Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

480
Matthew XIII. 1.
case is clifFcrent in a written discourse. The reader can reflect at
leisure on the individual parable, compare one with the others, and
thereby obtain a clearer insight into the peculiarities of each. To
the purposes of writing, therefore, a collection of parables is admirably
adapted. But although according to what has been stated, an
accumulation of recorded parables, is at once appropriate in itself, and
specially adapted to Matthew's mode of collective representation,
we may still ask whether it were not better to assume here not so
much a collection of parables spoken at different times, as a strictly
exact exhibition of the Saviour's mode of communicating them
in succession. To support such an opinion, we might refer to sev-
eral passages in I.uke—especially to xiv. 28 ; xvi. 31, where Jesus
utters a series of parables, while yet everything proves that they are
uttered in their original connexion. To this we must add the common
reference of all the parables here collected to the kingdom of
God, so that there was no risk of the hearers being distracted, inasmuch
as one parable explained the other—add also Matthew's mode
of delineating the scene (v. 1, seq.), in tliat Jesus teaches sitting on
the sea-shore, and surrounded by a crowd of people, and finally
brings, xiii. 53, his instructions to a close. But to this view we must
object (?) that Luke, in that case, must have transposed some of the
parables, inasmuch as he narrates what is contained in Matth. xiii.
18-21, in quite a difiFerent, although a very appropriate, connexion.*
Moreover, we saw already, in the Sermon on the Mount, in what an
indefinite sense Matthew uses such opening and closing formlas. (?)
As he evinces no local or chronological interest, we cannot lay much
stress upon them. It cannot well be reconciled with the scene as
described in Matth, xiii. 1, seq. that, according to ver. 10, the dis-
ciples came to him, and asked him concerning the meaning of
the parable which he had spoken. That evidently could not have
been done in presence of the assembled multitude, but belonged
solely to the private circle of the disciples. Mark iv. 10, confirms
this supposition ; for he adds that this question was addressed by
the disciples to the Lord, when he was alone. Here, thus we per-
ceive, [only] that the writer has anticipated the interpretation of
the first parable, since it could have taken place only after Jesus
had withdrawn from the crowd, and was alone with his disciples, just
as is stated in ver. 36, on the occasion of the second interpretation.
According to ver. 36, it appears doubtful whether the Lord spoke
the last three parables to the people, or to the disciples only. Maik
and Luke quite agree with Matthew in the order of the first para-
ble, but the subsequent ones are differently arranged. We can
finally by no means deny an intimate connexion of the parables
related in Matthew xiii.; on the contrary, it distinctly comes out in
* When carefully examined, Luke gives absolutely no connexion.— [E.