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away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which
received seed by the way side. 20 But he that P received
the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the
word, and anón * with joy receiveth it; 21 yet hath he not
root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribula-
tion or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by,
1 he is offended. 22 He also that I received seed m
thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of
world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word,
he becometh unfruitful. 23 But he that received seed into

• render, was sown. I render, was sown.

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among the 1ch. xi. 6.

this

2 Tim. i. 15. m Jer. iv. 3. n1 Tim. vi. P.

and 2 Tim. iv. 10.

P render, was sown upon the stony places. read, the world.

8 render, was sown upon.

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sown by the way side (not, as A. V. "he that received seed by the way side"). This is not a confusion of similitudes,-no 'primary and secondary interpretation' of the seed, but the deep truth, both of nature and of grace. The seed sown springing up in the earth, becomes the plant, and bears the fruit, or fails of bearing it; it is therefore the representative, when sown, of the individuals of whom the discourse is. And though in this first case it does not spring up, yet the same form of speech is kept up: throughout they are they that were sown, as, when the question of bearing fruit comes, they must be. We are said to be "born again by the word of God," 1 Pet. i. 23. It takes us up into itself, as the seed the earth, and we become a new plant, a new creation: cf. also below, ver. 38, "the good seed, are the children of the Kingdom." 20, 21.] In this second case, the surface of the mind and disposition is easily stirred, soon excited but beneath lies a heart even harder than the trodden way. So the VOL. I.

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plant, springing up under the false heat
of excitement, having no root struck down
into the depths of the being, is, when the
real heat from without arises, which is
intended to strengthen and forward the
healthy-rooted plant, withered and de-
stroyed. The Greek word signifies not
only dureth for a while,' but also is
the creature of circumstances,' changing
as they change. Both ideas are included.
St. Luke has, in time of temptation fall
away," thus accommodating themselves to
that time.
22.] In this third sort,
all as regards the soil is well; the seed
goes deep, the plant springs up; all is
as in the next case, with but one excep
tion, and that, the bearing of fruit-
becometh unfruitful bring no fruit to
perfection (Luke). And this because the
seeds or roots of thorns are in, and are
suffered to spring up in the heart, and to
overwhelm the plant. There is a divided
will, a half-service (see on ch. vi. 25) which
ever ends in the prevalence of evil over
good. This class is not confined to the
rich riches in Scripture is not riches ab-
solutely, as possessed, but riches relatively,
as estimated by the desire and value for
them. St. Mark adds, and the lusts of (the)
other things, viz. the other things which
shall be added to us if we seek first the
Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
The identity of the seeds sown with the
individuals of these classes, as maintained
above, is strikingly shewn in Luke here:
that which fell among thorns, (these) are
they &c. (viii. 14.) We may notice: (I)
That there is in these three classes a PRO-
GRESS, and that a threefold one:-
-(1) in
TIME: the first receives a hindrance at
the very outset: the seed never springs
up: the second after it has sprung up,
but soon after:-the third when it has

H

the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

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: 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. 26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. 27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not t some of the best MSS. read, had sowed.

entered, sprung up, and come to maturity:
or while it is so coming.—(2) in APPARENT
DEGREE. The climax is apparently from
bad to better;-the first understand not:
the second understand and feel: the third
understand, feel, and practise. But also
(3) in REAL DEGREE, from bad to worse.
Less awful is the state of those who under-
stand not the word and lose it immediately,
than that of those who feel it, receive it
with joy, and in time of trial fall away:
less awful again this last, than that of
those who understand, feel, and practise,
but are fruitless and impure. It has
been noticed also that the first is more the
fault of careless inattentive CHILDHOOD;
the second of ardent shallow YOUTH; the
third of worldly self-seeking AGE. (II)
That these classes do not EXCLUDE one
another. They are great general divi-
sions, the outer circles of which fall into
one another, as they very likely might in
the field itself, in their different combina-
tions.
23.] Here also the fourth
class must not be understood as a decided
well-marked company, excluding all the
rest. For the soil is not good by nature :
the natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God; but every predispo-
sition to receive them is of God:-even
the shallow soil covering the rock, even
the thorny soil, received its power to take
in and vivify the seed, from God. So that
divine grace is the enabling, vivifying,
cleansing power throughout: and these
sown on the good land are no naturally
good, amiable, or pure class, but those
prepared by divine grace-receptive, by
granted receptive power. The sowing is
not necessarily the first that has ever
taken place: the field has been and is
continually resown, so that the care of
the husbandman is presupposed. Again,
no irresistible grace or absolute decree of
God must be dreamt of here. God work-
ing not barely upon, but with man, is, as

we said above, the mystery of the Kingdom here declared,-see Jer. iv. 3: Hosea x. 12: Gal. vi. 7. See note on Luke viii. 15. an hundred, sixty, thirty, the different degrees of faithfulness and devotedness of life with which fruit is brought forth by different classes of persons. There is no point of comparison with the different classes in the parable of the talents: for he who had five talents yielded the same increase as he who had two.

24-30.] SECOND PARABLE. THE TARES OF THE FIELD. Peculiar to Matthew. For the explanation of this parable see below, vv. 36-43. 24.] is likened

unto a man, i. e. '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. xviii. 23, and in other parables in Matthew. 25.] men; i. e. not, the men' belonging to the owner of the field, but men generally and the expression is used only to designate in the night time,' not to charge the servants with any want of watchfulness. sowed] more than this: the verb means, sowed over the first seed. tares]

:

The Greek word is zizania: apparently
the darnel, or bastard wheat (lolium al-
bum), so often seen in our fields and by
our hedgerows; if so, what follows will be
explained, that the tares appeared when
the wheat came into ear, having been
previously not noticeable. It appears to
be an Eastern word.
Our Lord was
speaking of an act of malice practised in
the East-persons of revengeful disposi
tion watch the ground of a neighbour being
ploughed, and in the night following sow
destructive weeds. (The practice is not
unknown even in England at present.
Since the publication of the first edition
of my Greek Test., a field belonging to
myself, at Gaddesby in Leicestershire,
was maliciously sown with charlock [sina.
pis arvensis] over the wheat. An action

thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? 28 He said unto them, "An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? 29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. 30w Let 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: 32 which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, 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. ■ literally, a man (which is) an enemy.

W render, Leave both to grow.

at law was brought by the tenant, and heavy damages obtained against the of fender.) 29.] Jerome in loc. says: "Between wheat and tares, which we call lolium, as long as both are in the blade, and the stalk is not yet in ear, there is a great similitude, and discrimination is difficult, if not impossible." Jerome, it must be remembered, resided in Palestine.

31, 32.] THIRD PARABLE. THE GRAIN OF MUSTARD SEED. Mark iv. 30-34: Luke xiii. 18, 19. On the connexion of this parable with the two last, Chrysostom observes: " Having told them that of the seed three parts perish, and only one is preserved, and that in the preserved portion itself there is such deleterious mixture, for fear they might say, 'And who then and how many will be the faithful ?' He goes on to remove this fear by the parable of the mustard seed, helping their faith, and shewing them that, all this notwithstanding, the kingdom shall spread and flourish." The comparison of kingdoms to trees was familiar to the Jews; see Daniel iv. 10-12, 20-22: Ezek. xxxi. 3-9; xvii. 22-24: Ps. lxxx. 8—11.

32. least of all] literally, less than all. The words are not to be pressed to their literal sense, as the mustard seed was a well-known Jewish type for any thing exceedingly small. The mustard tree attains to a large size in Judæa. See citations from Lightfoot in my Greek Test. This parable, like most others respecting

o ch. iii. 12.

▾ read, They.

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.

33.] FOURTH PARABLE. THE LEAVEN. Luke xiii. 20, 21. Difficulties have been

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 parap PSA. Ixxviii. bles; and without a parable spake he not unto them:

2.

26. 1 Cor. ii.

9. 26.

4 Rom. xvi. 25, 35 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the proEphphet, saying, PI will open my mouth in parables; I will I read, nothing.

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raised as to the interpretation of this parable which do not seem to belong to it. It has been questioned whether leaven must not be taken in the sense in which it so often occurs in Scripture, as symbolic of pollution and corruption. See Exod. xii. 15, and other enactments of the kind, passim in the law; and ch. xvi. 6: 1 Cor. v. 6, 7. And some few have taken it thus, and explained the parable of the progress of corruption and deterioration in the outward visible Church. But then, how is it said that the Kingdom of Heaven is like this leaven? For the construction is not the same as in ver. 24, where the similitude is to the whole course of things related, but answers to "a grain of mustard seed which a man took," &c.: so leaven, which a woman took," &c. Again, if the progress of the Kingdom of Heaven be towards corruption, till the whole is corrupted, surely there is an end of all the blessings and healing influence of the Gospel on the world. It will be seen that such an interpretation cannot for a moment stand, on its own ground; but much less when we connect it with the parable preceding. The two are intimately related. That was of the inherent selfdeveloping 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 assi milating 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 new dough, 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 wit

nessed 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 woman has any especial meaning, (though I am more and more convinced that such considera- tions are not always to be passed by as nugatory,) it will hardly be of much consequence here to enquire, seeing that women bakers would be every where a matter of course. Three of these measures, which composed an ephah, appear to have been the usual quantity prepared for a baking: see Gen. xviii. 6: Judg. vi. 19: 1 Sam. i. 24. This being the case, we need not perhaps seek for any symbolical interpretation: though Olshausen's hint that the body, soul, and spirit may perhaps be here intended can hardly but occur to us, and Stier's, that "of the three sons of Noah was the whole carth overspread," is worth recording.

34, 35.] CONCLUSION OF THE PARABLES SPOKEN TO THE MULTITUDES. Mark iv. 33, 34. 35. that it might be fulfilled] See note on ch. i. 22. The pro

utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.

37 He

36 Then Jesus 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. answered and said [y unto them], He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 38 the field is the world;

y omit.

phet, according to the superscription of Psalm lxxviii., is Asaph, so called 2 Chron. xxix. 30, LXX. 36-43.]

INTERPRETATION OF THE PARABLE OF THE TARES OF THE FIELD.

Peculiar to Matthew. 38. This verse has been variously interpreted, notwithstanding that its statements are so plain. The consideration of it will lead us into that of the general nature and place of the parable itself. The field is the world; if understood of the Church, then the Church only as commensurate with the world, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature (Mark xvi. 15); THE CHURCH standing for THE WORLD, not, the world for the Church. And the parable has, like the former ones, its various references to various counterworkings of the Evil One against the grace of God. Its two principal references are, (1) to the whole history of the world from beginning to end; the coming of sin into the world by the malice of the devil,the mixed state of mankind, notwithstanding the development of God's purposes by the dispensations of grace,-and the final separation of the good and evil at the end. The very declaration the harvest is the end of the world' suggests the original sowing as the beginning of it. Yet this sowing is not in the fact, as in the parable, one only, but repeated again and again.

In the parable the Lord gathers as it were the whole human race into one lifetime, as they will be gathered in one harvest, and sets that forth as simultaneous, which has been scattered over the ages of time. But (2) as applying principally to the Kingdom of heaven, which lay in the future and began with the Lord's incarnation, the parable sets forth to us the universal sowing of GOOD SEED by the Gospel: it sows no bad seed; all this is done by the enemy, and further we may not enquire. Soon, even as soon as Acts v. in the History of the Church, did the tares begin to appear; and in remarkable coincidence with the wheat bringing forth fruit (see Acts iv. 32-37). Again, see Acts xiii. 10, where Paul calls

the

r ch. xxviii. 19.

Mark xvi. 15,

20. Luke
xxiv. 47.

Rom. x. 18.

Col. i. 6.

Elymas by the very name, “son of the devil.” And ever since, the same has been the case; throughout the whole world, where the Son of Man sows good seed, the Enemy Sows tares. And it is not the office, however much it may be the desire, of the servants of the householder, the labourers in His field, to collect or root up these tares, to put them out of the world literally, or of the Church spiritually (save in some few exceptional cases, such as that in Acts v.); this is reserved for another time and for other hands,-for the harvest, the end; for the reapers, the angels. (3) It is also most important to notice that, as the Lord here gathers up ages into one season of seed time and harvest, so He also gathers up the various changes of human character and shiftings of human will into two distinct classes. We are not to suppose that the wheat can never become tares, or the tares wheat: this would be to contradict the purpose of Him who willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live; and this gracious purpose shines through the command "let both grow together"-let time be given (as above) for the leaven to work. As in the parable of the sower, the various classes were the concentrations of various dispositions, all of which are frequently found in one and the same individual, so here the line of demarcation between wheat and tares, so fixed and impassable at last, is during the probation time, the time of growing together, not yet determined by Him who will have all to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. In the very first example, that of our first parents, the good seed degenerated, but their restoration and renewal was implied in the promises made to them, and indeed in their very punishment itself; and we their progeny are by nature the children of wrath, till renewed by the same grace. parable is delivered by the Lord as knowing all things, and describing by the final result; and gives no countenance whatever to predestinarian error. (4) The pa

The

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