Matthew 13:24-43

Three More Parables

Matthew arranged these next parables in such a way that the first stood by itself with its own new message. The next two formed a doublet, carrying messages basically similar to that of the earlier parable of the sower (in its non-allegorised original form).

Matthew 13:24-30 The Parable of Weeds among the Wheat

This parable is not found in either Mark’s or Luke’s Gospels, but is unique to Matthew. It reflected more the experience of the Christian community than that of Jesus’ immediate disciples (as would become obvious with the later allegorical interpretation [vv.36-45]), and its conclusion voiced a favourite preoccupation of Matthew: the eventual suffering of the wicked.

²⁴ Jesus put another parable before them.

“The kingdom of the heavens is like this:

A man sowed good seed in his paddock.

²⁵ But while everyone was asleep,

an enemy of his came

and over-sowed darnel in the middle of the wheat

and went off.

²⁶ When the ears sprouted and the grain set,

the darnel appeared too.

²⁷ The farm hands came to the landowner and told him,

“Did you not sow good grain in your paddock?

Where did the darnel come from then?”

²⁸ He replied, “An enemy has done this”.

The farm hands said to him,

“Do you want us to go and gather it up?”

²⁹ But he answered, “No, in case as you gather the darnel,

you root out the wheat with it.

³⁰ Let both grow until harvest,

and at harvest time I shall say to the harvesters,

‘Collect the darnel first and bind it in sheaves to be burnt;

then store the wheat in the grain-shed.’”

Like the previous one, this parable dealt with sower, seed, paddock and harvest – though it hardly reflected rural life in Palestine or elsewhere. It lent itself to allegorical interpretation (which would soon be forthcoming). Commentators discuss whether the parable was the creation of Matthew himself or of earlier members of his Christian community.

Jesus’ point may have been the difficulties associated with discerning who are good and who are evil (and a warning, perhaps, to leave discernment to God). The allegorised interpretation would be given later in the narrative.

Matthew 13:31-32 The Parable of the Mustard Seed

(Mk 4:30-32; Lk 13:18-19)

³¹ Jesus then told them another parable.

“The kingdom of the heavens is like this:

A man took a mustard seed and planted it in his paddock.

³² It is the smallest of all the seeds,

but when it develops,

it is bigger than vegetables and grows into a shrub,

so that the birds of heaven come

and roost in its branches.”

Like the first parable of the hundredfold yield, this parable, too, reflected Jesus’ irrepressible hope in future outcomes, despite an unpromising present. Though the present state of the community might be unimpressive, its future would be wonderful. Matthew’s reshaping of Mark’s original made the point even clearer by stating that the small seed grew into a shrub. The strangeness of the story was the fact of the birds of heaven ... roosting in its branches - hardly likely! But with the Kingdom, and God's power, the unexpected can happen.

The reference to birds of heaven roosting in the tree’s branches echoed familiar imagery from the Hebrew Scriptures. Trees often referred to kingdoms, the birds roosting in the branches to their citizens.

Ezekiel had dreamt of a renewed Israel in the image of a tree:

On the mountain height of Israel

I will plant it,

in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit,

and become a noble cedar.

Under it every kind of bird will live;

in the shade of its branches will nest

winged creatures of every kind.. [Ezekiel 17:23]

The prophet Daniel had spoken of the downfall of the Kingdom of Babylon, using the same language of a tree:

Upon my bed this is what I saw;

there was a tree at the center of the earth,

and its height was great.

The tree grew great and strong,

its top reached to heaven,

and it was visible to the ends of the whole earth.

... The animals of the field found shade under it,

the birds of the air nested in its branches,

and from it all living beings were fed. [Daniel 4:10-12]

Perhaps Matthew knew that Rome’s imperial values would eventually yield to those of the Kingdom of the heavens.

Matthew 13:33 The Parable of the Yeast

(Lk 13:20-21)

³³ He told them another parable.

“The kingdom of the heavens is like this:

A woman took some yeast

and mixed it in with three fifteen-litre measures of flour

until it was all leavened.”

Three [fifteen-litre] measures of flour was a clearly extravagant amount: about 1¼ bushels, it would have made enough bread to feed more than a hundred hungry adults.

The phrase three measures of flour carried Scriptural echoes. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, had been instructed by Abraham to mix three measures of flour (along with a whole calf!) to feed his three visitors:

Let me bring a little bread,

that you may refresh yourselves,

and after that you may pass on—

since you have come to your servant.”

And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said,

“Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour,

knead it, and make cakes....

Then one said,

“I will surely return to you in due season,

and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” [Genesis 18:5-6,10]

The three visitors forecast – in the face of apparent impossibility – the pregnancy of the formerly sterile Sarah, the birth of Abraham’s heir, Isaac, and the continuation of the race of Israel, through whom the whole world would be blessed.

The image of the three measures clearly spoke of:

the unexpected,
abundant extravagance
and the provident action of God.

The point of the parable, however, is not clear. It may simply have paralleled the previous one, with its promise of unpredictable life in abundance.

On the other hand, within the culture, yeast was generally regarded as a corrupting and deconstructing element (even though useful). As well as making bread palatable, over time yeast made it go stale and eventually decompose.

Jesus may have been making the point that the ferment of his life and message would, over time, serve to deconstruct the ubiquitous violence-based kingdoms of the world and their obsessions with national security and coercive order, and usher in the Kingdom of God.

Matthew’s use of this parable (and the preceding one) may have served to reassure his small community that, whatever their present insignificance, God’s power would guarantee, eventually, a most unlikely and abundant outcome.

Along with that of the mustard seed, the parable emphasised the certainty of God’s action more than human cooperation (or the gradual leavening effect within society of the Christian community).

Matthew 13:34-35 Interlude – The Use of Parables

³⁴Jesus said all these things to the crowds in parables.

Other than in parables he taught them nothing.

³⁵ In this way the word of the prophet was fulfilled:

‘I shall open my mouth in parables,

and shall utter things

hidden since the foundation of the world’

The crowds constituted the prime audience of his parables. They had overheard much of the teaching that Jesus had given directly to the disciples; they had seen his healings and exorcisms; but in this case the interpretation of the parables was reserved for disciples.

Consistently with his earlier references, Matthew took a floating line from a Psalm [78.2] and used it to provide the words he wanted to explain how Jesus, once more, fulfilled the prophets. If Matthew had been struck by the general meaning of the lines he quoted, essentially he was saying that the purpose of the parables, as far as the crowds were concerned, was instruction, rather than stimulation. Yet the reality was that the meanings of the parables were anything but obvious.

However, it is not clear whether Matthew had in mind simply the appropriateness of the Psalm’s opening lines, which he quoted, or whether he was struck by its general content and theme. As a whole, Psalm 78 recounted how God had consistently blessed Israel throughout its long history, and how, so often, the people had lost faith and forgotten God’s goodness. Though the Psalm finished on an optimistic note, its general tone was a warning against the failure to believe and to learn.

Matthew 13:36-43 Parable of the Weeds - Allegorical Explanation: Judgment

³⁶ He left the crowd and went into the house.

His disciples came up to him and said,

“Explain the parable of the darnel in the paddock for us.”

³⁷ He answered. “The one sowing the good seed is the son of man.

³⁸ The paddock is the world.

The good seed are followers of the kingdom;

the followers of evil are the darnel.

³⁹ The enemy who sows them is the devil.

The harvest is the end of the world;

and the harvesters are the angels.

⁴⁰ Just as the darnel was collected and burnt in the fire,

that is how it will be at the end of the world.

⁴¹ The son of man will send out his angels

and they will gather together all that entraps people

and all who do evil,

⁴² and will throw them into the furnace of fire,

a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

⁴³ Then the just shall shine like the sun

in the kingdom of their Father.

Let those who have ears listen.”

The allegorical explanation seemed to have determined much of the detail of the original parable, rather than being drawn from it. The emphasis of the allegory was on the final judgment (consistently with, but more obvious than, the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast), rather than the question of discernment needed within the present life of the community (the probable point made by Jesus).

The word translated here as all that entraps is literally ‘scandals’, and refers particularly to factors pressuring people to lose faith (persecutions and sufferings, as well as distractions and absence of commitment).

Reference to the Son of Man immediately raised the image of the heavenly court of judgment, which was then clearly identified, with the weeds burnt and the wheat safely in the barn. True to the nature of apocalyptic narrative, the story referred to both reward and punishment:

as imposed by God (through the agency of the Son of Man);
and as something extrinsic (rather than a person’s own inner experience of love and intimacy or of self-absorption, hatred and utter loneliness).

Matthew stated that the good seed represented the children of the kingdom, sown by the Son of Man, the darnel the followers of evil, sown by the devil. He did not conceive of a picture where neutral seeds came under the influence of both the Son of Man and of the devil, and across time were to make their choice for good or evil. They were sown the way they were from their beginning. The details – where people were either totally good or totally evil, and reward or punishment were directly imposed by God – should be interpreted in the light of the dualistic mindset of the apocalyptic literature of the period. In all probability, they did not represent the mind of Jesus.

Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth

The allegorical explanations of the parables were given to the disciples, not to the crowds (indeed, they were, almost certainly, made by the disciples, i.e. the early Christian community). Differentiation of outcomes – reward or punishment – depending on the nature of people’s responses to God’s word, may have referred not to people’s ultimate destiny, but to the community’s need to discern, and perhaps even to include or exclude members, not from ultimate salvation, but from active participation in the community’s life. Those excluded would experience life as they had experienced it before their conversion – they became once more unfree, without hope and without support. As “salt of the earth” or “light for the world”, they were useless.

The language of weeping and gnashing of teeth was particularly Matthew’s, and he used it on six occasions in his Gospel. (The phrase appeared only once in Luke’s Gospel, and not at all in Mark’s or John’s.)

Once the phrase occurred simply by itself; twice it was associated with the “furnace of fire” (in passages that had no parallel in Luke’s Gospel), and three times with “outer darkness” (in passages that occurred as well in Luke, though Luke did not adopt Matthew’s dramatic imagery). The language seemed to reflect Matthew’s own concerns.

It is unclear whether it is to be interpreted as

a bullying threat
or a colourful way to emphasise an issue.

Given the different associations, it is clear enough that it is not to be taken as a theological statement about the nature of hell as a “furnace of fire”. It is an expression of the apocalyptic imagination.

Next >> Matthew 13:44-53