Psalms 78:2

I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old.

The nature and design of parabolic teaching

The word here translated parable did not probably convey to the mind of the psalmist the signification which we ordinarily attach to it. It might mean nothing more than a sublime, figurative, and sententious manner of stating facts or imparting moral lessons; or nothing more than a poem in which this style should prevail.

I. The nature of parabolic teaching. It is that which discerns most deeply and employs most judiciously these manifold analogies and comparisons, more or less partaking of what we understand by a continued metaphor. And he who has the greatest moral perfection will assuredly be the best adapted to the discernment of the lessons they imply. The Lord Jesus Christ, then, must be, from His very character and offices, best acquainted with this method of instruction. He who made all things and without whom not anything was made that was made, He is not only the Word, but the Wisdom of God--pronouncing His dark sayings and forming His secret things in the progress of the world and the Church, so that Egypt is still the type of bondage, and Israel’s journey through the wilderness to the land of promise one long parable, as Asaph saw darkly, of God’s dealings with His saints in the latter day. Every hour we behold Him illustrating the nature of this varying and marvellous instruction; aiding us to its definition; supplying the materials of which its innumerable comparisons are formed.

II. The adaptation of parabolic teaching to the condition of mankind upon earth. The human mind is so constituted, as to be unable to comprehend essences, properly speaking. The principles of causation are a sealed book to us. The progress of language, the manner in which we give names to objects, are of themselves sufficient proofs of this view. In everything pertaining to our moral conduct and choice, we follow another kind of evidence, and are influenced by another kind of reasoning. We determine what shall be our preference, not because we know absolutely the best course, but because our minds remark that what we are about to do bears a likeness to some other event or circumstance, which on another occasion, we have observed, came to pass. The rule and measure of our hopes and fears concerning the success of our pursuits; our expectation that others will act so and so under such circumstances; and our judgment that such actions proceed from such principles--all these rely upon our having observed the like to what we hope, fear, expect, judge; we say, upon our having observed the like, either with respect to others or ourselves. Our very life, then, is guided by a sort of parable, and hence the adaptation of its formal development to our circumstances and condition. But that propriety is illustrated not only by the connection of reasoning on probabilities, or likelihoods, or parallel courses of events, with the teaching by parables. We prove it also by the shortness of human life. A moral question comes before us; we make a parable to ourselves; we compare the subject on which we want to learn with another, where the decision and propriety is obvious. We do this involuntarily, because our time is so short; it is now or never. Here is another ground of arguing the adaptation of parabolical teaching to the necessities of mankind. We have said, what must the case be with the masses of which the world is constituted! Engaged as they are from morning to night in obtaining a scant supply for the wants of their bodies, they have no time or opportunity to rise, were the rising possible, above the range of this kind of information. But to them it seems strangely forcible. It strikes a chord in their understanding and heart. Metaphors are ever popular with the multitude. Children (and the mass of mankind are but children of a larger growth) love to be instructed by a similitude. It casts them on a new field of discovery; it opens their mind to a fresh series of glorious thoughts and feelings. And is it presumptuous to suppose that all this was part of ancient and venerable design on the part of our Lord Jesus Christ the Creator, and by creating the Teacher, as well as the Redeemer of our species? (T. Jackson, M. A.)