And he put forth a parable. — The passage has the interest of being, in conjunction with Luke 11:43, the germ of the great invective of Matthew 23:6, and the verses that follow. (See Notes there.)
Chief rooms. — Better, chief places, or chief couches; literally, the chief places to recline in after the Eastern fashion. This, again, implies the semi-public character of the feast. The host did not at first place his guests according to his own notions of fitness. They were left to struggle for precedence. What follows is hardly a parable in our modern sense of the term, but is so called as being something more than a mere precept, and as illustrated by a half-dramatic dialogue.