Bible Commentaries
Matthew 13

Verses 1-14

42 “The ends of the earth,” an expression which does not include the sea, would describe any location on Eurasia or Africa not far from the further coast line.

43-45 Compare Luk_11:24-26

43 Actual idolatry had no place in Israel. That evil spirit had been cast out since the captivity. They were like the empty house, for the spirit of God had not displaced the unclean spirit. Though untenanted, like the temple on Moriah's mount, they kept to the outward form of cleansing and ceremony. But during the time of the end they will receive the false christ and will worship the miracle-working image, and bring down upon the apostates the judgments of the bowls ( Rev_15:5-8 ; Rev_16:1-21 ).

46-50 Compare Mar_3:31-35 ; Luk_8:19-21 . See Mat_13:55 ; Mar_6:3 ; Joh_2:127:3 ; Joh_2:5 Act_1:14 ; 1Co_9:5 ;

Gal_1:19 .

46 This is not intended to show disrespect and disregard for His own family. Rather it is brought up just at this juncture to indicate the change coming over His ministry. He no longer recognizes a merely physical relationship.

1-9 Compare Mar_4:1-9 ; Luk_8:4-8 .

1 The action is significant, and corresponds with His repudiation of His relatives. He takes Himself outside the artificial Jewish system. Though vast throngs come, He does, not proclaim the nearness of the kingdom but speaks so they cannot comprehend, concealing His meaning in parables. His subject is still the kingdom, but He is concerned with its past and future history, not its present proclamation. He utters secrets hitherto unrevealed, which even His own disciples could not understand.

3-5 See verses 18 to 21.

3 The removal of the kingdom to a distance in time is indicated by comparing it with the sowing and growing and harvesting of a crop. Had it still been imminent, He would not have called Himself a Sower, but a Reaper, as in the Unveiling, when the kingdom is about to appear ( Rev_14:14 ). The Lord is Himself the Sower, and the parable gives us the results of His past ministry. It shows us why His proclamation had not swept the whole nation into the kingdom. We must now wait until the sowing is ready for the harvest. The picture presented is true to the life of the Orient. The unfenced fields were allotted to farmers, and the roads ran right through the grain, so that it was quite impossible to avoid sowing some on the hard ground. There were often outcroppings of the country rock and shallow soil near it, and in many places thorns were so thick that the farmers despaired of eradicating them. As their soil, so the people. It takes the sun and rain of heaven to change the rocks into fertile soil. The heart of the people was still hard. It will take the storms of persecution and the fire of affliction to prepare it for the kingdom of Christ.

7-8 See verses 22 and 23.

10-13 Compare Mar_4:10-13 ; Luk_8:9-10 .

11 It cannot be too strongly emphasized that our Lord's parables were not intended to explain, but to mystify. He veiled His message in figures lest they should understand.

12 Compare Mar_4:24-25 ; Luk_8:18 .

12 This somewhat enigmatic statement must be understood in connection with its context. Our Lord's disciples had received spiritual gifts which enabled them to receive more. Those who had not believed on Him had no means of receiving what He was now dispensing, for they had no spiritual discernment. Not only would they lose these spiritual benefits but, as a result of the national apostasy, they would also lose the privileges which they had as the people of God.

14 This quotation from the sixth chapter of Isaiah is quoted more frequently than any other passage from the prophets. It occurs at the two great crises in the spiritual history of Israel, the rejection of the kingdom ministry of Christ, and the repudiation of its renewal by the holy spirit in Acts ( Act_28:25-27 ). It always marks the cessation of the evangel of the kingdom, seeking to open their eyes, but to blind them. After Paul's pronunciation of Israel's doom the kingdom proclamation ceased. The history of the kingdom ended. It will not be resumed until the present administration of God's grace, in which the evangel goes direct to the nations apart from Israel's mediacy, is finished. Then once more the evangel will not only go to Israel, but through them to all the nations.

Verses 15-36

14 Compare Isa_6:9-10 , Septuagint. See Joh_12:37-40 ; Act_28:25-27 ; Rom_11:7-10 ; 2Co_3:14-16 .

16-17 Compare Luk_10:23-24 . See Mat_16:17 .

18-23 Compare Mar_4:14-20 ; Luk_8:11-15 .

19 Lack of understanding lays the heart open to the inroads of malignant spirit powers. The chief opposition to our Lord's ministry came from superhuman sources. Before He could even enter on His work, Satan tried to turn Him aside. He was continually casting out demons. This satanic opposition continued to the end. Satan sifted Peter and obsessed Judas. Before the kingdom will be established he will be bound ( Rev_20:2 ). Then no evil spirit will mislead mankind until the close of the thousand years.

20 God's present evangel of pure grace expects nothing from man. It thrives in any soil. One who really receives it is never temporary. It will bear fruit in the midst of stones or thorns, for it expects no sustenance from beneath. This parable has no application whatever to the evangel of today. It refers exclusively to the proclamation of the kingdom by our Lord Himself up to the time when it was spoken. Of the many who had heard Him only one class out of four became His disciples.

24-30 See verses 36-38.

24 This parable is concerned with the future course of the kingdom proclamation before it comes. There is the same Sower as in the previous parable. There is no question of the kind of ground, but the kind of seed. The Sower put in ideal seed. His enemy sowed that which was similar in appearance, but poisonous. Darnel is so like wheat or barley before it heads out that it is practically impossible to separate them. It was customary to weed grain fields, but darnel was too like the good stalks to distinguish them. It is a strong soporific poison, and was winnowed and picked out of the wheat, grain by grain, before being ground up for meal. The darnel represents the horde of hypocrites who took their place with true disciples. There was one even among the twelve apostles. Their number greatly increased in the later years of the Pentecostal era. They will flourish at the time of the end, and perish in the Judgments which usher in the kingdom.

31-32 Compare Mar_4:30-32 Luk_13:18-19 . See Dan_4:10-12 .

31 Mustard, like darnel, is a menace to the grain farmer. It is not a healthful food but a condiment. Its quick growth from a small beginning is in striking contrast to the parable of the Sower. Its sinister import is confirmed by the place it gives to the birds. In the first parable these represent the wicked spirits in their opposition to our Lord's proclamation. Now they actually take their place in the branches. At the time of the end there will be an exceedingly rapid development of the kingdom among the Jews, which will head up in false Babylon,

which becomes the cage of every hateful bird ( Rev_18:3 ), and supports the wicked spirits who once opposed the kingdom proclamation.

33 Compare Luk_13:20-21 . See Zec_5:5-11 .

33 Leaven, in scripture, is always a symbol of evil and corruption. The Jews cleanse all leaven out of their houses once a year at the festival of Unleavened Bread ( Mat_26:17 ; Exo_11:15 ). This the apostle calls evil and wickedness ( 1Co_5:8 ). All types of Christ had to be without leaven ( Exo_23:18 ; Exo_34:25 ; Lev_2:11 ; Lev_6:17 ). The meal was good. But the woman covertly introduces evil, which causes it to expand, and makes it palatable for men. The woman can hardly be any one but that false figure of the end time, great Babylon. The apostate nation will so corrupt the proclamation as to please the unregenerate in Israel. Instead of looking to Messiah to establish His reign and give them a place in it, they do as they did in the days of old, when they leaned on Egypt or Assyria, instead of on Jehovah. At the end time Babylon will be supported in millennial splendor by all the nations of the earth. It is true that the leaven of insincerity and falsehood is working in Christendom today, swelling it into a great world force, palatable to men but abominable in the sight of God, but this parable has reference to the kingdom only. Leaven typifies evil, and evil only, at all times.

34-35 Compare Mar_4:33-34 .

35 This refers to the disruption of the kingdom from the house of David. This is the subject of the so-called seventy eighth psalm, from which this quotation is taken.

Verses 37-58

37 The history of the kingdom proclamation in Acts and what is predicted the circumcision epistles and the Unveiling fully bears out our Lord's forecast. There were the seven sons of Sceva ( Act_19:15 ), the wolves in Ephesus ( Act_20:29 ), the rich in ( Jam_5:1 ), the false prophets of second Peter and those who follow them, those who slip in, according to ( Jud_1:4 ), and many in the Unveiling, such as the false apostles ( Rev_2:2 ), those who are of the synagogue of Satan ( Rev_2:9 ), the Nicolaitans ( Rev_2:15 ), Jezebel ( Rev_2:20 ), and great Babylon ( Rev_18:1 - Rev_19:5 ) all these hypocrites were as darnel in the field, and have been allowed to flourish hitherto. But when the harvest comes the wicked will be severed from among the just and given up to judgment. No such severance shall take place in the body of Christ. Its members are beyond the sphere of condemnation ( Rom_8:1 ). There is no excuse for their having fellowship with unbelievers ( 2Co_6:14 ). They should be separate. This passage has no bearing on our conduct. It is concerned with the Circumcision alone.

44 In a country subject to revolutions, invasions, and robbers, it was customary to hide money and valuables in secret cistern-like vaults in the fields. Such are not seldom found by accident, and often cause much excitement. It would be dangerous to dig in another man's field. Hence the buying. Israel is the treasure. The field is the world (see 38). In order to possess Himself of the treasure, the Son of Mankind gives His all and purchases the world. He has overpaid its price by His blood.

45 The parable of the pearl is another aspect of the truth revealed by the parable of the treasure hid in the field. The sea is a picture of the nations, among whom Israel is scattered. The dispersion among the nations is the precious pearl sought by the Merchant, Who gave up all His riches to purchase it for Himself. They will be His special treasure in that day. There is no ground for the popular idea that Christ is the pearl, found by the sinner seeking salvation. He is, indeed precious, but sinners are not, seekers. It is always the Saviour Who finds the lost. He is not lost nor hidden. Here is another aspect of Israel's dispersion among the nations. In the conclusion of this eon-still future-Israel will be drawn from among all peoples. There will be a separation, such as was indicated in the parable of the darnel, and the bad will be destroyed in the terrible judgments of the seven bowls ( Rev_15:5 ; Rev_16:21 ).

53-58 Compare Mar_6:1-6 .

53 Notwithstanding the treatment He had received when He visited Nazareth before ( Luk_4:15-30 ), when they had actually tried to put Him to death, and the fact that His own brethren had declared Him to be mad, He graciously returns to the home of His youth, staying this time as long as He desired, and meeting no open hostility. It may be that He wished to refute the rumors His brethren had spread concerning Him by His presence and by healing their sick. But the Nazarenes found it impossible to put aside their prejudices. How could He, a mere townsman of theirs, amount to anything? They knew all about Him and His family. So it was with the prophets, and continues to this day. No man of God need expect recognition from those with whom he is familiar.

54 See Joh_7:16-17 .

55 See Isa_49:753:2 ; Isa_49:3 Act_1:14 .

1-5 Compare Mar_6:14-20 Luk_9:7-9 .

1 There are a number of the Herodian family referred to in the Scriptures. This one, usually called Herod Antipas, was one of the sons of Herod the Great ( Mat_2:1 Luk_1:6 ) who had sought to kill our Lord soon after His birth. Two of his half-brothers are also mentioned, Herod Philip I. who had first married Herodias ( Mat_14:3 Mar_6:17 Luk_3:19 ), and Herod Philip II. ( Luk_3:1 ). Archclaus ( Mat_2:22 ) was his full brother. Another half-brother, Aristobulus, was the father of Herod, king of Chalcis ( Act_25:13 ), Herod Agrippa I. ( Act_12:1-23 ), and Herodias, whose marriage, first to Herod Philip I. and then to Herod Antipas, was the cause of John the baptist's death. Agrippa II. ( Act_25:13 ) was a son of Agrippa I. Bernice ( Act_25:13 ) and Drusilla ( Act_24:24 ) were his sisters. Herod the tetrarch, here referred to, was a son of Herod the Great by a Samaritan woman named Malthace. After his father's death the Romans appointed him tetrarch of Galilee and

Perea, so that by far the greater part of our Lord's ministry was carried on in his dominions. His first wife was a daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia, who made war with him and conquered him because he had repudiated his daughter in order to marry Herodias, his half-brother Philip's wife. This woman brought him to his ruin. She was exceedingly ambitious and induced him to go to the emperor at Rome and seek the title of king. But Herodias' brother, Herod Agrippa I. brought accusations against him, so that Caligula banished him to Gaul, where he seems to have died.