Matthew 13:37

SOLUTION OF THE PARABLE OF THE TARES AND THE WHEAT, Mat_13:37-43.

37. He that soweth… the Son of man — The sower is the redeemer the field is not the Church, but the world; the good seed are the Christians; the tares are the wicked, their sower is Satan. At the end of the world the angels shall gather out the harvest of wicked men to cast them into the blaze of retribution.

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

Mat_13:37-38. In explaining this parable Jesus contents Himself, as far as Mat_13:39, with short positive statements, in order merely to prepare the way for the principal matter with which He has to deal (Mat_13:40), and thereafter to set it forth with fuller detail. There is consequently no ground for treating this explanation as if it had not belonged to the collection of our Lords sayings (Ewald, Weiss, Holtzmann),for regarding it as an interpolation on the part of the evangelist, in advocating which view Weiss lays stress upon a want of harmony between the negative points in the parable and the positive character of the exposition; while Hilgenfeld questions the correctness of this exposition, because he thinks that, as the progress that takes place between the sowing and the harvest corresponds with and is applicable to the whole history of the world, therefore the sower cannot have been Christ, but God and Him only,an objection which has been already disposed of by the first parable in the series.

The good seed represents the sons of the kingdom, the (future) subjects, citizens of the Messianic kingdom (comp. note on Mat_8:12), who are established as such by the Messiah in their spiritual nature, which is adapted thereto (ὁ σπείρων τὸ καλὸν σπέρμα ἐστὶν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, Mat_13:37). It is not fruges ex bono semine enatae (Fritzsche) that are intended by τὸ δὲ καλὸν σπέρμα, but see Mat_13:24-25.

οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ πονηροῦ] whose ethical nature is derived from the devil (see Mat_13:39). Comp. Joh_8:41; Joh_8:44; 1Jn_3:8; 1Jn_3:10. Not specially: the heretics (the Fathers and several of the older expositors).

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 13:37 . ὁ σπείρων : identified here with the Son of man (not so in interpretation of Sower ).

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

He expoundeth the former parable of the good and evil seed.

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

(37) He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man.—Primarily, we must remember that the parable refers to the kingdom of heaven—i.e., to that new order of things which the Christ came to establish, and which is conveniently described as the Church which owns Him as its Lord. It offers, accordingly, an explanation of the presence of evil in that Church, and only by inference and analogy does it bear upon the wider problem of the origin of the evil in the world at large. That analogy, however, is not likely to mislead us. If the Son of Man has been “the Light that lighteth every man” (Joh_1:9), then He had been a sower of the good seed in the wider region of the world from the beginning, and then also all who followed after righteousness had been children of the kingdom.

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

The enemy that sowed them is the devil,.... He that is designed by the enemy, who sowed the tares in the field among the wheat, is no other than the devil; the enemy of Christ, of mankind in general, of God's elect in particular, and the accuser of the brethren; and his getting of hypocrites and heretics into churches, is no small proof of his implacable enmity to Christ and his interest; and shows what an adversary he is to the peace, comfort, and fruitfulness of the churches of Christ,

The harvest is the end of the world; that which is meant by "the harvest", until which time wheat and tares, good and bad men, under a profession of religion, are to be together, is "the end of the world"; meaning either the day of wrath and vengeance upon the Jewish nation; when those that truly believed in Christ were separated from the rest, and that hypocritical generation of men were utterly destroyed; or else the day of judgment, the great and last day, when the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, shall be burnt up; when the righteous will enter into life, and the wicked go into everlasting punishment:

and the reapers are the angels; the persons signified by "the reapers", who shall put in the sickle, cut down the tares, bind them in bundles, and cast them into the fire, and who shall gather the wheat into the barn; that is, who shall be the executors of God's wrath, upon wicked professors of religion, and who shall be the means of introducing the saints into the heavenly kingdom, are "the angels"; the holy and elect angels, who are the ministers of Christ, and ministering servants to them, who are the heirs of salvation; and are opposite to all secret and open enemies of Christ and his people; and will be employed in the end of time, against the wicked, and for the righteous.

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

37 He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;

Ver. 37. Is the Son of man] i.e. Signifies the Son of man: as circumcision is the covenant; that is, the sign of the covenant. And as Christ saith of the sacramental bread, "This is my body," which Luther interprets synecdochically, for in, or under, this is my body. Calvin, after Tertullian and Augustine, interpret it metaphorically, for this is the sign or the figure of my body. Hence the Jesuits presently cry out, the Spirit of God disagreeth not with itself. But these interpretations do utterly disagree, therefore they are not of the Spirit. But let them first agree among themselves, before they quarrel our disagreements; for their own doctors are exceedingly divided even about this very point of the Eucharist, and know not what their holy mother holdeth. Bellarmine teacheth, that the substance of the bread is not turned into the substance of Christ’s body productive, as one thing is made of another, but that the bread goes away, and Christ’s body comes into the room of it adductive, as one thing succeeds into the place of another, the first being voided. And this, saith he, is the opinion of the Church of Rome, himself being reader of Controversies at Rome. But Suarez, reader at Salamanca, in Spain, confutes Bellarmine’s opinion, terming it translocation, not transubstantiation, and saith it is not the Church’s opinion.

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 design that Christ had in this parable was to show them, that though he laid a good foundation of a church in the world, calling some home to himself; and making them partakers of his effectual grace, laying the foundation of his gospel church in such as took his yoke upon them; yet in process of time, while those that should succeed him in his ministry slept, (not being so diligent and watchful as they ought to be), the devil (who is full of envy and malice to men’s souls, and is continually going about seeking whom he may devour) would sow erroneous opinions, and find a party, even in the bosom of his church, who would hearken to him, and through their lusts comply with his temptations, both to errors in doctrine and errors in practice: and it was his will, that there should be in the visible church a mixture of good and bad, such bad ones especially as men could not purge out without a danger of putting out such as were true and sincere; but there would be a time, in the end of the world, when he would come with his fan, and thoroughly purge his floor, and take to heaven all true and sincere souls, but turn all hypocrites into hell. This appears, by our Saviour’s exposition, to have been our Saviour’s plain meaning in this parable. Hence he tells us, that by the sower here he meant himself,

the Son of man. By

the field he meant

the world. By

the good seed he meant

the children of the kingdom; such as had a true change wrought in their hearts, were truly regenerated and converted. By

the tares he meant the children of the wicked one, that is, of the devil; such as did the works of the devil, Joh 8:44. That

the enemy that sowed these tares was the devil, who by his suggestions, presenting objects, &c., makes himself the father of all wicked men. Our Saviour here saith nothing to that part of the parable, where the tares are said to be sown

while men slept; that was plain and intelligible enough. The devil hath a power to seduce, persuade, and allure, none to force. If particular persons kept their watch, as they might, the devil could not by his temptation force them. If magistrates and ministers kept their watches according to God’s prescription, there could not be so much open wickedness in the world as there is. Neither doth our Saviour give us any particular explication of that part of the parable, which is Mat 13:28,29, where the servants say to their master,

Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up. And

he said unto them, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Our Saviour by this teacheth us, that every passage in a parable is not to be fitted by something in the explication. It was not the point that he designed in this parable to instruct them in, how far church officers might or ought to act in purging the church; but only,

1. That in the visible church they must expect it mixture, till the day of judgment.

2. That in that day he would make a perfect separation.

So as those that would from this passage in the parable conclude, that all erroneous and loose persons ought to be tolerated in the church till the day of judgment, forget the common rule in divinity, that parabolical divinity is not argumentative. We can argue from nothing in a parable but from the main scope and tendency of it. However, it is bold arguing from a passage in a parable, expounded by our Saviour himself, when he hath omitted the explication of that passage; nor can any thing be concluded, but that such must not be rooted out as have such a resemblance of wheat from the outward appearance, that they cannot be rooted out without a hazard of a mistake, and a rooting up of the wheat with them. But our Saviour reserves the point of the ministerial duty in purging the church to another more proper time; he here saith, nothing of that, but of his own design to purge it at

the harvest, which he interprets,

the end of the world, that is, the day of judgment. By

the reapers he tells us that he meaneth

the angels.

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

He answered and said unto them. In the following reply of our Lord (vers. 37-43) observe the change of style at ver. 40. Until then we have pithy, concise sentences all joined by the simple copula de , which can hardly be anything else than literal translations of the Lord"s own phrases. But vers. 40-43 are in the usual style of this Gospel. The Son of man. (Mat_8:20, note)

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

(L) 37. And He answered and said, He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.]

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