Matthew 13:39

Mat 13:39. Συντέλεια—ἄγγελοι, consummation—angels) They form the predicate here, the subject elsewhere.—συντέλεια in Mat 13:49, is the meeting or combination of the ends (τῶν τελῶν); see 1Co 10:11.

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

Mat_13:39. Συντέλεια τ. αἰῶνος] not found in any of the other Gospels: the close of the (current) age (Mat_13:22), i.e. of the, pre-Messianic epoch; the great catastrophe that is to accompany the second coming, and which is to introduce the Messianic judgment, 4 Esdr. 7:43; Bertholdt, Christol. p. 39; comp. Mat_13:40; Mat_13:49; Mat_24:3; Mat_28:20; Heb_9:26, and see note on Mat_12:32.

The reapers are angels; see Mat_24:31; comp. Joh_15:6.

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 13:39 . συντέλεια αἰνῶνος , the end of the world; phrase peculiar to this Gospel. θερισταὶ ἄγγελοι . Weiss thinks this borrowed from Mat 24:31 , and certainly not original. Perhaps not as a dogmatic interpretation, but quite possibly as a poetic suggestion.

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

The enemy that sowed them is the devil--emphatically "His enemy" (Mat 13:25). (See Gen 3:15; Jo1 3:8). By "tares" is meant, not what in our husbandry is so called, but some noxious plant, probably darnel. "The tares are the children of the wicked one"; and by their being sown "among the wheat" is meant their being deposited within the territory of the visible Church. As they resemble the children of the kingdom, so they are produced, it seems, by a similar process of "sowing"--the seeds of evil being scattered and lodging in the soil of those hearts upon which falls the seed of the world. The enemy, after sowing his "tares," "went his way"--his dark work soon done, but taking time to develop its true character.

The harvest is the end of the world--the period of Christ's second coming, and of the judicial separation of the righteous and the wicked. Till then, no attempt is to be made to effect such separation. But to stretch this so far as to justify allowing openly scandalous persons to remain in the communion of the Church, is to wrest the teaching of this parable to other than its proper design, and go in the teeth of apostolic injunctions (1Co. 5).

And the reapers are the angels--But whose angels are they? "The Son of man shall send forth His angels" (Mat 13:41). Compare Pe1 3:22, "Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him."

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

(39) The enemy that sowed them is the devil.—Here, as in the parable of the Sower, there is the most distinct recognition of a personal power of evil, the enemy of God thwarting His work. It will be noticed that our Lord, as if training His disciples gradually in the art of the interpreter, gives rather the heads of an explanation of the parable than one that enters fully into details; and it is therefore open to us, as it was to them, to pause and ask what was taught by that which seems almost the most striking and most important part of the parable. Who were the servants? What was meant by their question, and the answer of the householder? The answers under these heads supply, it will be seen, a solution of many problems in the history and policy of the Church of Christ. (1.) The enemy sowed the tares “while men slept.” The time of danger for the Church is one of apparent security. Men cease to watch. Errors grow up and develop into heresies, carelessness passes into license, and offences abound. (2.) The “servants” are obviously distinct from the “reapers.” and represent the zealous pastors of the Church. Their first impulse is to clear the kingdom from evil by extirpating the doers of the evil. But the householder in the parable is at once more patient and more discerning than they. To seek for the ideal of a perfect Church in that way may lead to worse evils than those it attempts to remedy. True wisdom is found, for the most part, in what might seem the policy of indifference, “Let both grow together until the harvest.” That is the broad, salient lesson of the parable. At first it may seem at variance with what enters into our primary conceptions, alike of ecclesiastical discipline and of the duty of civil rulers. Is it not the work of both to root out the tares, to punish evil-doers? The solution of the difficulty is found, as it were, in reading “between the lines” of the parable. Doubtless, evil is to be checked and punished alike in the Church and in civil society, but it is not the work of the rulers of either to extirpate the doers. Below the surface there lies the latent truth that, by a spiritual transmutation which was not possible in the natural framework of the parable, the tares may become the wheat. There is no absolute line of demarcation separating one from the other till the time of harvest. What the parable condemns, therefore, is the over-hasty endeavour to attain an ideal perfection, the zeal of the founders of religious orders, of Puritanism in its many forms. It would have been well if those who identify the tares with heretics had been more mindful of the lesson which that identification suggests.

The harvest is the end of the world.—Strictly speaking, the end of the age—i.e., of the period that precedes the “coming” of the Son of Man as Judge, which is to usher in the “world,” or the “age,” to come.

The reapers are the angels.—What will be the actual work of the ministry of angels in the final judgment it is not easy to define, but their presence is implied in all our Lord’s greater prophetic utterances about it (Mat_25:31). That ministry had been brought prominently before men in the apocalyptic visions of the Book of Daniel, in which for the first time the name of the Son of Man is identified with the future Christ (Mat_7:13), and the Messianic kingdom itself brought into new distinctness in connection with a final judgment. Our Lord’s teaching does but expand the hints of the “thousand times ten thousand” that ministered before the Ancient of Days when the books were opened (Dan_7:9-10), and of Michael the prince as connected with the resurrection of “many that sleep in the dust of the earth” (Dan_12:1-2).

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

The Son of man shall send forth his angels,.... Meaning himself, whose ministers the angels are; who wait upon him, and are at his beck and command; even the thousand thousands that minister unto him; these will be sent forth by his orders, into the several parts of the world, where he has any churches, or an interest,

and they shall gather out of his kingdom: the Gospel church, over which Christ is king, where he rules and governs in the hearts of his people; and who are cheerfully and willingly obedient to his laws, under the influence of his Spirit and grace: but all who are in the visible Gospel church state, are not such; some are wicked and rebellious, and though they are suffered to continue, yet not always; for if not removed by censures and excommunications, they will be at last by angels; who will separate them from the saints:

even all things that offend; who are scandals to Christ, his church, and Gospel, by their wicked principles, or infamous practices; and who give offence, not only to God, and his righteous law, but lay stumbling blocks in the way of the children of God, and are the authors of divisions and offences among them:

and them that do iniquity; that do nothing else but iniquity; and who, though they profess to be religious persons, are secretly, or openly, workers of iniquity; and are even doing iniquity, in and whilst they are professing religion.

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

39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.

Ver. 39. The enemy that sowed them, &c.] As Esther said, "The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman," so Satan. Why then have men so much to do with him? The Jews, as often as they hear mention of Haman in their synagogues, they do with their fists and hammers beat upon the benches and boards, as if they did knock upon Haman’s head. We have those also that can bid defiance to the devil, spit at his name, curse him, haply; {a} but in the meantime listen to his illusions, entertain him into their hearts by obeying his lusts. These are singularly foolish. For it is as if one should be afraid of the name of fire, and yet not fear to be burnt with the flame thereof.

{a} Martinus Papae exactor ex Anglia pulsus, cum a Rege salvum conductum peteret, respondit, Rex, Diabolus te ad inferos ducat et perducat, ad mare tamen ei conmeatum dedit. Revius.

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 enemy that sowed them (o speirav); contrast ver. 37 (oo speirwn to kalorma). Ver. 37 states what is ever true; ver. 39 merely refers back to the enemy spoken of in the parable. Is the devil. (Mat_4:1, note) (For the thought of this and the preceding clause, see Joh_8:44 1Jn_3:8, 1Jn_3:10) The harvest is the end of the world; literally, as the margin of the Revised Version, the consummation of the age (sunteleia aiwnov); when the present age shall have received its completion, and the more glorious one be ushered in. (cf. Mat_12:32, note) And the reapers are the angels; are angels (Revised Version). But it is exactly parallel to the preceding predicate, and if the insertion of our English idiomatic "the" fails to lay the stress which the Greek has on the fact that the reapers are such beings as angels, (as contrasted with human workers, Mat_9:37, Mat_9:38) its omission adds a thought which the Greek was probably not intended to convey that the reapers would be only some among the angels.

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

devil

Satan. Br. diabolos, accuser. See note, Mat 16:23; Gen 3:1; Rev 20:10. (See Scofield "Rev 20:10").

angels (See Scofield "Heb 1:4").

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

39. συντέλεια. In classical Greek ‘a joint subscription, or association for paying state dues,’ &c. later the ‘completion’ of a scheme opposed to ἀρχὴ or ἐπιβολή, cp. συντέλειαν ἐπιθεῖναι τοῖς ἔργοις, Polyb. XI. 33, 7.

συντέλεια αἰῶνος. ‘Completion of the Æon,’ the expression is confined to this Gospel; see below, Mat 13:40; Mat 13:49 and ch. Mat 24:3, but compare Heb 9:26, ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τῶν αἰώνων, ‘at the completion of the Æons,’ and 1Co 10:11, τὰ τέλη τῶν αἰώνων, the ends or the final result of the Æons. In the two last passages the ‘Æons’ are the successive periods previous to the advent of Christ, the ‘Æon’ of the text is the period introduced by Christ, which will not be completed till his second Advent.

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.

(L) 39. And the enemy who sowed them is the devil; and the harvest is the consummation of the age; and the reapers are angels.]—συντέλεια αἰῶνος] The phrase occurs in vv. 40, 49, 24:3 and 28:20. In the two latter it seems to have been inserted by the editor into his source. If this section is Logian, the phrase in 24:3 and 28:20 will be due to the influence of Logian language on the editor. If this section is wholly editorial the phrase points to the Jewish origin of the editor, for it is characteristic of Jewish, especially of apocalyptic, literature. It occurs in Heb 9:26. Cf. συντέλεια τῶν αἰώνων, Test. Lev_10; “consummation of the age,” Apoc. Bar 83:7; “consummation of the world,” 54:21; Dan 12:13 συντέλειαν ἡμερῶν; “consummation of the times,” Apoc. Bar 13:3, 27:15; “of time,” 29:8; “the day when the great consummation of the great world will be consummated,” Enoch 16:1; “the end of this time,” 2 Es 7:113; “the consummation of the end of the days,” Ass. Mos 1:18. Cf. Dalm. Words, p. 155; Volz, Jüd. Eschat. p. 166.—ἄγγελοι] cf. 24:31.

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