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

Matthew XIII. 51, 52 ; 34, 35. 501
may be able to Iccad others the further. Obviously our Lord intends
to contrast his apostles with the Jewish cnsjto, the ypajifiarelg t^
PamXeia T?]g yTjg ^laOrirevOh-rtg^ scribes instructed for the kingdom of
earth. These latter learn earthly wisdom after a human method
for earthly ends ; the apostles, and by consequence, all who resemble
them, draw instruction from the eternal Word (John i. 1), the foun-
tain of all wisdom and truth, for heavenly objects. The relation in
which these spiritual scribes stand to the church is compared by the
Lord to the relation in which the father of a family stands to the
members of the household. He has wisely provided his stores, and
out of them divides to every individual according to his wants.
(The drjaavpog is here equivalent to the ranLetov, in which the new
and old supplies lie treasured up. The t:K(3dXX£iv is equivalent to
Ki^'.n, promere). Probably something more definite than mere
diversity is denoted by the Kaivd Koi -rraXatd, neio things and old. It
is most naturally referred to the great distinction between the
law and gospel, in the due apportioning of which lies fundamentally
the whole employment of one instructed for the kingdom of heaven,
since our spiritual life is ever oscillating betwixt these opposite
points, as will be further explained on Rom. vii.
Ver. 34, 35.—In conclusion, let us consider the words with which
Matthew indeed closes these parables that were uttered in the hear-
ing of the people—but which have a general application to the
parabolic mode of speaking. Matthew, with whom Mark (iv. 34),
agrees, observes that in general Jesus never spoke, %wp«?- 7rapaj3oA^f,
ivithout a parable— that is, never to the multitudes, for to his disciples
he even expounded them. In considering this idea, we must
in the first place understand the rrapa/SoA// in the general sense of
comparison, similitudo ; though we scarcely see, even when it is
thus explained, how the position can entirely be made good, that
Jesus never spate without comparisons. The shortest mode of ex-
planation is to view the negation as merely a relative one, or if this
seems inadmissible, it may then be said that the KaOu>g i](^vvavTo
cLKoveiv^ as they loere able to hear, of Mark iv. 33, supplies us with a
solution, inasmuch as though the Saviour did not always speak lit-
erally in similitudes, yet was he never understood aright by that
multitude, so little fitted for the reception of spiritual truths. With
this, the quotation that follows well agrees, which marks distinctly
the mysterious character that pervades the whole ministry of the
Messiah. (In regard to the formula oTrayg irXrjpojd'q, see on Matth. i.
22. The passage quoted' is found at Ps. Ixxviii, 2, in a poem by
Asaph. According to the account of Jerome [in his <strong>commentary</strong> on
the passage], the name of Isaiah stood in the passage of Matth. as
given in the old MSS., but without doubt it was interpolated, because
the writer of the Psalms did not seem to the transcriber to be a