Matthew 13:3

Parables] In the NT. the word parabole is almost confined to the Synoptic Gospels, the only exceptions being Hebrews 9:9; Hebrews 11:19; (RV), where it is used of the OT. types of NT. realities. In the Gospels it occasionally means a maxim or proverb (Matthew 15:15; Luke 4:23; (RV) Luke 5:36; Luke 6:39), but nearly always a parable, that is (so far as our Lord's parables are concerned) 'a narrative, fictitious, but agreeable to the laws and usages of human life, by which either the duties of men or the things of God, particularly the nature and history of God's kingdom, are figuratively portrayed.' A parable is to be distinguished from a fable. The former is probable and might be true, the latter introduces impossibilities, such as trees talking; the former teaches important spiritual truths, the latter does not advance beyond homely lessons of worldly prudence. The parable is also to be distinguished from an allegory. The parable is a story complete in itself, quite apart from its interpretation, whereas an allegory has no meaning at all apart from its interpretation. The parable differs still more from the myth, in which allegory and fact are so mixed that the allegory is taken for fact. No parables occur in the Fourth Gospel: their place is taken by paroimiai, 'allegories,' of which the most complete are those of the Fold (John 10:1), the Good Shepherd (Matthew 10:7), and the Vine and the Branches (Matthew 15:1): cp. John 10:6; (RM).

3b-9. The Sower (Mark 4:3; Luke 8:5). For the meaning of the parable, see on Matthew 13:18. Our Lord probably took as His text an actual field and an actual sower within view at the time. Stanley, who visited the probable spot, writes, 'There was the undulating cornfield descending to the water's edge. There was the trodden pathway running through the midst of it, with no fence or hedge to prevent the seed from falling here or there on either side of it or upon it; itself hard with the constant tramp of horse, mule, and human feet. There was the good rich soil; there was the rocky ground of the hillside protruding here and there through the cornfields; there were the large bushes of thorn—the nabk, that kind of which tradition says the crown of thorns was woven—springing up, like the fruit-trees of the more inland parts, in the very midst of the waving wheat.'