A mode of speaking, in order to illustrate and make familiar to our apprehension divine and spiritual things, by human and natural figures of expression. It was a method of teaching common in the eastern part of the world, and hence all the sacred writers and servants of the Lord adopted it. Yea; the Lord Jesus himself condescended to the same; and indeed so much so that at one time we are told, "without a parable spake he not unto them." (Matthew 13:34)
There is another sense of the word parable, in which it is sometimes used in Scripture when spoken in a way of reproach; hence Moses, when charging Israel to faithfulness, declares that if the people of God apostatize from him, and set up idols in the land, the Lord would scatter them among all nations, "and thou shalt become (saith Moses) an astonishment, a proverb, (or parable) and a by-word, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee." (Deuteronomy 28:37) See Types