants, and becomes a tree. The birds of the air, or heaven, see on "Mat 6:26". Lodge, or ’make their habitations,’ see on "Mat 8:20", and compare Dan 4:12 Psa 104:12. The branches thereof, rather its branches, see on "Mat 6:34". The mustard-seed seems to have been proverbially used to represent anything very small, (compare Mat 17:20 Luk 17:6) as we find it so used (Lightfoot, Edersheim) in the Rabbinical writers. A Buddhist writing says (Luketteroth): "Meru, the greatest of mountains, never bows before a mustard-plant." Our Lord is of course not asserting it as a scientific fact, that this is smaller than all other seeds in the world, but is speaking popularly, this being the smallest that his hearers were accustomed to sow, or the smallest that produced a large plant.

No interpretation of this parable is given, but its application is plain from the nature of the case. It represents the growth of Christianity in the world, from small beginnings, to vast dimensions at last. Some understand it as representing also the gradual progress of piety in the individual; but the use of the phrase ’kingdom of heaven’ throughout this series of parables, and in the Gospels at large, appears to confine the view to the former thought. The disciples and other Jews, clinging to the notion of a vast and splendid earthly kingdom, would think it very strange that Messiah’s reign should begin so quietly, and on so small a scale; and in this parable, and that of the Leaven, our Lord wishes to impress it upon them that though small in its beginnings, the Messianic kingdom was destined to attain a vast extent. If the disciples were discouraged by the blasphemous accusation of that morning, and by the parables of the Sower and the Tares, which indicated that but few would become subjects of Christ’s reign, these other two would re-assure them. And did not Jesus need to comfort himself, amid such small beginnings and slow progress? We see the original circumstances under which the parable was spoken well reproduced now, at the first introduction of Christianity into some great heathen nations. Not only the heathen themselves, but irreligious sailors, merchants, and travellers from our own country, often sneer at the idea that a few insignificant men, by means of so feeble a thing as preaching, should expect to change a mighty people. Yet it is from similar small beginnings that there has gradually grown up the Christianity and the civilization of Europe and America at the present time.—Some expositors, following certain Fathers, find great significance in the sharp, pungent qualities of the mustard-seed as illustrating the fact that Christianity, though small, would prove very efficacious and impressive; but this is quite beside the point of the parable; and even if any one should regard the idea as in itself worth notice, he must accept it as merely a fancy, and not as a part of the Saviour’s teaching. Nor are we to find any distinct spiritual meaning in the birds lodging in the branches, which simply shows in a vivid way how large and strong the plant becomes. Several passages of the Old Testament represent an extensive kingdom by a great tree, with the birds dwelling among its branches. Eze 17:22-24, Eze 31:8-14 Dan 4:10 ff.

Mat 13:33. The parable of the Leaven is given here by Matt. only; Luke (Luk 13:20 f.) records it at also spoken on a later occasion. Leaven, see on "Mat 16:6". Meal, rather what we now call ’flour,’ compare on Mat 12:1. Measures. The Greek word corresponds to a common Hebrew measure of things dry, called seah, holding (Josephus,"Ant." 9, 4, 5,) nearly a peck and a half (margin); so that ’three measures’ would be rather more than our bushel; but the size varied in different parts of Palestine. (Edersheim) It contributes to the vividness of the parabolic narrative, that it does not merely say "a large quantity," but names some particular quantity; and we may infer from Gen 18:6 Jdg 6:19, 1Sa 1:24, that three seahs (equal to one ephah) was a quantity often taken to make up, the custom being to bake at once enough for several days. To find a special spiritual meaning in the number three, would seem to us ridiculous; yet some great men among the Fathers, and some fanciful modern expositors, have actually made it signify Jews, Greeks, and Samaritans; or Asia, Europe, and Africa (how about America, now?); or the three sons of Noah; or body, soul, and spirit, etc. So with the attempts to give separate significance to the woman, when it was a matter of course to speak of a woman, and not of a man, making up bread. If the woman here denotes "the church," what is denoted by the man in Mat 13:31 ?—The general meaning of this parable is the same as that of the preceding. A small bit of leaven, completely hidden from view in the great mass of dough, would finally leaven the whole; and so Christianity, with its small and obscure beginnings, would pervade the whole race of mankind. There is a like gradual progress of piety in the individual, but that does not seem to be the point here in view. A slight but just distinction has been pointed out between this parable and that of the Grain of Mustard. That represents the expansion of the Christian community into vast dimensions; this the assimilating diffusion of Christianity through the vast mass of humanity; the one is extensive, the other intensive.—Because leaven is frequently used in Scripture as the symbol of things corrupting and pernicious, (Mat 16:6; Luk 12:1 Gal 5:9; 1Co 5:6; and often Old Testament) and nowhere but here used in a good sense, some have strangely tried to interpret it here as denoting the corruptions which should arise in connection with Christianity. But can there be only one possible figurative use of an object? The lion represents Satan, and also the Saviour; but no one would fancy in the same sense. (Compare on Mat 3:11)

III. Mat 13:34 f. A Prediction Of Speaking In Parables

All these things, with no special emphasis on ’all.’ Unto the multitudes, or crowds, (see Mat 13:2) and not merely to the disciples (compare on Mat 13:36). Spake he nothing is the correct Greek text, instead of spake he not, which is taken from the parallel passage of Mark. (Mar 4:34) It must be meant simply that on this occasion he said nothing to them except in parables; we know that on other occasions, afterwards as well as before, he frequently spoke to the people in unparabolic language. ’Spake’ is in Greek an imperfect, describing his practice on that occasion.—Here again, as in so many other instances, Matt. pauses to point out the fulfilment in Jesus of an Old Testament prediction. That it might be fulfilled, see on "Mat 1:22" This expression requires us to understand a real fulfilment of a real prediction—unless that idea could be shown to be in the given case impossible—and a fulfilment designedly brought about in the course of providence. It is difficult, in the present instance, to discern the prophetic relation, but it is not impossible. By the prophet,[1] more exactly through, compare on Mat 2:5. The quotation is from Psa 78:2. Many of the Psalms are prophetic, and the Psalmist David is expressly called a prophet. (Act 2:30) The writer of this Psalm is given by the heading as Asaph, and he in 2Ch 29:30 is called the seer, equivalent to prophet. (1Sa 9:9) The Psalm relates the history of Israel, and points out its lessons; but Israel was typical of the Messiah (see above on "Mat 2:15"), and so the passage might contain a prophetic reference to him, which the inspired Evangelist informs us it did contain. He states it as a part of the divine purpose, in our Lord’s adoption of the parabolic method of instruction, that there should be a fulfilment of that prophetic saying. Unless we can show that there was no such prophetic relation, we must certainly accept the Evangelist’s statement. I will utter. The Greek word means to belch, to vomit, to pour out copious speech, and this last corresponds to the Hebrew. From the foundation of the world.[2] The Hebrew has a phrase usually signifying ’from antiquity,’ and thus naturally applying in the Psalmist’s use to the early history of the nation (so Sept. ’from the beginning’); but the phrase also signifies ’from eternity as in Deu 33:27; Psa 55:19, and in the prophetic application might perhaps be understood in that sense, to which the Evangelist’s expression is equivalent. (Compare on Mat 1:23)

[1] ’Through Isaiah the prophet’ is the reading of à (first hand), several important cursives, one codex of the Ethiopic; it is quoted in the Clementine homilies (latter part of second century), and said by Eusebius and Jerome to have been found in some copies of the Gospel Jerome states that Porphyry cited it as showing the ignorance of Matthew. Transcriptional probability would at once favour this, for it is easy to suppose so obvious an error to have been corrected by copyists (compare Mat 27:9; Mar 1:2). On the other hand, no prophet being named, some one might have felt moved to insert the name of the greatest prophet. It is also possible that some reader, observing the actual source of the quotation, might have inserted Asaph; and that then (as Eusebius and Jerome suggest) others, not having heard of such a prophet, should change it to the somewhat similar name Isaiah. With these conflicting transcriptional probabilities, and external evidence so slender, it seems right to fall back on the intrinsic improbability (apart fromall theories of inspiration) that an intelligent writer like Matthew and a special student of prophecy, would commit so manifest an error. ’Isaiah’ is lead by Tischendorf (following à) and by Westcott Hort margin; and strongly favoured by Hort in Appendix.

[2] ’Of the world’ should probably be omitted, with à (second hand) B, two cursives, Old Syriac, some copies of Old Latin, and some Fathers. ’From the foundation’ would really mean this, and ’of the world’ would be easily added by copyists from Mat 25:34, where there is no variation of the reading.

IV. Mat 13:36-43. Interpretation Of The Parable Of The Tares

Sent away. Rev. Ver. renders, he left. The multitude, the crowds, as in Mat 5:1. These or similar crowds had heard the parables of the Sower, the Tares, the Mustard-seed and the Leaven, though not the explanation of the first (see on "Mat 13:10"); also the other parable given by Mark (Mar 4:26 ff.) Now the disciples alone are to hear the explanation of the parable of the Tares, and also to hear the three other parables that follow. His disciples were probably not merely the Twelve, but others also. (See on "Mat 13:10".) The name Jesus at the beginning of Mat 13:36, does not appear in many of the best authorities, and was doubtless added by some early readers, because this was the beginning of a church "lesson," and so the name was apparently needed. The same thing has happened in various other passages, at the beginning of lessons. Into the house, probably the house mentioned in Mat 13:1, which may have been (Mar 3:20) the house at Capernaum which he usually occupied, viz., that of Simon Peter. (Compare on Mat 4:13 and Mat 8:14) Declare, explain is doubtless the correct reading (first hand, B, Origen,) having been changed to make it agree with Mat 15:15. The parable of the tares of the field. This designation shows that the disciples had seized the most characteristic feature of the illustration. Answered and said, without unto them, an unnecessary addition of many documents. For explanation of the terms and allusions of the parable itself, compare on Mat 13:24-30.

The Jews, including our Lord’s disciples, would naturally think, with their rooted notions of Messiah’s reign, that he would promptly destroy all those who did not submit to his authority, as was common with Oriental conquerors, as David himself was known to have done. Their views and feelings are illustrated by the wish of James and John to call down fire from heaven and consume the Samaritan village, for refusing to receive Jesus. They might strengthen themselves (Weiss) in this view by supposing that the Messianic discrimination predicted by John the Baptist (Mat 3:10-12) would be the first part of the Messianic work, and would be performed in a wholesale fashion. The contrary has already been intimated by the parable of the Sower, and by those of the Mustard-seed and the Leaven, all showing that the Messianic operation would be gradual, and upon individuals. And it is distinctly set forth by the present parable, which declares that while the refuse him allegiance, but suffers righteous, and wicked to live on together in the world, and intertwined in the relations of life, (Mat 13:23) yet he will hereafter effectually separate them, and deal with each class according to their deserts. The Messianic discrimination is to take place not at the beginning, but at the end of the present dispensation, when the unmixed wheat will be gathered into the garner, (Mat 13:30 having the same phrase as Mat 3:12) We have seen (on Mat 3:2) that the word rendered ’kingdom’ is inadequately expressed by that one term, but includes also what we mean by ’kingship’ and ’reign,’ one idea or another being especially prominent in different cases. Here the kingdom of heaven (Mat 13:24) denotes especially the Messianic reign, and the parable sets forth some things that will occur in the world in connection with that reign. But overlooking these facts, and thinking always of the kingdom as implying an organization of subjects, the Christian world has largely fallen into the habit of confounding the kingdom of heaven, here and often elsewhere, with what is popularly called "the visible church," i.e., the totality of professed believers. Hence most expositors from an early period, have understood the parable as teaching that in "the church" we must have righteous and wicked together. The tendency to understand it in this Way was strengthened by Constantine’s adoption of Christianity as a plank in his political platform, leading to what in modern times we call a Church Establishment, in which all are held as church-members, and exclusion from a church, such as the New Testament sometimes enjoins (1Co 5:4 f.; 1Co 2:5-8; Mat 18:17 ff.), becomes impossible. Still a third cause affected the interpretation. When the Donatists undertook to excommunicate all persons known to be evil, and in the case of traditores, who had given up copies of Scripture to be burned during the persecutions, were unwilling ever to restore them to the church connection, Augustine wrote against their views a great number of treatises, in which he constantly appealed to this parable, as showing that good and evil persons must dwell together in the church. He says the Donatist bishops would reply, "It does not refer to the church; the Lord said, the field is the world, not, the field is the church." But Augustine would say that the world here means the church. They contended that the world is always used in a bad sense, quoting many testimonies from Scripture, as "If any man love the world," etc.

(1Jn 2:15) But he replied with 2Co 5:19,"God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself "; "and assuredly" (says Aug.), "God reconciles to himself nothing but the church." On one occasion Aug. actually states it as a sign of the church that it contains evil and good mixed together. The influence of the great Latin theologian thus made it a commonplace of Christian controversy and exposition that the parable of the Tares describes the church as containing good and bad, and teaches that church discipline must not attempt-to have it otherwise.[1] All the commentators at the time of the Reformation, and almost all since that time, have been connected with some State Church, and would readily adopt the current interpretation, because it accorded with their education and surroundings. But this cannot be a correct view of the parable, for our Lord’s interpretation, as the Donatists urged, expressly declares, "The field is the world." It is very true that in any church there are likely to be members who are not true Christians, and whom it is often difficult for us to detect; but Augustine’s interpretation would make the parable teach that when detected, and clearly known, we must not exclude them. Now the point of the parable is not that obviously wicked men are to live on as recognized subjects of Christ’s kingdom, regarded as a definite organization—i.e., as members of his churches—but that he suffers them, under or during his reign, to live on in the world, instead of being at once destroyed, as the Jews expected. This would explain to the disciples, for example, why he who could work miracles had that morning allowed himself to be insulted and blasphemed, and had only given a solemn warning instead of blasting with instant destruction. It would also give another reason why the Messianic work was moving slowly. One reason already given was that many receive the ’word of the kingdom’ improperly (parable of the Sower); now another reason is that while the Son of man sows wheat in the world, the devil, in the same field (the world), sows tares, all in among the wheat.

[1] The first statement of this interpretation we have found is in Cyprian, Epistola 51, "Although tares are seen in the church, that ought not to hinder our faith or our charity, nor cause us to quit the church." Tertullian, "de Fuga in persecutione," calls the threshing-floor of Mat 3:12 the church, in which persecution discerns between the wheat of martyrs and the chaff of deniers. Origen says (on Matthew—the extant portion begins just here): "The whole world might be called (the) field, and not the church of God only; for in all the world the Son of man sowed good seed, and the evil one the tares." Irenaeus, iv. 66, refers the parable to the introduction of evil among men by Satan. Hermas, "Simil." iii., iv., v. 2 and 5, gives kindred illustrations evidently founded on this parable, using the phrase, "The field is the world," and describing the presence of good and bad men together in the world. The application to the church was known to Origen, but apparently owed its wide acceptance to Cyprian, who did so much to develop the church idea. His saying is repeatedly quoted by Augustine, as high authority froma martyr. Augustine’s numerous treatises and letters against the Donatists nearly all appeal to this parable, but his fullest statements are in the "Breviculus Collationis cumi Donatisti," and the "Ad Donatistas post Collationem." Optatus, whose idea of the church appears to precede that of Augustine and to have been developed independently of Cyprian, says, ("de Schismate Donatislarum," vii., 2), "The field is the whole world, in which is the church"—a more reasonable conception than that of Augustine.—Gregory Naz. in several hymns speaks of sowing tares on earth and in the soul, but does not refer to the church. Chrysostom (on Matthew) understands the church, arguing that the present world also is Christ’s, and takes the tares to mean heretics, an idea hinted at in Basil also.—It would be well if some specialist in Church Hist. would fully work out the history of the early interpretation of this parable.

The mistaken view of this parable above condemned finds apparent support in the phrase ’shall gather out of his kingdom’ (see on "Mat 13:41"), and in the parable of the Net. (Mat 13:47 ff.)

Our Lord’s interpretation comprises (Goebel) two distinct parts. In Mat 13:37-39 a meaning is separately and briefly assigned to each leading object and person in the story. In Mat 13:40-43, the final stage of the spiritual situation meant to be illustrated is vividly described by a series of events.

Mat 13:37-39. The Son of man, i.e. he Messiah, see on "Mat 8:20". The field is the world, here the common Greek term kosmos, having as broad and general a sense as our English term world. Our Lord’s personal ministry was restricted to Palestine, though including some Gentiles; but his work was to be afterwards extended into ’all the world’, (Mar 16:15) among ’all nations,’. (Mat 28:19) The good seed, i.e., of course, the plants springing from the iced. The children (sons) of the kingdom (compare on Mat 8:12), those who have a right to the privileges of the Messianic reign, as if they were its very offspring. But in Mat 8:12 the phrase represents those who were entitled, as it were, by birth, to the Messianic privileges (viz., the Jews), but many of whom would be cast out; while here it is those who are truly the subjects of Messiah by the new birth. (compare Mat 21:43) And so the children (sons) of the wicked one, see on "Mat 13:19" and see on "Mat 6:13", are those who as closely resemble Satan, and are as completely under his control, as is the case of children towards their father. (Compare Joh 8:44, 1Jn 5:19) The devil, see on "Mat 4:1". Evil in the human race owes its origin to Satan. As to the reasons why God permitted its original appearance in the universe, speculation has scarcely proven satisfactory, and Scripture is silent. Some argue that the parable must refer to "the church," because the person who sowed the good seed is the Messiah, and the enemy sowed afterwards; while in the world there had been sons of the evil one long before the Saviour’s appearing. But no illustration can throw light in all directions. This parable must of course describe tares as sown after wheat, for otherwise the story would have been unnatural. Therefore this illustration could depict only the present and future relations of good and evil in the world, and could not bring within its horizon the past history of the human race. The end of the world. The Greek for ’world’ is not the same as in Mat 13:38, but the same as in Mat 13:22 and Mat 12:32, which, according to Jewish usage, frequently denotes the present period, the existing condition of things, as opposed to some past or future condition of things. The word translated ’end’ denotes completion or consummation (as in margin of Rev. Ver.); see the same phrase in Mat 24:3, Mat 28:20, and ’children of this world’ in Luk 16:8, Luk 20:34. The end or consummation of the present period or state of things will be at our Lord’s second coming, which will open the new and eternal period. And the reapers are the angels, see on "Mat 18:10". The Greek has here no article with ’angels’; the Com. Ver. inserted or omitted the article with great license.—Observe that our Lord’s interpretation takes no account of the men who slept (really meaning people in general, and not implying blame, see on "Mat 13:25"), nor of the servants who reported what had happened; many commentators are not content with this, and propose various interpretations, which cannot be expected to reward attention. (Compare as to the interpretation of parables on Mat 13:3)

Mat 13:40-43. Burned with fire is a more probable translation than in the fire (Tyndale and followers), the form being oftener instrumental than locative. (Compare Mat 3:12) In the end of this (properly the) world, the word ’this’ being an unwarranted addition, as in Mat 13:22. The Son of man.... his angels.... his kingdom, suggesting the exalted dignity to which he shall attain who was once despised and rejected.

(Compare on Mat 7:21, Mat 10:32, Mat 12:8, Mat 25:31 ff.) The angels, who now desire to look into the things of salvation, (1Pe 1:12) who rejoice over one sinner that repenteth, (Luk 15:7) who are all ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation, (Heb 1:14) will then have assigned them the solemn task of separating the wicked from among the just, and consigning them to destruction. (Compare Mat 25:31) And they shall gather out of his kingdom. Observe that this points forward to the time of the final judgment. The Messianic dominion wilt then be regarded as virtually extending over the whole world, like God’s universal kingship or reign; (Psa 22:27 f.) the kingship of the world will be our Lord’s and his Christ’s; (Rev 11:15) the kingdom predicted by Daniel will be about to complete its destiny, and fill the whole earth. (Dan 2:35) All that will then be necessary to render this Messianic reign actually universal will be to gather the wicked out of the world, and as the world will then by anticipation be his kingdom, it is said that the angels ’will gather cut of his kingdom,’ etc. (Compare a somewhat similar view in Meyer.) It does not follow from this anticipative expression that the wicked are now within his kingdom regarded as an organization apart from the world. Observe that the problem of interpretation here is to reconcile the phrase ’they shall gather out of his kingdom’ with the clear statement of Mat 13:38, ’the field is the world.’ If we understand ’his kingdom’ in this case to mean what is called "the visible church" throughout its history, then we must either understand ’the world’ in some strained, unnatural sense,[1] or we must utterly confound the visible church with the world; and upon any such interpretation the inevitable result will be that the passage prohibits exclusion from a church, which as we have seen, is elsewhere distinctly enjoined. In some way, then, the phrase ’gather out of his kingdom (reign, dominion, etc.)’ must be interpreted as not meaning "the visible church," or else we bring Scripture into apparently hopeless conflict with itself. It might be enough to say that in one sense all the world is under the Messiah’s dominion, but not in the sense that all men are really his subjects. With ’gather out of his kingdom’ compare in the kindred parable, (Mat 13:49) ’the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the righteous.’ In the present ’age,’ or state of things, the subjects of Christ’s kingdom or reign are mingled in all social and other relations with the wicked. To separate them now, and destroy the wicked—as the Jews might naturally expect of Messiah—to make now the Messianic discrimination, (Mat 3:10-12) would be to break up the whole framework of society. But let no one imagine that this mingling will always continue; the time is approaching when the wicked will be gathered out from among Messiah’s subjects. They were never one-were always, in fact, as distinct as wheat and tares; but they were closely united in the world, their roots intertwined, and they are to be completely separated only when human society as a whole is broken up. This is all meant not as a reason why we should refrain from putting a wicked man out of a church, but as a reason why God refrains from putting him out of the world. We repeat that if the parable did refer to the presence of unrenewed persons in a church, then it would clearly forbid any exclusion from a church-a difficulty, upon that view, which has never been satisfactorily explained. It is idle to say that the parable only forbids very rigid discipline. By confining our view to the natural and obvious meaning of the parable, we free ourselves from all those confused and conflicting notions on the supposed relation of its teachings to church discipline, which have almost buried, beneath a mass of unprofitable discussion, this beautiful and affecting parable of our Lord. All things that offend, that cause stumbling, see on "Mat 5:29". The idea here may be, all those who cause men to sin in general, or specifically, all those who cause men to doubt and question the reality of Christ’s reign, from his allowing such persons to live on in the world. And them which do iniquity, (compare Mat 7:23) this plainer and more general expression being added to the figurative and more explicit one preceding—all the stumbling blocks, and in general, those that do iniquity. The phraseology was perhaps suggested by Zep 1:3. Into a (the) furnace of fire, compare Mat 3:11 Rev 20:15; Jer 29:22; Dan 3:6; and see on "Mat 5:22". A modern traveller speaks of furnaces for punishment in Persia. ’The furnace,’ the definite place of future punishment. There shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth (compare on Mat 8:12), departs from the image of consuming the tares, to introduce another thought of horror, and heighten the terrible picture. The use of various images for future punishment should prevent a crude literalism, and falls in with the important teaching that there will be degrees of punishment. (Luk 12:47.) But the images must be understood as representing something real. Reuss, with his rationalistic freedom, justly remarks that the furnace and the gnashing of teeth stand in the same position as the shining glory of the righteous (Mat 13:43)—both must be accepted as facts as representing realities, or else both alike referred to the mere popular beliefs of the time; one cannot accept the Bible descriptions of heaven as representing realities, and reject those of hell.—No spiritual meaning is to be derived from ’gather up first’ in Mat 13:30, as if showing that the righteous are to witness the destruction of the wicked. Our Lord does not introduce the word ’first’ into Mat 13:41, and in the similar allusion of Mat 13:48 the order is reversed, simply following, in each case, the obvious propriety of the figure. In like manner some expositors gravely discuss the spiritual meaning of binding in bundles, when the author of the parable has entirely omitted it from his exposition. Shine forth as the sun, in purity and glory; compare Dan 12:3, "shall shine as the brightness of the firmament... as the stars for ever and ever." The righteous are opposed to ’those that do iniquity,’ in Mat 13:41. At present, they are often obscure and unnoticed amid the great mass of mankind, imperfectly appreciated and little honoured by the world at large; but then, completely distinct and forever separate from the wicked, they shall shine forth as the sun. In the kingdom of their Father, the consummate and eternal state of the Messianic kingdom or reign (see on "Mat 3:2"), when Christ "shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father... that God maybe all in all." (1Co 15:24, 1Co 15:28, R. V.) He that hath ears to hear, let him hear, calling solemn attention, see on "Mat 11:15".—We learn here that good and bad will both be found intermingled in the world until the consummation of the present age, at the second coming of Christ; which seems quite contrary to the notion of a previous millennium during which all men without exception will be faultless Christians. Compare Luk 18:8.

[1] As when Augustine (see above) says the world means the church; or when Calvin says the world is used by synecdoche, the whole for a part, the world thus denoting the church.

Homiletical And Practical

Mat 13:31 f. The slow progress of Christianity (1) Slow because not a case of manufacture, but of growth. (2) Slow because in an unfriendly soil and clime, an exotic. (3) Slow through the fault of those who ought to tend it more carefully. (4) Slow, but sure.

Mat 13:33. The gradual diffusion of Christianity. (1) Through different spheres of life, spiritual, moral, social, political. (2) Through successive ages of history. (3) Through various quarters of the earth. (4) Destined at last to be universal, in every sense.

Mat 13:34. Jerome: "Even to-day, the multitudes hear in parables; the disciples ask the Saviour at home."

Mat 13:37-43. The righteous and the wicked. (1) Dwelling in the same world. (2) Rooted together in political, social, and family life. (Mat 13:29.) (3) Blessed with the same outward mercies. (Mat 13:35.) (4) Sometimes confounded by superficial observers, but easily distinguished through their fruit. (Mat 13:26.) (5) Sure to be separated in the great coming day, (a) without chance of error, (b) without possibility of reunion, (c) so that the one class shall burn in unquenchable fire, and the other shall shine in unsullied purity and undimmed glory forever.

Mat 13:38. The sons of the kingdom. Arnot: "For their sakes the world is preserved now, and for their sakes it will be destroyed when the set time is come. The darnel is permitted to grow in its season, and in harvest is cast into the fire—both for the sake of the wheat. Because Christ loves his own, he permits the wicked to run their course in time; but because Christ loves his own, he will separate the wicked from the good at last."

Mat 13:39. The enemy. Arnot: "Evil does not belong originally to the constitution of man, nor has God his Maker introduced it. Our case is sad, indeed; for we learn that an enemy whom we cannot overcome is ever lying in wait, seeking how he may devour us. But what would our case have been, if evil, instead of being injected by an enemy from without, had been of the essence of the creature or the act of the Creator?"

Thomas: "The mixture of the good and bad in this world is of service. (1) It is of service to the bad; it keeps them in a position of improvement (2) It is of service to the good; holy character is strengthened and perfected by contact with palpable evil." Parker: "Let us remit our case to the harvest. Do not he answering the fool and the enemy now, and thus wasting opportunities which ought to be usefully employed in endeavouring to do good, but wait till the harvest. Then shall all qualities be tested, then shall every man have his proper place and standing before God."

John A. Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (American Baptist Publication Society, 1886) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Matthew

MINGLED IN GROWTH, SEPARATED IN MATURITY

Mat 13:24 - Mat 13:30.

The first four parables contained in this chapter were spoken to a miscellaneous crowd on the beach, the last three to the disciples in the house. The difference of audience is accompanied with a diversity of subject. The former group deals with the growth of the kingdom, as it might be observed by outsiders, and especially with aspects of the growth on which the multitude needed instruction; the latter, with topics more suited to the inner circle of followers. Of these four, the first three are parables of vegetation; the last, of assimilation. The first two are still more closely connected, inasmuch as the person of the sower is prominent in both, while he is not seen in the others. The general scenery is the same in both, but with a difference. The identification of the seed sown with the persons receiving it, which was hinted at in the first, is predominant in the second. But while the former described the various results of the seed, the latter drops out of sight the three failures, and follows its fortunes in honest and good hearts, showing the growth of the kingdom in the midst of antagonistic surroundings. It may conveniently be considered in three sections: the first teaching how the work of the sower is counter-worked by his enemy; the second, the patience of the sower with the thick-springing tares; and the third, the separation at the harvest.

I. The work of the sower counter-worked by his enemy, and the mingled crops.

The peculiar turn of the first sentence, ‘The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man that sowed,’ etc., suggests that the main purpose of the parable is to teach the conduct of the king in view of the growth of the tares. The kingdom is concentrated in Him, and the ‘likening’ is not effected by the parable, but, as the tenses of both verbs show, by the already accomplished fact of His sowing. Our Lord veils His claims by speaking of the sower in the third person; but the hearing ear cannot fail to catch the implication throughout that He Himself is the sower and the Lord of the harvest. The field is ‘his field,’ and His own interpretation tells us that it means ‘the world.’ Whatever view we take of the bearing of this parable on purity of communion in the visible Church, we should not slur over Christ’s own explanation of ‘the field,’ lest we miss the lesson that He claims the whole world as His, and contemplates the sowing of the seed broadcast over it all. The Kingdom of Heaven is to be developed on, and to spread through, the whole earth. The world belongs to Christ not only when it is filled with the kingdom, but before the sowing. The explanation of the good seed takes the same point of view as in the former parable. What is sown is ‘the word’; what springs from the seed is the new life of the receiver. Men become children of the kingdom by taking the Gospel into their hearts, and thereby receive a new principle of growth, which in truth becomes themselves.

Side by side with the sower’s beneficent work the counter-working of ‘his enemy’ goes on. As the one, by depositing holy truth in the heart, makes men ‘children of the kingdom,’ the other, by putting evil principles therein, makes men ‘children of evil.’ Honest exposition cannot eliminate the teaching of a personal antagonist of Christ, nor of his continuous agency in the corruption of mankind. It is a glimpse into a mysterious region, none the less reliable because so momentary. The sulphurous clouds that hide the fire in the crater are blown aside for an instant, and we see. Who would doubt the truth and worth of the unveiling because it was short and partial? ‘The devil is God’s ape.’ His work is a parody of Christ’s. Where the good seed is sown, there the evil is scattered thickest. False Christs and false apostles dog the true like their shadows. Every truth has its counterfeit. Neither institutions, nor principles, nor movements, nor individuals, bear unmingled crops of good. Not merely creatural imperfection, but hostile adulteration, marks them all. The purest metal oxidises, scum gathers on the most limpid water, every ship’s bottom gets foul with weeds. The history of every reformation is the same: radiant hopes darkened, progress retarded, a second generation of dwarfs who are careless or unfaithful guardians of their heritage.

There are, then, two classes of men represented in the parable, and these two are distinguishable without doubt by their conduct. Tares are said to be quite like wheat until the heads show, and then there is a plain difference. So our Lord here teaches that the children of the kingdom and those of evil are to be discriminated by their actions. We need not do more than point in a sentence to His distinct separation of men {where the seed of the kingdom has been sown} into two sets. Jesus Christ holds the unfashionable, ‘narrow’ opinion that, at bottom, a man must either be His friend or His enemy. We are too much inclined to weaken the strong line of demarcation, and to think that most men are neither black nor white, but grey.

The question has been eagerly debated whether the tares are bad men in the Church, and whether, consequently, the mingled crop is a description of the Church only. The following considerations may help to an answer. The parable was spoken, not to the disciples, but to the crowd. An instruction to them as to Church discipline would have been signally out of place; but they needed to be taught that the kingdom was to be ‘a rose amidst thorns,’ and to grow up among antagonisms which it would slowly conquer, by the methods which the next two parables set forth. This general conception, and not directions about ecclesiastical order, was suited to them. Again, the designation of the tares as ‘the children of evil’ seems much too wide, if only a particular class of evil men-namely, those who are within the Church-are meant by it. Surely the expression includes all, both in and outside the Church, who ‘do iniquity.’ Further, the representation of the children of the kingdom, as growing among tares in the field of the world, does not seem to contemplate them as constituting a distinct society, whether pure or impure; but rather as an indefinite number of individuals, intermingled in a common soil with the other class. ‘The kingdom of heaven’ is not a synonym for the Church. Is it not an anachronism to find the Church in the parable at all? No doubt, tares are in the Church, and the parable has a bearing on it; but its primary lesson seems to me to be much wider, and to reveal rather the conditions of the growth of the kingdom in human society.

II. We have the patience of the husbandman with the quick-springing tares.

The servants of the householder receive no interpretation from our Lord. Their question is silently passed by in His explanation. Clearly then, for some reason, He did not think it necessary to say any more about them; and the most probable reason is, that they and their words have no corresponding facts, and are only introduced to lead up to the Master’s explanation of the mystery of the growth of the tares, and to His patience with it. The servants cannot be supposed to represent officials in the Church, without hopelessly destroying the consistency of the parable; for surely all the children of the kingdom, whatever their office, are represented in the crop. Many guesses have been made,-apostles, angels, and so on. It is better to say ‘The Lord hath not showed it me.’

The servant’s first question expresses, in vivid form, the sad, strange fact that, where good was sown, evil springs. The deepest of all mysteries is the origin of evil. Explain sin, and you explain everything. The question of the servants is the despair of thinkers in all ages. Heaven sows only good; where do the misery and the wickedness come from? That is a wider and sadder question than, How are churches not free from bad members? Perhaps Christ’s answer may go as far towards the bottom of the bottomless as those of non-Christian thinkers, and, if it do not solve the metaphysical puzzles, at any rate gives the historical fact, which is all the explanation of which the question is susceptible.

The second question reminds us of ‘Wilt Thou that we command fire. . . from heaven, and consume them?’ It is cast in such a form as to put emphasis on the householder’s will. His answer forbidding the gathering up of the tares is based, not upon any chance of mistaking wheat for them, nor upon any hope that, by forbearance, tares may change into wheat, but simply on what is best for the good crop. There was a danger of destroying some of it, not because of its likeness to the other, but because the roots of both were so interlaced that one could not be pulled up without dragging the other after it.

Is this prohibition, then, meant to forbid the attempt to keep the Church pure from un-Christian members? The considerations already adduced are valid in answering this question, and others may be added. The crowd of listeners had, no doubt, many of them, been influenced by John the Baptist’s fiery prophecies of the King who should come, fan in hand, to ‘purge His floor,’ and were looking for a kingdom which was to be inaugurated by sharp separation and swift destruction. Was not the teaching needed then, as it is now, that that is not the way in which the kingdom of heaven is to be founded and grow? Is not the parable best understood when set in connection with the expectations of its first hearers, which are ever floating anew before the eyes of each generation of Christians? Is it not Christ’s apologia for His delay in filling the r? which John had drawn out for him? And does that conception of its meaning make it meaningless for us? Observe, too, that the rooting up which is forbidden is, by the proprieties of the emblem, and by the parallel which it must necessarily afford to the final burning, something very solemn and destructive. We may well ask whether excommunication is a sufficiently weighty idea to be taken as its equivalent. Again, how does the interpretation which sees ecclesiastical discipline here comport with the reason given for letting the tares grow on? By the hypothesis in the parable, there is no danger of mistake; but is there any danger of casting out good men from the Church along with the bad, except through mistake? Further, if this parable forbids casting manifestly evil men out of the Church, it contradicts the divinely appointed law of the Church as administered by the apostles. If it is to be applied to Church action at all, it absolutely forbids the separation from the Church of any man, however notoriously un-Christian, and that, as even the strongest advocates of comprehension admit, would destroy the very idea of the Church. Surely an interpretation which lands us in such a conclusion cannot be right. We conclude, then, that the intermingling which the parable means is that of good men and bad in human society, where all are so interwoven that separation is impossible without destroying its whole texture; that the rooting up, which is declared to be inconsistent with the growth of the crop, means removal from the field, namely, the world; that the main point of the second part of the parable is to set forth the patience of the Lord of the harvest, and to emphasise this as the law of the growth of His kingdom, that it advances amidst antagonism; and that its members are interlaced by a thousand rootlets with those who are not subjects of their King. What the interlacing is for, and whether tares may become wheat, are no parts of its teaching. But the lesson of the householder’s forbearance is meant to be learned by us. While we believe that the scope of the parable is wider than instruction in Church discipline, we do not forget that a fair inference from it is that, in actual churches, there will ever be a mingling of good and evil; and, though that fact is no reason for giving up the attempt to make a church a congregation of faithful men, and of such only, it is a reason for copying the divine patience of the sower in ecclesiastical dealings with errors of opinion and faults of conduct.

III. The final separation at the harvest.

The period of development is necessarily a time of intermingling, in which, side by side, the antagonistic principles embodied in their representatives work themselves out, and beneficially affect each other. But each grows towards an end, and, when it has been reached, the blending gives place to separation. John’s prophecy is plainly quoted in the parable, which verbally repeats his ‘gather the wheat into his barn,’ and alludes to his words in the other clause about burning the tares. He was right in his anticipations; his error was in expecting the King to wield His fan at the beginning, instead of at the end of the earthly form of His kingdom. At the consummation of the allotted era, the bands of human society are to be dissolved, and a new principle of association is to determine men’s place. Their moral and religious affinities will bind them together or separate them, and all other ties will snap. This marshalling according to religious character is the main thought of the solemn closing words of the parable and of its interpretation, in which our Lord presents Himself as directing the whole process of judgment by means of the ‘angels’ who execute His commands. They are ‘His angels,’ and whatever may be the unknown activity put forth by them in the parting of men, it is all done in obedience to Him. What stupendous claims Jesus makes here! What becomes of the tares is told first in words awful in their plainness, and still more awful in their obscurity. They speak unmistakably of the absolute separation of evil men from all society but that of evil men; of a close association, compelled, and perhaps unwelcome. The tares are gathered out of ‘His kingdom,’-for the field of the world has then all become the kingdom of Christ. There are two classes among the tares: men whose evil has been a snare to others {for the ‘things that offend’ must, in accordance with the context, be taken to be persons}, and the less guilty, who are simply called ‘them that do iniquity.’

Perhaps the ‘bundles’ may imply assortment according to sin, as in Dante’s circles. What a bond of fellowship that would be! ‘The furnace,’ as it is emphatically called by eminence, burns up the bundles. We may freely admit that the fire is part of the parable, but yet let us not forget that it occurs not only in the parable, but in the interpretation; and let us learn that the prose reality of ‘everlasting destruction,’ which Christ here solemnly announces, is awful and complete. For a moment He passes beyond the limits of that parable, to add that terrible clause about ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth,’ the tokens of despair and rage. So spoke the most loving and truthful lips. Do we believe His warnings as well as His promises?

The same law of association according to character operates in the other region. The children of the kingdom are gathered together in what is now ‘the kingdom of My Father,’ the perfect form of the kingdom of Christ, which is still His kingdom, for ‘the throne of God and of the Lamb,’ the one throne on which both sit to reign, is ‘in it.’ Freed from association with evil, they are touched with a new splendour, caught from Him, and blaze out like the sun; for so close is their association, that their myriad glories melt as into a single great light. Now, amid gloom and cloud, they gleam like tiny tapers far apart; then, gathered into one, they flame in the forehead of the morning sky, ‘a glorious church, not having spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

parable

This parable Mat 13:24-30 is also interpreted by our Lord Mat 13:36-43. Here the "good seed" is not the "word," as in the first parable Mat 13:19; Mat 13:23 but rather that which the word has produced. 1Pe 1:23, viz.: the children of the kingdom. These are, providentially Mat 13:37 "sown," i.e. scattered, here and there in the "field" of the "world" Mat 13:38. The "world" here is both geographical and ethnic--the earth-world, and also the world of men. The wheat of God at once becomes the scene of Satan’s activity. Where children of the kingdom are gathered, there "among the wheat" Mat 13:25; Mat 13:38; Mat 13:39. Satan "sows" "children of the wicked one," who profess to be children of the kingdom, and in outward ways are so like the true children that only the angels may, in the end, be trusted to separate them Mat 13:28-30; Mat 13:40-43. So great is Satan’s power of deception that the tares often really suppose themselves to be children of the kingdom Mat 7:21-23. Many other parables and exhortations have this mingled condition in view (e.g.)

Mat 22:11-14; Mat 25:1-13; Mat 25:14-30; Luk 18:10-14; Heb 6:4-9

Indeed, it characterizes Matthew from Chapter 13 to the end. The parable of the wheat and tares is not a description of the world, but of that which professes to be the kingdom. Mere unbelievers are never the children of the devil, but only religious unbelievers are so called (cf) Mat 13:38; Joh 8:38-44; Mat 23:15.

The kingdom (See Scofield "Mat 3:2").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

THE TARES

Mat 13:24-53. “He presented to them another parable, saying, The kingdom of the heavens is like unto a man sowing good seed in his field. While the people were asleep, his enemy came, and sowed tares in the midst of the wheat, and went away.” Wheat is the great crop in the Holy Land; there being no American corn there, the term is applied generically to wheat and barley and all cereals. Where the Scripture says “corn and wine,” it means wheat and wine. The tare in that country is a kind of darnel, bastard wheat, which looks precisely like the wheat till the development of the grain reveals the counterfeit. “And when the blade sprang up and produced fruit, then the tares also appeared.” We see that during the growth of the crop, everything looked right, like the wheat in our fields; not so much as a negative suspicion till the grain was formed, and then all could recognize the tares clearly and unmistakably. The application is simple and easy; the counterfeit Church members appear all right externally, and even officially. The test in their case hinges on the fruit problem.

“Therefore being made free from sin, we have our fruit unto sanctification, and the end everlasting life.” (Rom 6:22.)

You see that the fruit is holiness, and here comes the test. If they are not all right on experimental and practical holiness, the fruit is all a failure. A holiness revival in a Church, as a rule, will show up the tares very conspicuously. “The servants of the landlord, having come, said to him, Lord, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? Whence then hath it tares? And he said to them, An inimical man did this. And the servant said to him, Then do you wish, having gone, that we may gather them? And he said, No; lest gathering the tares, you may, along with them, root out the wheat.” This does not mean that we are not to excommunicate wicked, immoral people. Remember, these tares look just like the wheat, except the grain.

So they are not disorderly people, but hypocrites, loyal to the Church, zealous for God, and all right every way, except they lack Holy Ghost religion. Even this they claim; but prove spurious in the spiritual harvest, evincing to the spiritually minded their interior emptiness, especially manifested in a general Holy Ghost and fire revival. “Let them both grow together till the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather my wheat into my barn.” As we see further on, the harvest is the end of the present age, when the great tribulation will gather all the tares, the destruction beginning on the earth, and continuing forever in the regions of woe, followed by the glorious millennium, heaven’s harvest, during which the kingdom of glory will be populated with the millions of earth, the comparatively few, having been saved during the Satanic ages, being the “first-fruits.”

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13:24-30 This story is explained in 13:36-43.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Mat 13:24. Παρέθηκεν αὐτοῖς, He set before them[623]) as food is set before a guest.[624]—ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ, in the field) sc. that in which He Himself is: for it is said “In,” not “into” His field.

[623] E. V. “put He forth unto them.”—(I. B.)

[624] Ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν, the kingdom of heaven) As often soever as mention is made of this in the discourses and parables of our Lord, this very expression is to be regarded as a succinct recapitulation of the whole Gospel.—V. g.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat_13:24. Αὐτοῖς] to the multitude. Comp. Mat_13:3; Mat_13:10; Mat_13:34.

ὡμοιώθη] the Messiahs kingdom has become like (see note on Mat_7:26). The aorist is to be explained from the fact that the Messiah has already appeared, and is now carrying on His work in connection with His kingdom. Comp. Mat_12:28.

σπείραντι (see critical remarks): the sowing had taken place; whereupon followed the act that is about to be mentioned. It is to be observed, moreover, that the kingdom is not represented merely by the person of the sower, but by his sowing good seed, and by all that follows thereupon (as far as Mat_13:30); but to such an extent is the sower the leading feature in the parable, that we are thereby enabled to account for such phraseology as ὡμοιώθη ἡ βασιλεία … ἀνθρώπῳ σπείραντι. Comp. Mat_13:45; Mat_18:23; Mat_10:1.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 13:24-30 . The Tares . This parable has some elements in common with that in Mar 4:26-29 , whence the notion of many critics that one of the two has been formed from the other. As to which is the original, opinion is much divided. ( vide Holtz., H. C.) Both , I should say. The resemblance is superficial, the lesson entirely different. The Sower describes past experiences; the Tares is prophetic of a future state of things. But may it not be a creation of apostolic times put into the mouth of Jesus? No, because (1) it is too original and wise, and (2) there were beginnings of the evil described even in Christ’s lifetime. Think of a Judas among the Twelve, whom Jesus treated on the principle laid down in the parable, letting him remain among the disciples till the last crisis. It may have been his presence among the Twelve that suggested the parable.

Mat 13:24 . παρέθηκεν , again in Mat 13:31 , usually of food, here of parable as a mental entertainment; used with reference to laws in Exo 21:1 , Deu 4:44 . ὡμοιώθη , aorist used proleptically for the future; cf. 1Co 7:28 . ἀνθρώπῳ , likened to a man , inexactly, for: “to the experience of a man who,” etc., natural in a popular style. σπείραντι , aorist because the seed had been sown when the event of the parable took place. καλὸν , good, genuine, without mixture of other seeds.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Christ showeth in another parable of the evil seed mixed with the good, that the Church shall never be free and quit from offences, both in doctrine and manners, until the day appointed for the restoring of all things to come, and therefore the faithful have to arm themselves with patience and constancy.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

In these verses, we have, I. Another reason given why Christ preached by parables, Mat 13:34, Mat 13:35. All these things he spoke in parables, because the time was not yet come for the more clear and plain discoveries of the mysteries of the kingdom. Christ, to keep the people attending and expecting, preached in parables, and without a parable spake he not unto them; namely, at this time and in this sermon. Note, Christ tries all ways and methods to do good to the souls of men, and to make impressions upon them; if men will not be instructed and influenced by plain preaching, he will try them with parables; and the reason here given is, That the scripture might be fulfilled. The passage here quoted for it, is part of the preface to that historical Psa 78:2, I will open my mouth in a parable. What the Psalmist David, or Asaph, says there of his narrative, is accommodated to Christ's sermons; and that great precedent would serve to vindicate this way of preaching from the offence which some took at it. Here is, 1. The matter of Christ's preaching; he preached things which had been kept secret from the foundation of the world. The mystery of the gospel had been hid in God, in his councils and decrees, from the beginning of the world. Eph 3:9. Compare Rom 16:25; Co1 2:7; Col 1:26. If we delight in the records of ancient things, and in the revelation of secret things, how welcome should the gospel be to us, which has in it such antiquity and such mystery! It was from the foundation of the world wrapt up in types and shadows, which are now done away; and those secret things are now become such things revealed as belong to us and to our children, Deu 29:29. 2. The manner of Christ's preaching; he preached by parables; wise sayings, but figurative, and which help to engage attention and a diligent search. Solomon's sententious dictates, which are full of similitudes, are called proverbs, or parables; it is the same word; but in this, as in other things, Behold a greater than Solomon is here, in whom are hid treasures of wisdom.

II. The parable of the tares, and the exposition of it; they must be taken together, for the exposition explains the parable and the parable illustrates the exposition.

Observe, 1. The disciples' request to their Master to have this parable expounded to them (Mat 13:36); Jesus sent the multitude away; and it is to be feared many of them went away no wiser than they came; they had heard a sound of words, and that was all. It is sad to think how many go away from sermons without the word of grace in their hearts. Christ went into the house, not so much for his own repose, as for particular converse with his disciples, whose instruction he chiefly intended in all his preaching. He was ready to do good in all places; the disciples laid hold on the opportunity, and they came to him. Note, Those who would be wise for every thing else, must be wise to discern and improve their opportunities, especially of converse with Christ, of converse with him alone, in secret meditation and prayer. It is very good, when we return from the solemn assembly, to talk over what we have heard there, and by familiar discourse to help one another to understand and remember it, and to be affected with it; for we lose the benefit of many a sermon by vain and unprofitable discourse after it. See Luk 24:32; Deu 6:6, Deu 6:7. It is especially good, if it may be, to ask of the ministers of the word the meaning of the word, for their lips should keep knowledge, Mal 2:7. Private conference would contribute much to our profiting by public preaching. Nathan's Thou art the man, was that which touched David to the heart.

The disciples' request to their Master was, Declare unto us the parable of the tares. This implied an acknowledgement of their ignorance, which they were not ashamed to make. It is probable they apprehended the general scope of the parable, but they desired to understand it more particularly, and to be assured that they took it right. Note, Those are rightly disposed for Christ's teaching, that are sensible of their ignorance, and sincerely desirous to be taught. He will teach the humble (Psa 25:8, Psa 25:9), but will for this be enquired of. If any man lack instruction, let him ask it of God. Christ had expounded the foregoing parable unasked, but for the exposition of this they ask him. Note, The mercies we have received must be improved, both for direction what to pray for, and for our encouragement in prayer. The first light and the first grace are given in a preventing way, further degrees of both which must be daily prayed for.

2. The exposition Christ gave of the parable, in answer to their request; so ready is Christ to answer such desires of his disciples. Now the drift of the parable is, to represent to us the present and future state of the kingdom of heaven, the gospel church: Christ's care of it, the devil's enmity against it, the mixture that there is in it of good and bad in the other world. Note, The visible church is the kingdom of heaven; though there be many hypocrites in it, Christ rules in it as a King; and there is a remnant in it, that are the subjects and heirs of heaven, from whom, as the better part, it is denominated: the church is the kingdom of heaven upon earth.

Let us go over the particulars of the exposition of the parable.

(1.) He that sows the good seed is the Son of man. Jesus Christ is the Lord of the field, the Lord of the harvest, the Sower of good seed. When he ascended on high, he gave gifts to the world; not only good ministers, but other good men. Note, Whatever good seed there is in the world, it all comes from the hand of Christ, and is of his sowing: truths preached, graces planted, souls sanctified, are good seed, and all owing to Christ. Ministers are instruments in Christ's hand to sow good seed; are employed by him and under him, and the success of their labours depends purely upon his blessing; so that it may well be said, It is Christ, and no other, that sows the good seed; he is the Son of man, one of us, that his terror might not make us afraid; the Son of man, the Mediator, and that has authority.

(2.) The field is the world; the world of mankind, a large field, capable of bringing forth good fruit; the more is it to be lamented that it brings forth so much bad fruit: the world here is the visible church, scattered all the world over, not confined to one nation. Observe, In the parable it is called his field; the world is Christ's field, for all things are delivered unto him of the Father: whatever power and interest the devil has in the world, it is usurped and unjust; when Christ comes to take possession, he comes whose right it is; it is his field, and because it is his he took care to sow it with good seed.

(3.) The good seed are the children of the kingdom, true saints. They are, [1.] The children of the kingdom; not in profession only, as the Jews were (Mat 8:12), but in sincerity; Jews inwardly, Israelites indeed, incorporated in faith and obedience to Jesus Christ the great King of the church. [2.] They are the good seed, precious as seed, Psa 126:6. The seed is the substance of the field; so the holy seed, Isa 6:13. The seed is scattered, so are the saints; dispersed, here one and there another, though in some places thicker sown than in others. The seed is that from which fruit is expected; what fruit of honour and service God has from this world he has from the saints, whom he has sown unto himself in the earth, Hos 2:23.

(4.) The tares are the children of the wicked one. Here is the character of sinners, hypocrites, and all profane and wicked people. [1.] They are the children of the devil, as a wicked one. Though they do not own his name, yet they bear his image, do his lusts, and from him they have their education; he rules over them, he works in them, Eph 2:2; Joh 8:44. [2.] They are tares in the field of this world; they do no good, they do hurt; unprofitable in themselves, and hurtful to the good seed, both by temptation and persecution: they are weeds in the garden, have the same rain, and sunshine, and soil, with the good plants, but are good for nothing: the tares are among the wheat. Note, God has so ordered it, that good and bad should be mixed together in this world, that the good may be exercised, the bad left inexcusable, and a difference made between earth and heaven.

(5.) The enemy that sowed the tares is the devil; a sworn enemy to Christ and all that is good, to the glory of the good God, and the comfort and happiness of all good men. He is an enemy to the field of the world, which he endeavours to make his own, by sowing his tares in it. Ever since he became a wicked spirit himself, he has been industrious to promote wickedness, and has made it his business, aiming therein to counterwork Christ.

Now concerning the sowing of the tares, observe in the parable,

[1.] That they were sown while men slept. Magistrates slept, who by their power, ministers slept, who by their preaching, should have prevented this mischief. Note, Satan watches all opportunities, and lays hold of all advantages, to propagate vice and profaneness. The prejudice he does to particular persons is when reason and conscience sleep, when they are off their guard; we have therefore need to be sober, and vigilant. It was in the night, for that is the sleeping time. Note, Satan rules in the darkness of this world; that gives him an opportunity to sow tares, Psa 104:20. It was while men slept; and there is no remedy but men must have some sleeping time. Note, It is as impossible for us to prevent hypocrites being in the church, as it is for the husbandman, when he is asleep, to hinder an enemy from spoiling his field.

[2.] The enemy, when he had sown the tares, went his way (Mat 13:25), that it might not be known who did it. Note, When Satan is doing the greatest mischief, he studies most to conceal himself; for his design is in danger of being spoiled if he be seen in it; and therefore, when he comes to sow tares, he transforms himself into an angel of light, Co2 11:13, Co2 11:14. He went his way, as if he had done no harm; such is the way of the adulterous woman, Pro 30:20. Observe, Such is the proneness of fallen man to sin, that if the enemy sow the tares, he may even go his way, they will spring up of themselves and do hurt; whereas, when good seed is sown, it must be tended, watered, and fenced, or it will come to nothing.

[3.] The tares appeared not till the blade sprung up, and brought forth fruit, Mat 13:26. There is a great deal of secret wickedness in the hearts of men, which is long hid under the cloak of a plausible profession, but breaks out at last. As the good seed, so the tares, lie a great while under the clods, and at first springing up, it is hard to distinguish them; but when a trying time comes, when fruit is to be brought forth, when good is to be done that has difficulty and hazard attending it, then you will return and discern between the sincere and the hypocrite: then you may say, This is wheat, and that is tares.

[4.] The servants, when they were aware of it, complained to their master (Mat 13:27); Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? No doubt he did; whatever is amiss in the church, we are sure it is not of Christ: considering the seed which Christ sows, we may well ask, with wonder, Whence should these tares come? Note, The rise of errors, the breaking out of scandals, and the growth of profaneness, are matter of great grief to all the servants of Christ; especially to his faithful ministers, who are directed to complain of it to him whose the field is. It is sad to see such tares, such weeds, in the garden of the Lord; to see the good soil wasted, the good seed choked, and such a reflection cast on the name and honour of Christ, as if his field were no better than the field of the slothful, all grown over with thorns.

[5.] The Master was soon aware whence it was (Mat 13:28); An enemy has done this. He does not lay the blame upon the servants; they could not help it, but had done what was in their power to prevent it. Note, The ministers of Christ, that are faithful and diligent, shall not be judged of Christ, and therefore should not be reproached by men, for the mixtures of bad with good, hypocrites with the sincere, in the field of the church. It must needs be that such offences will come; and they shall not be laid to our charge, if we do our duty, though it have not the desired success. Though they sleep, if they do not love sleep; though tares be sown, if they do not sow them nor water them, nor allow of them, the blame shall not lie at their door.

[6.] The servants were very forward to have these tares rooted up. "Wilt thou that we go and do it presently?" Note, The over-hasty and inconsiderate zeal of Christ's servants, before they have consulted with their Master, is sometimes ready, with the hazard of the church, to root out all that they presume to be tares: Lord, wilt thou that we call for fire from heaven?

[7.] The Master very wisely prevented this (Mat 13:29); Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Note, It is not possible for any man infallibly to distinguish between tares and wheat, but he may be mistaken; and therefore such is the wisdom and grace of Christ, that he will rather permit the tares, than any way endanger the wheat. It is certain, scandalous offenders are to be censured, and we are to withdraw from them; those who are openly the children of the wicked one, are not to be admitted to special ordinances; yet it is possible there may be a discipline, either so mistaken in its rules, or so over-nice in the application of them, as may prove vexatious to many that are truly godly and conscientious. Great caution and moderation must be used in inflicting and continuing church censures, lest the wheat be trodden down, if not plucked up. The wisdom from above, as it is pure, so it is peaceable, and those who oppose themselves must not be cut off, but instructed, and with meekness, Ti2 2:25. The tares, if continued under the means of grace, may become good corn; therefore have patience with them.

(6.) The harvest is the end of the world, Mat 13:39. This world will have an end; though it continue long, it will not continue always; time will shortly be swallowed up in eternity. At the end of the world, there will be a great harvest-day, a day of judgment; at harvest all is ripe and ready to be cut down: both good and bad are ripe at the great-day, Rev 6:11. It is the harvest of the earth, Rev 14:15. At harvest the reapers cut down all before them; not a field, not a corner, is left behind; so at the great day all must be judged (Rev 20:12, Rev 20:13); God has set a harvest (Hos 6:11), and it shall not fail, Gen 8:22. At harvest every man reaps as he sowed; every man's ground, and seed, and skill, and industry, will be manifested: see Gal 6:7, Gal 6:8. Then they who sowed precious seed, will come again with rejoicing (Psa 126:5, Psa 126:6), with the joy of harvest (Isa 9:3); when the sluggard, who would not plough by reason of cold, shall beg, and have nothing (Pro 20:4); shall cry, Lord, Lord, but in vain; when the harvest of those who sowed to the flesh, shall be a day of grief, and of desperate sorrow, Isa 17:11.

(7.) The reapers are the angels: they shall be employed, in the great day, in executing Christ's righteous sentences, both of approbation and condemnation, as ministers of his justice, Mat 25:31. The angels are skilful, strong, and swift, obedient servants to Christ, holy enemies to the wicked, and faithful friends to all the saints, and therefore fit to be thus employed. He that reapeth receiveth wages, and the angels will not be unpaid for their attendance; for he that soweth, and he that reapeth, shall rejoice together (Joh 4:36); that is joy in heaven in the presence of the angels of God.

(8.) Hell-torments are the fire, into which the tares shall then be cast, and in which they shall be burned. At the great day a distinction will be made, and with it a vast difference; it will be a notable day indeed.

[1.] The tares will then be gathered out: The reapers (whose primary work it is to gather in the corn) shall be charged first to gather out the tares. Note, Though good and bad are together in this world undistinguished, yet at the great day they shall be parted; no tares shall then be among the wheat; no sinners among the saints: then you shall plainly discern between the righteous and the wicked, which here sometimes it is hard to do, Mal 3:18; Mal 4:1. Christ will not bear always, Psa 50:1, etc. They shall gather out of his kingdom all wicked things that offend, and all wicked persons that do iniquity: when he begins, he will make a full end. All those corrupt doctrines, worships, and practices, which have offended, have been scandals to the church, and stumbling-blocks to men's consciences, shall be condemned by the righteous Judge in that day, and consumed by the brightness of his coming; all the wood, hay, and stubble (Co1 3:12); and then woe to them that do iniquity, that make a trade of it, and persist in it; not only those in the last age of Christ's kingdom upon earth, but those in every age. Perhaps here is an allusion to Zep 1:3, I will consume the stumbling-blocks with the wicked.

[2.] They will then be bound in bundles, Mat 13:30. Sinners of the same sort will be bundled together in the great day: a bundle of atheists, a bundle of epicures, a bundle of persecutors, and a great bundle of hypocrites. Those who have been associates in sin, will be so in shame and sorrow; and it will be an aggravation of their misery, as the society of glorified saints will add to their bliss. Let us pray, as David, Lord, gather not my soul with sinners (Psa 26:9), but let it be bound in the bundle of life, with the Lord our God, Sa1 25:29. [3.] They will be cast into a furnace of fire; such will be the end of wicked, mischievous people, that are in the church as tares in the field; they are fit for nothing but fire; to it they shall go, it is the fittest place for them. Note, Hell is a furnace of fire, kindled by the wrath of God, and kept burning by the bundles of tares cast into it, who will be ever in the consuming, but never consumed. But he slides out of the metaphor into a description of those torments that are designed to be set forth by it: There shall be weeping, and gnashing of teeth; comfortless sorrow, and an incurable indignation at God, themselves, and one another, will be the endless torture of damned souls. Let us therefore, knowing these terrors of the Lord, be persuaded not to do iniquity.

(9.) Heaven is the barn into which all God's wheat shall be gathered in that harvest-day. But gather the wheat into my barn: so it is in the parable, Mat 13:30. Note, [1.] In the field of this world good people are the wheat, the most precious grain, and the valuable part of the field. [2.] This wheat shall shortly be gathered, gathered from among the tares and weeds: all gathered together in a general assembly, all the Old Testament saints, all the New Testament saints, not one missing. Gather my saints together unto me, Psa 50:5. [3.] All God's wheat shall be lodged together in God's barn: particular souls are housed at death as a shock of corn (Job 5:26), but the general in-gathering will be at the end of time: God's wheat will then be put together, and no longer scattered; there will be sheaves of corn, as well as bundles of tares: they will then be secured, and no longer exposed to wind and weather, sin and sorrow: no longer afar off, and at a great distance, in the field, but near, in the barn. Nay, heaven is a garner (Mat 3:12), in which the wheat will not only be separated from the tares of ill companions, but sifted from the chaff of their own corruptions.

In the explanation of the parable, this is gloriously represented (Mat 13:43); Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. First, It is their present honour, that God is their Father. Now are we the sons of God (Jo1 3:2); our Father in heaven is King there. Christ, when he went to heaven, went to his Father, and our Father, Joh 20:17. It is our Father's house, nay, it is our Father's palace, his throne, Rev 3:21. Secondly, The honour in reserve for them is, that they shall shine forth as the sun in that kingdom. Here they are obscure and hidden (Col 3:3), their beauty is eclipsed by their poverty, and the meanness of their outward condition; their own weaknesses and infirmities, and the reproach and disgrace cast upon them, cloud them; but then they shall shine forth as the sun from behind a dark cloud; at death they shall shine forth to themselves; at the great day they will shine forth publicly before all the world, their bodies will be made like Christ's glorious body: they shall shine by reflection, with a light borrowed from the Fountain of light; their sanctification will be perfected, and their justification published; God will own them for his children, and will produce the record of all their services and sufferings for his name: they shall shine as the sun, the most glorious of all visible beings. The glory of the saints is in the Old Testament compared to that of the firmament and the stars, but here to that of the sun; for life and immortality are brought to a much clearer light by the gospel, than under the law. Those who shine as lights in this world, that God may be glorified, shall shine as the sun in the other world, that they may be glorified. Our Saviour concludes, as before, with a demand of attention; Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. These are things which it is our happiness to hear of, and our duty to hearken to.

III. Here is the parable of the grain of mustard-seed, Mat 13:31, Mat 13:32. The scope of this parable is to show, that the beginnings of the gospel would be small, but that its latter end would greatly increase. In this way the gospel church, the kingdom of God among us, would be set up in the world; in this way the work of grace in the heart, the kingdom of God within us, would be carried on in particular persons.

Now concerning the work of the gospel, observe,

1. That it is commonly very weak and small at first, like a grain of mustard-seed, which is one of the least of all seeds. The kingdom of the Messiah, which was now in the setting up, made but a small figure; Christ and the apostles, compared with the grandees of the world, appeared like a grain of mustard-seed, the weak things of the world. In particular places, the first breaking out of the gospel light is but as the dawning of the day; and in particular souls, it is at first the day of small things, like a bruised reed. Young converts are like lambs that must be carried in his arms, Isa 40:11. There is a little faith, but there is much lacking in it (Th1 3:10), and the groanings such as cannot be uttered, they are so small; a principle of spiritual life, and some motion, but scarcely discernible.

2. That yet it is growing and coming on. Christ's kingdom strangely got ground; great accessions were made to it; nations were born at once, in spite of all the oppositions it met with from hell and earth. In the soul where grace is true it will grow really, though perhaps insensibly. A grain of mustard-seed is small, but however it is seed, and has in it a disposition to grow. Grace will be getting ground, shining more and more, Pro 4:18. Gracious habits confirmed, actings quickened, and knowledge more clear, faith more confirmed, love more inflamed; here is the seed growing.

3. That it will at last come to a great degree of strength and usefulness; when it is grown to some maturity, it becomes a tree, much larger in those countries than in ours. The church, like the vine brought out of Egypt, has taken root, and filled the earth, Psa 80:9-11. The church is like a great tree, in which the fowls of the air do lodge; God's people have recourse to it for food and rest, shade and shelter. In particular persons, the principle of grace, if true, will persevere and be perfected at last: growing grace will be strong grace, and will bring much to pass. Grown Christians must covet to be useful to others, as the mustard-seed when grown is to the birds; that those who dwell near or under their shadow may be the better for them, Hos 14:7.

IV. Here is the parable of the leaven, Mat 13:33. The scope of this is much the same with that of the foregoing parable, to show that the gospel should prevail and be successful by degrees, but silently and insensibly; the preaching of the gospel is like leaven, and works like leaven in the hearts of those who receive it.

1. A woman took this leaven; it was her work. Ministers are employed in leavening places, in leavening souls, with the gospel. The woman is the weaker vessel, and we have this treasure in such vessels.

2. The leaven was hid in three measures of meal. The heart is, as the meal, soft and pliable; it is the tender heart that is likely to profit by the word: leaven among corn unground does not work, nor does the gospel in souls unhumbled and unbroken for sin: the law grinds the heart, and then the gospel leavens it. It is three measures of meal, a great quantity, for a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. The meal must be kneaded, before it receive the leaven; our hearts, as they must be broken, so they must be moistened, and pains taken with them to prepare them for the word, that they may receive the impressions of it. The leaven must be hid in the heart (Psa 119:11), not so much for secrecy (for it will show itself) as for safety; our inward thought must be upon it, we must lay it up, as Mary laid up the sayings of Christ, Luk 2:51. When the woman hides the leaven in the meal, it is with an intention that it should communicate its taste and relish to it; so we must treasure up the word in our souls, that we may be sanctified by it, Joh 17:17.

3. The leaven thus hid in the dough, works there, it ferments; the word is quick and powerful, Heb 4:12. The leaven works speedily, so does the word, and yet gradually. What a sudden change did Elijah's mantle make upon Elisha! Kg1 19:20. It works silently and insensibly (Mar 4:26), yet strongly and irresistibly: it does its work without noise, for so is the way of the Spirit, but does it without fail. Hide but the leaven in the dough, and all the world cannot hinder it from communicating its taste and relish to it, and yet none sees how it is done, but by degrees the whole is leavened.

(1.) Thus it was in the world. The apostles, by their preaching, hid a handful of leaven in the great mass of mankind, and it had a strange effect; it put the world into a ferment, and in a sense turned it upside down (Act 17:6), and by degrees made a wonderful change in the taste and relish of it: the savour of the gospel was manifested in every place, Co2 2:14; Rom 15:19. It was thus effectual, not by outward force, and therefore not by any such force resistible and conquerable, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts, who works, and none can hinder.

(2.) Thus it is in the heart. When the gospel comes into the soul, [1.] It works a change, not in the substance; the dough is the same, but in the quality; it makes us to savour otherwise than we have done, and other things to savour with us otherwise than they used to do, Rom 8:5. [2.] It works a universal change; it diffuses itself into all the powers and faculties of the soul, and alters the property even of the members of the body, Rom 6:13. [3.] This change is such as makes the soul to partake of the nature of the word, as the dough does of the leaven. We are delivered into it as into a mould (Rom 6:17), changed into the same image (Co2 3:18), like the impression of the seal upon the wax. The gospel savours of God, and Christ, and free grace, and another world, and these things now relish with the soul. It is a word of faith and repentance, holiness and love, and these are wrought in the soul by it. This savour is communicated insensibly, for our life is hid; but inseparably, for grace is a good part that shall never be taken away from those who have it. When the dough is leavened, then to the oven with it; trials and afflictions commonly attend this change; but thus saints are fitted to be bread for our Master's table.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field--Happily for us, these exquisite parables are, with like charming simplicity and clearness, expounded to us by the Great Preacher Himself. Accordingly, we pass to: Mat 13:36-38. See on Mat 13:36; Mat 13:38

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 24. The kingdom of heaven] God's method of managing the affairs of the world, and the concerns of his Church.

Is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field] In general, the world may be termed the field of God; and in particular, those who profess to believe in God through Christ are his field or farm; among whom God sows nothing but the pure unadulterated word of his truth.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(24) Another parable.—The explanation of the parable of the Sower had been given apparently in the boat in which our Lord sat with His disciples. Then, again addressing Himself to the multitude on the shore, He spake the parables of the Tares, the Mustard Seed, and the Leaven; then, dismissing the multitude (Mat_13:36), He landed with His disciples, and went into the house which was for a time their home.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But when the blade was sprung up,.... That is, the blade of the wheat; which designs the taking up, a profession of religion on principles of grace, called a profession of faith; and when right, it springs up from, and proceeds upon a work begun in the heart: and such a profession ought to be made by all that are partakers of the grace of God; and ought to be made both verbally, by a confession of the mouth, and a declaration of the work of God upon the heart, and by deeds, by submitting to the ordinances of the Gospel; and should be sincere, and from the heart, and be visible to men, and be held fast unto the end without wavering.

And brought forth fruit; which intends not the conversion of sinners, nor the performance of duties, nor the perfection of grace, but the first appearances of grace under a profession, such as sorrow for sin, after a godly sort, fear and reverence of God, great humility, much self-denial, ardent love to Christ, pantings and breathings after him, and communion with him, strong affection for the people of God, some exercise of faith on Christ, zeal for his cause and interest, and a concern to honour and glorify God.

Then appeared the tares also. They were not discernible for some time when they were first sown; they looked like good seed when they first appeared among the people of God; they seemed to have the truth of grace, as others had; their blade of profession, when it sprung up, looked like that of true wheat; but were now discernible both by their unfruitfulness in their lives and conversations, and by their bad principles, which they now endeavoured to spread, to the hurt of the churches where they were: they always appeared to be what they were to God the searcher of hearts; but now, through the zeal of true converts, to which these opposed themselves, and the fruitfulness of their lives, from which they were so very different, they became manifest to ministers and churches.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:

Ver. 24. The kingdom of heaven] viz. here on earth. For we have eternal life already, 1. In pretio, 2. Promisso, 3. Primitiis, in the price, promise, firstfruits. As God prepared Paradise for Adam, so he hath heaven for his. Howbeit, he reserves not all for hereafter; but gives a grape of Canaan in this wilderness, where by righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, God’s people do even eat, and drink, and sleep eternal life, as it was once said of a reverend divine of Scotland.

Which sowed good seed in his field] Among the Romans it was, probrum censorium agrum male colere, a fault punishable by the censors, to be an ill seedsman, Plin. lib. 18. And when they would highly commend any, they would say, "He is an honest man, and a good ploughman." {a}

{a} Maiores nostri siquem laudabant, ita laudabant, virum bonum, bonumque colonum. Varro.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The kingdom of heaven is likened ... - That is, the “gospel resembles.” The kingdom of heaven (see the notes at Mat 3:2) means here the effect of the gospel by its being preached. The meaning of this parable is plain. The field represents the “world,” in which the gospel is preached. The “good seed,” the truths preached by Christ and his apostles.

Mat 13:25

While men slept, his enemy came ... - That is, “in the night,” when it could be done without being seen, an enemy came and scattered bad seed on the new-plowed field, perhaps before the good seed had been harrowed in.

Satan thus sows false doctrine in darkness. In the very place where the truth is preached, and while the hearts of people are open to receive it, by false but plausible teachers he takes care to inculcate false sentiments. Often it is one of his arts, in a revival of religion, to spread secretly dangerous notions of piety. Multitudes are persuaded that they are Christians who are deceived. They are awakened, convicted, and alarmed. They take this for conversion. Or they find their burden gone; they fancy that they hear a voice; or a text of Scripture is “brought” to them, saying that their sins are forgiven; or they see Christ hanging on the cross in a vision; or they dream that their sins are pardoned, and they suppose they are Christians. But they are deceived. None of these things are any conclusive evidence of piety. All these may exist, and still there be no true love to God or Christ, and no real hatred of sin and change of heart. An enemy may do it to deceive them, and to bring dishonor on religion.

Sowed tares - By “tares” is probably meant a degenerate kind of wheat, or the darnel-grass growing in Palestine. In its growth and form it has a strong resemblance to genuine wheat; but it either produces no grain, or that of a very inferior and hurtful kind. Probably it comes near to what we mean by “chess.” It was extremely difficult to separate it from the genuine wheat, on account of its similarity while growing.

“The tare abounds all over the East, and is a great nuisance to the farmer. It resembles the American “cheat (chess),” but the “head” does not droop like cheat, nor does it branch out like oats. The grain, also, is smaller, and is arranged along the upper part of the stalk, which stands perfectly erect. The “taste” is bitter, and when eaten separately, or even when diffused in ordinary bread, it causes dizziness, and often acts as a violent emetic. Barn-door fowls also become dizzy from eating it. In short, it is a strong soporific poison, and must be carefully winnowed, and picked out of the wheat grain by grain, before grinding, or the flour is not healthy. Even the farmers, who in this country generally “weed” their fields, do not attempt to separate the one from the other. They would not only mistake good grain for them, but very commonly the roots of the two are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate them without plucking up both. Both, therefore, must be left to “grow together” until the time of harvest.” - (Thomson) “The Land and the Book,” vol. ii. pp. 111, 112. Thus, “tares” aptly represented hypocrites in the church. Strongly resembling Christians in their experience, and, in some respects, their lives it is impossible to distinguish them from genuine Christians, nor can they be separated until it is done by the Great Searcher of hearts at the day of judgment. An enemy the devil hath done it. And nowhere has he shown profounder cunning, or done more to adulterate the purity of the gospel.

And went his way - There is something very expressive in this. He knew the soil; he knew how the seed would take root and grow. He had only to sow the seed and let it alone. So Satan knows the soil in which he sows his doctrine. He knows that in the human heart it will take deep and rapid root. It needs but little culture. Grace needs constant attendance and care. Error, and sin, and hypocrisy are the native products of the human heart, and, when left alone, start up with deadly luxuriancy.

Mat 13:26

Then appeared the tares also - That is, then the tares were “first discovered.” They had grown with the wheat, but were so much like it as not to be noticed until the wheat began to ripen.

So true piety and false hopes are not known by professions, by “blades,” and leaves, and flowers, but by the fruit.

Mat 13:29

Ye root up also the wheat - They so much resembled the true wheat that even then it would be difficult to separate them.

By gathering them, they would tread down the wheat, loosen and disturb the earth, and greatly injure the crop. In the harvest it could be done without injury.

Mat 13:30

Let both grow together - They would not spoil the true wheat, and in time of harvest it would be easy to separate them.

Our Saviour teaches us here:

That hypocrites and deceived persons must be expected in the church. That this is the work of the enemy of man. They are not the work of Christianity any more than traitors are of patriotism, or counterfeiters are of the proper effect of legislating about money. They belong to the world, and hypocrisy is only one form of sin. The Christian religion never “made” a hypocrite, nor is there a hypocrite on the earth whose principles and practice it does not condemn. That all hope of removing them entirely would be vain. That an “attempt” to remove them altogether would injure real Christianity, by causing excitements, discord, and hard feelings even among Christians. That Christ will himself separate them at the proper time. There is no doubt that it is the duty of the church to keep itself pure, and to cut off gross and manifest offenders, 1Co 5:4-5; but the Saviour refers here to those who may be “suspected” of hypocrisy, but against whom it cannot be proved; to those who so successfully imitate Christians as to make it difficult or impossible for man to distinguish them.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Another parable he proposed. As in the preceding parable our Lord spoke of those who did not receive the word, so in this he speaks of those who receive the corrupted word; for it is a diabolical machination to confound error with truth. (St. John Chrysostom in St. Thomas Aquinas) --- There are three things worthy of observation in this parable. 1st. That the Church of God on earth consists of both good and bad; the 2d. that God is not the author of evil; the 3d. that God does not always punish the wicked on the spot, but patiently bears with them. (Menochius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Here are three parables by the evangelist put together before he cometh to the explication which our Saviour giveth of the first; all of them concerning the gospel church, and the dispensation of the gospel. In the one he instructs us what we are to expect as to the mixture of persons in it while it is in this world. In the other two concerning the increase and propagation of it. The first himself expounds, Mat 13:37-43. This parable is only found in Matthew. The other two are found, shortly both of them in Luke, one in Mark; neither of them are expounded. I will therefore, without any explication of these verses at present, go on to the verses following them, all which will lead me to our Saviour’s own interpretation of the first of these parables; after which I will also consider these two parables that follow here, but are neither expounded here nor in the other evangelists.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vers. 24-30The parable of the tares. Matthew only. The parable of the sower dealt with the first reception of the gospel; this deals with the after-development.

The aim of this parable is to prevent over-sanguine expectations as to the purity of the society of believers, and to hinder rash attempts to purify it by merely external processes. Archbishop Benson ("Dict. of Christian Biogr.," 1:745) calls attention to the fact that the first extant exposition of this parable is in Cyprian"s successful appeal to the Novatianists not to separate from the Church (Ep. 54).

The aim of the somewhat similar parable in Mar_4:26-29 is to show the slowness and gradualness of the growth of the kingdom of heaven, and also the certainty of its consummation. So many words and phrases in the two parables are identical, that the possibility of one being derived from the other, either by omission or addition, must be acknowledged, but the definiteness of the aim in each points rather to their being originally two distinct parables.

The divisions of the parable are

(1) The fact of tares being present as well as good seed, and its cause (vers. 24-28 a).

(2) Although there is the natural desire to gather out the tares at once, yet, on account of the impossibility of doing so without destroying some of the good seed, this must not be attempted. At the proper time full separation shall be made by the proper agents (vers. 28 b-30).

Another parable put he forth unto them; set he before them (Revised Version, pareyhken autoiv); so also ver. 31. (cf. also Exo_19:7 Act_17:3) Elsewhere it is often used of setting food before any one; e.g. Mar_6:41 8:6 Luk_11:6 Act_16:34. Them. The people (vers. 3, 10, 34). Saying, The kingdom of heaven. The principles of its establishment and full development. Is likened unto (wmoiwyh). The aorist regards the moment in our Lord"s mind in which he made the comparison. Observe that the verb is transitional; in ver. 3 our Lord began his parable without any introduction, so that he might attract attention; here he says that he gives an illustration of the kingdom of heaven; but in the later parables of this discourse (vers. 31, 33, 44, 45, 47; cf. 52) he is able merely to say that the kingdom of heaven is, in its principles, etc., absolutely like (omoia estin). A man which sowed. Explained as "the Son of man" in ver. 37. Good seed; " the sons of the kingdom" (ver. 38); i.e. the seed represents, not good or bad doctrine as such, but persons. In his field; " the world" (ver. 37). Not exactly the Church, i.e. the Church upon earth, but the world so far as it is the sphere of the Church"s missionary activity, even the physical world so far as it becomes the scene of Divine sowing of the gospel.

Vers. 24-43. The tares; the mustard seed; the leaven.

I THE STORY OF THE TARES.

1. Resemblance to the first parable. Again we have the field, the sower, and the seed. Again the seed is good. "God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Again the Sower sowed the good seed all over the field. No part was neglected.

2. The differences.

(1) In this case there is an enemy; he came by night and sowed tares among the wheat. It was an act of pure malice; it could do him no good. But such things are sometimes done, we are told, in Eastern countries now; and, alas! actions of equal malice are done nearer home. In the blade the tares were like the wheat; the mischief was not discovered till the ears began to form.

(2) There are servants also. They tell their lord; they suggest the plucking up of the tares. It is a thing often done (comp. "Sinai and Palestine," p. 426); if the tares had been few and scattered, it would have seemed the best course. But the enemy had done his work too thoroughly; the tares were sown thickly all over the field; their roots were intertwined with the wheat roots. The lord bade his servants wait till the harvest; then the field should be reaped as it was; the tares should be burned, the wheat gathered into the garner.

II THE GRAIN OF MUSTARD SEED.

1. The parable. The mustard seed is small. It is sown in the field; it becomes greater than the herbs, a tree; the birds of the air lodge in its branches.

2. Its meaning. Such was the kingdom of heaven. It was small in its beginning; only a little Child was born in Bethlehem of Judaea. At first its growth seemed very slow. The King was a Man of sorrows; he died the cruel death of the cross. Twelve men were sent forth to fight the battle of the kingdom, to confront the whole power of heathendom; they were few; they were, for the most part, of no reputation, unknown and unregarded. But as the little seed had a vital power inherent in it, so was it with the kingdom of heaven. It spread itself with a strange expansive force, till it filled all the greatest kingdoms of the earth, and men flocked from all sides to take refuge in its shelter.

3. Its encouragement. It may be, as Chrysostom thinks, that this and the following parable were intended to encourage the disciples. There was something very saddening in the lessons of the first two parables. Three parts of the good seed were lost; the remainder was mingled with tares. It seemed a melancholy prospect. But now there is a word of comfort. The seed will grow; it will become a tree, spreading its branches far; it will offer refuge to the wandering and the homeless. Let us take courage. The Church hath a vital expansive force, so long as it abides in Christ who is the Life. It will live on; it will spread. The wandering children will return; the restless, who have been driven about by every blast of vain doctrine, will find a home at last in the Church of Christ.

III THE LEAVES.

1. The difference between this parable and the last. The seed has a principle of life in it. Plant it, and under favourable circumstances it will grow. You cannot watch the actual process of growth from minute to minute; but day after day you see the results. The plant springs up, rises into the air, expands on all sides. So doth the Church of Christ. The leaven works secretly, silently, invisibly; it is hidden in the meal; little by little it spreads its assimilating influence through the whole mass. It figures the silent, unseen spreading of the gospel.

2. The silent growth of Christianity. The gospel was hidden in the world, in its three ancient divisions, among the descendants of the three sons of Noah. Its growth at first was silent; few marked it, as by slow degrees it spread its influence through the masses of heathenism. Heathen contemporary writers seem for the most part ignorant of its existence; but in silence and in secret it worked on, softening, refining, purifying.

3. The unseen growth of personal religion. But the three measures of meal may well be understood of the three constituent parts of our human nature body, soul, and spirit. The leaven which is to regenerate society must first regenerate its individual elements. The germ of spiritual life is hidden in the soul; it is unseen, hid with Christ in God. But it is quick and powerful. It works under the surface with a strange penetrating energy. It diffuses its influence through the heart, which without it would be dull and heavy, indifferent to religion. Little by little it expels the counteracting agencies of the world, the flesh, and the devil. It spreads itself more and more through the whole life, assimilating with its secret influence every form of human activity. It works, and will work, till every thought is brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ; till we have learned, whatever we do, to do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus.

IV REMARKS OF THE EVANGELIST.

1. The Lord"s method. On that occasion he taught the multitude only by parables. He spoke to the people as they were able to hear it. (Mar_4:33) He reserved the explanation for his disciples. Religious teaching should be adapted to the circumstances of the hearers. Simple teaching is best suited for simple minds. The teacher should imitate the Lord"s example, and teach in singleness of heart, seeking only the good of souls.

2. The reason: the fulfilment of prophecy. There were other reasons, mentioned already, for the adoption of this mode of teaching. But the fulfilment of prophecy always underlay all the Lord"s acts and words. The whole Scriptures of the ancient covenant spake of him and the new covenant which he was to inaugurate. Thus the seventy-eighth psalm prefigured his use of parables. That psalm represents the history of God"s ancient people as a parable of spiritual things. There was a spiritual meaning in all its details. "These things were our examples (tupoi)"; (1Co_10:6, 1Co_10:11) they were types of the vicissitudes of the spiritual life, written for our admonition; a parable of God"s dealings with the individual soul. Let us learn to look on the Old Testament in this light, to understand its religious use.

V EXPLANATION OF THE PARABLE OF THE TARES.

1. The petition of the disciples. The multitude had departed; the Lord and his disciples had returned to the house; they were alone. The disciples sought further instruction. So it is now. The multitude depart; the true disciples follow the Lord whithersoever he goeth. They are near him in the crowded church, sometimes even nearer in the silent hour of solitary prayer. Then they sit at his feet like Mary, seeking to learn ever deeper lessons of faith and love. He hears their prayer; he answers in his grace and mercy.

2. The answer. The Lord explained the parable to his disciples, as he will explain to us the meaning of our trials and perplexities, if we come to him in faith and prayer.

(1) The Sower is the Son of man. God the Son, come in the flesh, and henceforth Son of man as well as Son of God.

(2) The field is the world. But it is a parable of the kingdom of God (vers. 24, 41). The field is God"s. He sowed the good seed in it. The world, so far as it is sown over with the good seed, becomes the Church. "The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

(3) The seed. In the parable of the sower, the seed is the Word of God; here it is the children of the kingdom. But the seed is identical with the plant. The living seed pervades and takes into itself the whole human nature. The principle of spiritual life which was sown by the Divine Sower becomes the full-grown plant, the Christian living in the faith of the Son of God. "Not I, but Christ liveth in me." This identification is seen even in the parable of the sower. In vers. 20, 22, 23 the true translation is not "he that received seed," but "he that was sown.

(4) The enemy. "God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." It was not he who sowed the tares; it was the devil. This parable brings out into clear light the personality of Satan, his malice, his intense hostility to Christ. Dark, perplexing questions rise in our minds. Our very children ask us Why did not God destroy the devil? We know that there is "eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." He shall be cast into the bottomless pit, and deceive men no more. But in the mean time it seems to be necessary, for deep inscrutable reasons, that his malice should be counteracted, not by a direct act of almighty power, but by moral and spiritual forces. Such forces radiate into the Church from the cradle of Bethlehem, from the cross of Calvary. "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." The enemy sowed the tares; they are the children of the wicked one. The evil seed has, through their own sinful compliance, so spread through their nature that it has made them like their father the devil, and the lusts of their father they do. It is an awful thought; but we know that though, in the natural world, tares can never become wheat, yet, in the spiritual world, they who were once under the power of darkness may by the grace of God be translated into the kingdom of his dear Son. A parable cannot, from the nature of the case, correspond in all its minute details with the eternal verities which it is intended to shadow forth.

(5) The tares are to remain till the end of the world. The servants were impatient. Christians have been so often. "Whence then hath it tares?" is a question which has been asked in every age of the Church which we often ask ourselves. The servants would have anticipated the office of the heavenly reapers; but the Lord forbade. The time was not come. They had not the knowledge. They would do more harm than good, wheat and tares were so inextricably mingled. Christians must wait for the Lord in patience. In the visible Church the evil will be ever mingled with the good. Earthly power must not be used to exterminate religious errors. The tares must grow with the wheat, for such is the Lord"s command. It is a saddening thought that the Church, the bride of Christ, which ought to be "a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," should be so rent asunder by schism and heresies, so disfigured with the evil lives of many baptized men. But the Lord warned us that it would be so. We must live in patient hope, purifying ourselves even as he is pure, and seeking by his gracious help to influence for good all who come within our reach.

(6) For the harvest cometh. It is the end of the world. "The Son of man shall send forth his angels." He seemed a man among men, as he said the words; but he was in truth the high Son of God. None other could dare to describe the angels of judgment as his messengers. The reapers are the angels; they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity. They were in the outward kingdom, the visible Church; they have no part in the kingdom of glory. The Lord hath prepared no place there for them. There remaineth only the furnace of fire, the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Most awful words!

(7) The glory of the blessed. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." They were in his earthly kingdom; they had called him "Our Father." Now they are with him forever in the everlasting glory. They shall shine forth. The glory which they had before, which Christ had given them, (Joh_17:22) but which had been hidden in that inner life of holiness which is hid with Christ in God, shall be manifested then. They shall shine as the sun. As the raiment of the Lord shone on the Mount of the Transfiguration, so shall shine the glorified bodies of the blessed in the day when he shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be like unto the body of his glory. Listen, the Lord says; his words are of momentous importance. "Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

LESSONS.

1. The malice of the devil is hellish. You have renounced him and all his works; hate him and them with energetic hatred.

2. The mustard seed will grow; the leaven will diffuse its influence. He who hath begun the good work will fulfil it. Be of good cheer; only believe.

3. Think of the great harvest. "Set your affection on things above.

Vers. 24-30. The tares.

The parable of the soils showed the various results of sowing the same good seed according to the various conditions of soil on which the seed tell; now this parable of the tares disregards differences of soil, but treats of different kinds of seed sown by different hands. Thus it introduces us to something worse than the failure of good work, to the existence of evil influences in the world.

I CHRISTIAN PEOPLE ARE THE GROWTH OF SEED SOWN BY CHRIST IN THE WORLD. In his explanation of the parable our Lord tells us three things about this branch of his teaching.

1. Christ is the Sower. All good spiritual life springs from him.

2. The field is the world. Christ is no narrow ecclesiastic confining his interests to the Church. Nor has he the parochial mind. His gospel is for the whole world. Christians are to be "the salt of the earth.

3. The good seed represents the sons of the kingdom," i.e. Christian people. Christ is not satisfied with teaching ideas; he aims at growing souls. His harvest is not of thoughts and doctrines, but of men and women.

II BAD MEN ARE LIKE TARES SOWN BY SATAN.

1. Evil influences are at work is the world. There is worse than the negative failure of good seed. Weeds spring up; nettles and poison plants take their place in the garden of nature. The world as we know it has been sown with the seed of sin. Here is positive evil, alive and propagating further evil.

2. These evil influences are due to the great enemy of souls. A malignant power, the enemy of Christ and of mankind, is busy sowing evil.

3. The fruit of these evil influences is seen in the lives of bad people, it is not in false doctrine but in wicked living that the greatest mischief is manifested. The aim of Satan is to grow a crop of noxious characters.

III THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST ARE FORBIDDEN TO USE FORCIBLE MEANS FOR THE EXTINCTION OF EVIL LIVES. This parable has often been abused by being applied to Church discipline, a subject with which it has nothing to do, seeing that "the field is the world not the Church. What it excludes is the violent uprooting of bad men from the world. If it is to be pressed to a literal application, it may be thought to forbid capital punishment. But as it deals with religious relations it is rather aimed at persecution; e.g. it is absolutely opposed to such action as that of the Spanish Inquisition. The violation of its precepts has vindicated our Lord"s warning. The wheat has been rooted up with the tares. Too often persecution selected the very sons of the kingdom for its victims. This may be done honestly, by a horrible blunder; we cannot well distinguish between the blades of wheat and those of the plant that simulates it. At present it is premature to judge men finally, for characters are not yet developed.

IV THERE WILL BE A FINAL JUDGMENT AND DOOM OF THE WICKED.

1. This will happen at the end of all, when characters have fully ripened, when the harvest is come. Even now the harvest is anticipated by the reaper Death, and after death there is the great judgment. The liberty of the present is no guarantee against the great doom of the future. Evil cannot flourish forever.

2. This will be in the hands of God. It is not for man to use violent measures against his fellow man; but God and his angels will search into all characters, and the issue must be fearful for those who have permitted themselves to become as the rank growth of Satan. W.F.A.

Vers. 24-30, 36-4-3. The great Administrator"s foresight.

This second parable of the seven proceeds in a certain degree upon the lines of the first. But its object is different; and though quite in the nature of an advance on the former, it is more limited in its scope. The first parable manifestly is the foundation of this one, and perhaps it may be said of all others. We may, perhaps, judge that to each parable, as one succeeded another, quickened attention was given, at any rate, by some of the hearers. But this parable seems to have specially asked, on the part of the disciples, for explanation. The former spoke broadest truth of broadest application for all the world, whether "received" or "not received." But very possibly even the invidious element contained in this may have gained for it a quicker ear and a more curious attention on the part of the disciples. Notice

I HOW THIS PARABLE DATES THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN AS AN ORIGINAL PLANTATION IN THE WORLD. IT DOES THIS ALIKE IN FORM AND IN THE NECESSARY IMPLICATION OF ITS MATTER. In however true a sense Jesus Christ was now himself planting afresh the kingdom of heaven on earth, its foundation was from the beginning. Long time, with most varying rate of growth, had it been growing. In how true, and even double sense true, was it that while men slept the enemy came! And how naively true, only in one sense, that when he had sowed his tares, he "went his way"! Note also, as some instance of the perpetually recurring evidential coincidences of Scripture, the ministerial function of the "Son of man" is likewise dated to the beginning, creation itself.

II HOW FRANK AND CALM THE ADMISSION OF THE DIVINE HOUSEHOLDER OF THE DISASTROUS DAMAGE DONE IN HIS FIELD OF THE WORLD!

III HOW SILENT-LEFT AND UNTOUCHED TO THE SERVANTS, THE QUESTION (THEORETIC ONLY, FOR THEM AS IT WOULD APPEAR TO BE DEEMED) HOW THIS WAS; AND WHY NO IMMEDIATE STRENUOUS STEPS FOR THE DISCOVERY AND CONDIGN PUNISHMENT OF THE ENEMY WERE TAKEN, OR ORDERED, OR SUGGESTED THE COUNSELS OF HEAVEN, AND ITS HIGHEST OR DEEPEST DECREES BEING HEREIN LEFT, UNQUESTIONED, UNESPIED, IN THEIR PROPER PROFOUND INSCRUTABLE!

IV HOW WITH PERFECT PATIENCE, WITH LARGE-EYED OBSERVATION, WITH UNPROVOKED FORBEARANCE, AND ENDURING LONG SUFFERING, THE SCENE IS SURVEYED, THE DIRECTIONS THAT ALONE ARE NEEDFUL FOR SERVANTS ARE SENT FORTH, AND TIME ALLOWED TO FLOW ON.

V HOW TREMENDOUS BUT MOST GRACIOUS THE WITNESS BORNE TO THE LIMITED KNOWLEDGE, LIMITED DISCRIMINATION, AND EVEN VERY LIMITED SKILL OF HANDIWORK, ABLE TO BE CLAIMED BY THE SERVANTS NOW IN QUESTION.

VI HOW BOLD, TRENCHANT, UNDISMAYED, THE DISTINCT AFFIRMATION, OF THE GREAT PROPHET PRESENT, AS REGARDS THE END, ITS SOLEMN APPORTIONMENTS, AND ITS ENTIRE DETAILED SCENERY. B.

Vers. 24-30. Parable of the tares.

In the parable of the tares we see what appearance the kingdom of heaven presents in this world, and are warned against expecting to see now that perfect condition which wilt in the end be brought about. It has perplexed God"s servants in all times that all in this earth should not be unmingled good. This world is God"s; men are his property. And all that is needful for the production of the fruit dear to God has been done by him; and yet look at the result. Has he mistaken the capabilities of the field, or does he not care to develop them? The answer is, "An enemy hath done this." This is enough for us to know. We are not to stop short of this, and pause at men and hate them; but, pitying them, are to pass with our indignation and hatred to the enemy. We are not, on the other hand, to go beyond Satan, and think blasphemously of God as the Sower of bad seed; but, viewing his friendliness, and the cost he spends on this field, and his destruction of our enemy by his Son, are to spend all our hate on Satan. Such being the condition of the field and such the cause, what is to be the conduct of the servants? "Wilt thou that we go and gather them up?" This and that other propagator of falsehood, and perpetrator of evil, would it not be well if their hindrance were taken out of the way? Would not good men come to a quicker and more fruitful maturity were they not continually held down by the scoffing, exasperated by the persecution, and led astray by the example of the ungodly? "Let both grow together until the harvest," is the law of the Master. Again and again the Church has, in the face of this parable, taken upon her to root up infidels and heretics. The reasoning has been short and summary. We are Christ"s; these men are Satan"s let us destroy them. This attempt to make the field of the world appear uniform has been one of the most disastrous hindrances to the growth of religion. This measure of the servants has effected a more frightful desolation and barrenness than anything which the existence of the tares could have done. But each of us has something of the persecutor within him, and needs to apply this parable to himself. It does not say that the world is as it ought to be, does not say that there is no distinction, or a very insignificant one, between good and bad men, but tells us we are not to act upon this distinction to the extent of injuring a man. If a man, because he is ungodly, defrauds his neighbour, murders, or robs, he is of course lawfully punished, but not on the score of his ungodliness, but of his breaking human law; not because he has been an unprofitable creature of God"s and an offence in the sight of God, but because he is an injurious member of a civil community. No punishment is to be inflicted by us purely on the ground of a man"s spiritual condition, of his not bearing fruit in the kingdom of heaven. It is most detrimental to the cause of Christianity when a Christian in his conduct towards an ungodly person seems to be always saying, "I wish you were out of the world; and for my part, and as far as I can, you shall be deprived of all its advantages." From the earliest times, however, it has been the all but universal opinion that this parable had reference to ecclesiastical discipline. And if not meant in its first intention to be applied thus, it is valid for this purpose as well. Within the Church it is often very difficult to know what is wheat and what is not. An opinion which is condemned as scandalous or full of danger may turn out to be true and wholesome; if it be at once pronounced tares and thrown over the hedge, the good fruit it might have borne is thrown away with it. And even where it is clear that evil has sprung up in the Church, it is a further question whether it should be summarily removed. If you leave false doctrine alone, may you not get rid of it sooner than if you fix public attention upon it? No man who had a regard for his field would carry a seeding thistle through every part of it and shake it in every corner. Our Lord gives two reasons for this method of delay.

1. If we endeavour to anticipate the end, we shall injure the children of the kingdom. You are not to root up the tares, because you will inevitably root up good corn along with them. You cannot injure one man and one only, and of those who are attached to him can you be sure there are none who are of the kingdom?

2. But the kingdom of heaven has a Judge and an executive of its own, which will be apparent in the end. And when we reflect that what has raised our indignation has been observed by God, and will assuredly be dealt with by him, this not only stifles our indignation, but impels us to seek to save the sinner from the punishment he is earning. The bearing of this parable, then, on ourselves cannot be mistaken. Wheat and darnel, it says, are almost identical in appearance, but the root of the principle of the one is different from the other; the one is good food, the other is poison and they will eventually be treated accordingly. From this similarity it arises:

(1) That the darnel is apt to think itself as good as the wheat. But the question is not whether you are not at present to all appearance as useful and pleasant a member of society as they, but whether there is not that in them which will grow to good and that in you which will grow to evil. What is it that is producing your actual life and character? What is the motive power? Is it mere desire to get on, or respect for your own good name? Or is your character being more and more formed by the belief that God calls you to live for him and for eternity? Are you rooted in Christ? Do you grow out of him?

(2) The wheat is apt to think itself no better than darnel. You are troubled because others seem to be as regular, as zealous, as successful, in duty as you; they have even the advantage of you in some respects. Some natural infirmity of temper has fixed its stamp on you, or you are choked by uncongenial surroundings. But look to the end here predicted, "when all that offends shall be taken out of the way," and "the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Be sure only that there is that in you which will shine forth if the hindrances and blinds be taken out of the way. D.

Vers. 24-30. The tares in the field.

The kingdom of heaven is the Church of God at once in heaven and on earth. This parable, like that of the sower, was afterwards explained to the disciples. As the exposition explains the parable, and the parable illustrates the exposition, it is fitting they should be considered together. From this parable we learn

I THAT THIS LIFE IS A SCENE OF TRIAL.

1. The field is the world.

(1) So we have it in the interpretation (ver. 38). It is a wide field, whether viewed physically or morally. Still it is the Lord"s domain. One day it will be universally fruitful to his glory. (see Isa_11:9 Hab_2:14)

(2) Here we are now on our trial. This thought makes life solemn. The more so since there is no second probation.

(3) The issues are tremendous. In quality. In duration.

(4) How precious are the opportunities of the present!

2. The soil will nourish any seed.

(1) It will nourish the good. This, as interpreted in the parable of the sower, is the "Word of the kingdom" (ver. 19). In the interpretation here it is those in whom that Word is incorporated" "the sons of the kingdom" (ver. 38). Note: The sons of the kingdom are distinguished by their relation to the truth.

(2) It will nourish the evil. The truth of God is opposed by the perversions of Satan. Those ruled by error are the "sons of the evil one." The wicked do not consider their spiritual lineage. (see Joh_8:44 Eph_2:2)

(3) Note: Here are only two classes. There are orders of good, and there are orders of evil. But if the seed be not good, then it is evil. To which of these classes do you belong?

3. There are two seed sowers.

(1) The Son of man, as in the parable of the sower, is one. The seed he sows is good. He is the incarnation of Infinite good. Christ sowed this good seed in person when he preached. He still sows it by his ambassadors. (2Co_5:20)

(2) The enemy, not mentioned in this capacity in the parable of the sower, is the other. The devil is the enemy of Christ (ver. 39; see also Gen_3:15). So is he the enemy of the sons of Jesus. The enemy is the anti-Messiah, possessed of the devil, as was Judas Iscariot. (cf. Isa_11:4 2Th_2:8)

(3) Note the differences in the sowing. The Son of man sows openly in the day. The evil one works in the darkness of night. "While men slept" (ver. 25). Satan takes every advantage of our drowsiness, indolence, lukewarmness. The approaches of evil are stealthy.

(4) Note what follows. The evil one "went his way." He takes care not to be seen in his work. He can trust his weeds to grow. "When the blade was up." Beware of the seeds of evil. They may be small, but they grow.

II THAT THIS SCENE OF TRIAL PRESENTS DIFFICULT PROBLEMS.

1. There is the origin of moral evil.

(1) It puzzled the servants to see the darnel, or the bastard wheat, spring up among the good wheat (ver. 27). We may puzzle ourselves with many things.

(2) Christ disclaims this authorship. He owns to sowing the good seed. He is infinitely good. Evil he can neither be nor do.

(3) He fixes this authorship upon Satan. He is the enemy alike of God and man. Further than this in the solution of the question of the origin of evil we cannot go.

(4) Note: The personality of the devil is here asserted. The author of moral evil must be a moral, and therefore an intelligent, agent.

2. There is the forbearance of God towards evil.

(1) This also puzzled the servants. "Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?" "Wilt thou that we bid fire to come down from heaven, and consume them?". (Luk_9:54-56) Zeal is commendable only when it is discreet.

(2) God tolerates the evil for the sake of the good.

(a) Were he to root all the wicked out of the earth, the population would be so reduced that the wild beasts could not be kept under.

(b) The graces of the good are exercised by the toleration of the wicked.

(c) So the grace of God is exemplified in supporting the good amongst the evil.

(3) The wicked are tolerated to render it possible for the grace of God to convert them.

3. There is the difference between discipline and persecution.

(1) Persecution is an evil against which zeal must be guarded. Men may think they do God service when they make havoc of his Church. (cf. Act_8:3 Gal_1:13 1Ti_1:13)

(2) The darnel so resembles the wheat that it may be mistaken for it. So may the unbeliever be mistaken for the believer, the hypocrite for the true man. So, on the contrary, some saints are so clumsy and awkward that they may be mistaken for deceivers. Where there is a doubt let the subject have the benefit. The wheat rather than the darnel has generally suffered from persecution.

(3) But the toleration of darnel, which resembles wheat, is no reason for the toleration of thorns, which resemble it not (cf. ver. 22; 1Co_5:13). The teaching of our parable is not directed against discipline, but against persecution.

(4) Note: Our Lord gives us no authority to expect a perfect Church in this age. The objection against joining a Church because it is imperfect is unreasonable.

III THAT THE GREAT JUDGMENT WILL VINDICATE THE WAYS OF GOD.

1. Then will he separate the evil from the good.

(1) Angels will be employed in this service. They are superior to the prejudices of mortals. They act also in the presence and under the direction of the omniscient Son of man.

(2) There are no masks in heaven. Where no evil is there is nothing to conceal. Society is at its best when confidence has no restraint.

(3) Masks are torn off in hell. Holy angels will unmask the wicked. What a spectacle will be then displayed! Society is at its worst when mistrust has no restraint.

2. Then will he punish the wicked.

(1) The tares are bound in bundles. Is this a classification according to character? Are atheists to be bundled together? Blasphemers? Epicures? Persecutors? Hypocrites?

(2) Is the bundling promiscuous? Will the scientist be bound in the same bundle with the sot?

(3) "Bind them in bundles to burn them." The Son of man "shall cast them into the furnace of fire" (ver. 42). What a prison! What an imprisonment!

(4) Despair has its woeful expression. "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (ver. 42).

3. Then will he reward the good.

(1) They will enjoy security. "Gather the wheat into my barn" (ver. 30; Psa_50:5). Security from wind and weather. Beyond the mutations of probation.

(2) They will enjoy distinction. "In the kingdom of their Father." "Now we are the sons of God." Then will the grandeur of this sonship appear . (cf. Joh_20:17 1Jn_3:2) The palace. The throne. (Rev_3:21)

(3) They will be invested with glory. "Shall shine forth as the sun". (cf. Jud_1:5:31 Dan_12:3) In the glory of purity like the "Sun of Righteousness." In glorified bodies like that of Jesus. They shall not "burn" like the wicked, but "shine.

(4) Who hath ears, let him hear how tenderly God cares for the good. J.A.M.

Seeding the earthly fields to get seed for the heavenly fields.

See the farmer. The ground is provided for him and prepared for him. He cannot alter his surroundings and conditions. His chief aim is good seeding, and for the sake of the seed he wants he is anxious to secure good flowers. His harvest is largely, and ideally it is altogether, a gathering of seed for next years sowing. We are familiar with the idea that the present life is our sowing time, and the next life our harvest time. But this view is less familiar. The present life is the growing and the preparing of the seeds which are to be sown in the fields of the next life. Every plant has this for its object, to seed the fields next year.

I OUR EARTH LIFE IS THE HARVEST FIELD IN WHICH WE BOTH SOW AND REAP. The field is prepared for us. We cannot choose or make our own particular place and work. Our age, family, nation, circumstances, abilities, and disabilities are all arranged for us. What we have to do is to sow our own particular field, and exactly what we sow we shall reap, a fulness of the same thing. Youth is the time of sowing; early manhood is the time of growing. The full maturity of life is our reaping time. The man in middle life has attained the character which is the seed-result of the spring sowing and the summer growing. He will not be very different as long as he lives.

II THE HARVEST OF THIS LIFE PROVIDES THE SEED CORN FOR THE NEXT LIFE. Remember, every plant is working for next year. The flower or the fruit of this year is not its end; the seed is its end. And cultured, finished, high-toned, spiritual character is the seed which we are to have ready for the next harvest field. The eternal ages may prove to be successions of harvest fields, in which, like the plants, we shall be ever sowing and maturing for the next age"s seeding; ever trying to secure better, worthier, character seeds.

III THERE IS MUCH TO BE DONE WITH THE SEED CORN, WHEN IT IS MATURE, BEFORE IT IS ALTOGETHER FIT FOR THE NEXT YEAR"S SOWING. It seems as if a piece of life were left out, and we ended it with manhood. But there is a space between full manhood and decay. That piece of life should be the weathering, winnowing, cleansing of the seed corn character, ready for the eternal fields. Weathering, or exposing to the sun and wind of prosperity. Winnowing, or getting rid of the useless by adversity. Cleansing, or getting free from the mischievous by culture. Fully ripe and well prepared, God bears us off to seed his eternal fields. R.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He proposed another parable - in which he farther explains the case of unfruitful hearers. The kingdom of heaven (as has been observed before) sometimes signifies eternal glory: sometimes the way to it, inward religion; sometimes, as here, the Gospel dispensation: the phrase is likewise used for a person or thing relating to any one of those: so in this place it means, Christ preaching the Gospel, who is like a man sowing good seed - The expression, is like, both here and in several other places, only means, that the thing spoken of may be illustrated by the following similitude. Who sowed good seed in his field - God sowed nothing but good in his whole creation. Christ sowed only the good seed of truth in his Church.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The Parable of the Tares

v. 24. Another parable put He forth unto them, saying: The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field.

v. 25. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.

An important point: The parable is set forth, is presented, as spiritual food, for instruction of the soul. The kingdom of heaven, the Church of Christ, strictly speaking, includes only such as are united under His leadership by the bonds of a common, sincere faith in Him. But the Lord here, as often, describes the Church as it appears in the world, as we deal with it in concrete form. His picture is again taken from the work of the farmer. A man will certainly sow only the best seed obtainable in his field if he wants a large and heavy crop. That was also the custom of this husbandman. But during the time when men, that is, the average-honest man, usually slept, his enemy came with a certain malignant seed, a degenerate form of wheat, whose stalks and spikes closely resemble the true grain (bastard wheat, or darnel), and deliberately and maliciously sowed this weed-seed in the midst of the wheat as thickly as though there were nothing there. Having done his spiteful deed, he went his way. The damage, he knew, could hardly be discovered until it would be too late to remedy matters.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The design and scope of this parable is, to shew that there is no expectation of universal purity in the church of God in this life; but as the tares and the wheat grow together in the same field, so hypocrites and sincere Christians are and will be intermixed in the same church, and can hardly be discerned one from the other.

St. Jerome observes, That in the eastern countries, the tares and the wheat were so like one another, whilst they were in the blade, that there was no knowing them asunder.

Learn, 1. That in the outward and visible church, there ever has been and will be a mixture of good and bad, of saints and sinners, of hypocrites, and sincere Christians, until the day of judgment.

2. That in that day Christ will make a thorough and perfect separation, and divide the tares from the wheat; that is, the righteous from the wicked.

3. That in the meantime none ought to be so offended at this mixture in the church, as to separate from church communication on that account: until the harvest, it is not to be expected that the tares and the wheat should be perfectly separated.

Yet observe, 4. That though the tares are forbidden to be plucked up when sown, yet it is the church’s duty, all she can, to hinder their sowing. Though we must not root the wicked up, yet we must prevent the rooting of wickedness all we can. Our Saviour, that forbad to pluck up the cares, did not forbid to hinder their sowing.

Note here, How vain is the collection of the Erastians from hence, that the wicked are not to be cut of by excommunication from the communion of the church; nor doth this text prove that the magistrates may not cut off evil doers; seeing this was not spoken to them, but to the ministers of the church.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LIV. D. The Parable of the Tares].

LIV. THE FIRST GREAT GROUP OF PARABLES. (Beside the Sea of Galilee.) Subdivision D. THE PARABLE OF THE TARES. aMATT. XIII. 24-30.

a24 Another parable set he before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man that [336] sowed good seed in his field: 25 but while men slept [while they innocently rested, not while they were negligent], his enemy came and sowed tares [darnel, which closely resembles our cheat] also among the wheat, and went away. [Though not common, there have been instances of such malignant mischief as is here indicated.] 26 But when the blade sprang up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. [The difference between darnel and wheat does not become apparent until the two kinds of grain are nearly ripe.] 27 And the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence then hath it tares? 28 And he said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants say unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? 29 But he saith, Nay; lest haply while ye gather up the tares, ye root up the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather up first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn. [The roots of wheat and darnel so intertwine that they can not be separated without pulling up both. Jesus' explanation of this parable will be found below in Subdivision F.]

[FFG 336-337]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

24. The kingdom of heaven is likened. The object of all parables in this connection is to explain various features and principles of the kingdom of heaven. Unto a man which sowed good seed in his field. It is important to note what the kingdom of heaven is likened to. It is not to the field in which the tares and wheat were both sown, nor to the enemy who sowed the tares, but to the man who sowed the good seed. The kingdom does what the Sower is represented as doing. It sows the good seed. Good seed. It is declared in verse 19 that the seed is the “word of the kingdom,” and in verse 38 that the “good seed” are “the children of the kingdom.” These are those in whose hearts the good seed has fallen, and their new lives, as children of the kingdom, are the fruit of the good seed. In his field. The controversy has turned upon what the Savior represents by the field. 1. It is not the kingdom, or church, for this is represented by “the man that sowed good seed in his field.” 2. It is the place where the good seed is sown by the Son of man, or through his agency; in other words, the place where the gospel is preached to men. 3. Verse 38 states emphatically that the field is the world.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

Here Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven by telling a parable about a field with both wheat and weeds growing in it. (See: Parables)

The kingdom of heaven is like a man

The translation should not equate the kingdom of heaven to a man, but rather the kingdom of heaven is like the situation described in the parable. (See: Simile)

The kingdom of heaven is like

Here "kingdom of heaven" refers to God's rule as king. The phrase "kingdom of heaven" is used only in Matthew. If possible, use "heaven" in your translation. AT: "When our God in heaven shows himself to be king, it will be like" (See: Metonymy)

good seed

"good food seeds" or "good grain seeds." The audience probably thought that Jesus was talking about wheat. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

his enemy came

"his enemy came to the field"

weeds

These weeds look like food plants when they are young, but their grain is poison. AT: "bad seed" or "weed seeds"

When the blades sprouted

"When the wheat seeds sprouted" or "When the plants came up"

produced their crop

"produced grain" or "produced the wheat crop"

then the weeds appeared also

"then people could see there were weeds in the field also"

translationWords

Jesus

parable

kingdom of God

plant

seed

adversary

wheat

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

24–30. THE PARABLE OF THE TARES

Confined to St Matthew.

24. παρέθηκεν here and Mat 13:31 only in this sense. Elsewhere of ‘setting meat before a guest’—the usual Homeric use of the word—Mar 6:41; Mar 8:6-7; Luk 11:6. Of committing a charge to a person, Luk 12:48; 2Ti 2:2. In mid. voice, of ‘proving’ by comparison, Act 17:3. Here the word might be taken in a similar sense ‘made a similitude,’ παραβολήν regarded as cognate.

σπείραντι, not ‘which sowed,’ A.V. but when he sowed.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

24-30.] Second parable. The tares of the field. Peculiar to Matthew. For the explanation of this parable see below, vv. 36-43.

24.] ὡμοιώθη … ἀνθρώπῳ, ‘is like the whole circumstances about to be detailed; like the case of a man,’ &c. A similar form of construction is found in ch. 18:23, and in other parables in Matthew.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

24-30. The tares.

(L) 24. Another parable He put forth to them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened to a man who sowed good seed in his field.]

ὡμοιώθη] The usual introduction of a parable in the later Jewish literature is: “A parable. To what is the matter like? To,” etc. See Bacher, Exeg. Term. i. 121, ii. 121. The use of parables is very common in this literature. Examples from the Mechilta may be seen in Fiebig, A1tjüd. Gleichnisse. All the parables in Mt. which are not borrowed from Mk. are introduced with the formula ὡμοιώθη or ὁμοία ἐστί, except 25:14-30, which is introduced with a simple ὥσπερ, a method also used in the Jewish parables. Cf. Fiebig, p. 78.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Put he forth [παρεθηκεν] . But this would be rather the translation of proballw, from which problhma, a problem, is derived, while the word here used means rather to set before or offer. Often used of meals, to serve up. Hence, better, Rev., set he before them. See on Luk 9:16.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.