Further Parables of the Kingdom. The treasure and the pearl (Matthew 13:44-46) are one, and have one point everything must be sacrificed for the highest good, the Kingdom. This urgent, intense wholeheartedness is characteristic of Jesus. The question of concealment, the conflict between individual salvation and social duty, is not to be pressed here. Yet note that, while one man attains the summum bonum, as it were, by accident, another does so by quest. For the pearl as a metaphor of spiritual treasure cf. Matthew 7:6, Revelation 21:19-21, and the Syriac Hymn of the Soul. The parable of the net is like that of the wheat and the tares, except that the sifting follows hard on the discovery. Not all who have heard the message of the Kingdom will be found worthy to enter it. The explanation follows the same line as that of the earlier parable. It is not altogether apposite, and is probably the evangelist's mechanical repetition of Matthew 13:40-42. In Matthew 13:51 f. Jesus contrasts a Christian with a Jewish scribe. He who has been instructed in the truths of the Kingdom (or possibly with a view to the Kingdom) can, like a good householder or steward, furnish from his ample store what is old (the essentials of the Law and the Prophets) and what is new (the teaching of Jesus and its development). He has an advantage over the earlier teacher, who was confined to the Torah. The verses form a general conclusion to the parables.
Related Commentaries of Matthew 13:44
Matthew 13:44-52
44 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.
45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:
46 Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
47 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind:
48 Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.
49 So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,
50 And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
51 Jesus saith unto them, Have ye understood all these things?
52 Then said he unto them,Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.