PRELIMINARY REMARKS
The parables of Jesus.—The word “parable” has in the New Testament, in its application to the discourses of Jesus, a considerably wider meaning than the one in which we speak of the parables of the Lord in the current phraseology of the church. The designation παραβολή, from παραβάλλειν (therefore = placing side by side, comparing), belongs to every utterance containing a comparison of any kind (see Luke 5:36; Luke 6:39; Mark 3:23 ff.; Matthew 24:32; Mark 13:28). All these maxims are called parables because, in a visible fact, belonging to the sphere of physical or human life, they picture a corresponding truth in the sphere of religious life. A still more general use of “parable” is seen in the passage (Matthew 15:15), where it refers to the utterance of the Lord in Matthew 13:11 (cf. Matthew 13:16-20). Here, therefore, it refers to a concrete maxim without a properly figurative character, simply of an enigmatical stamp. A similar use, under another aspect, is found in the passage Luke 4:23 where the proverb, “Physician, heal thyself,” is called a parable, and that, as it seems, not so much because of its figurative, as rather merely because of its proverbial character. (Goebel).
The “parable” in the stricter sense.—The idea of the parable may be generally defined to this effect: A narrative moving within the sphere of physical or human life, not professing to communicate an event which really took place, but expressly imagined for the purpose of representing in pictorial figure a truth belonging to the sphere of religion, and therefore referring to the relation of man or mankind to God (ibid.).
The seven parables of the kingdom in this chapter are not to be regarded as grouped together by Matthew. They were spoken consecutively, as is obvious from the notes of time in Matthew 13:36; Matthew 13:53. They are a great whole, setting forth the “mystery of the kingdom” in its method of establishment, its corruption, its outward and inward growth, the condition of entrance into it, and its final purification. The sacred number seven, impressed upon them, is the token of completeness. They fall into two parts, four of them being spoken to the multitudes from the boat, and presenting the more obvious aspects of the development of the kingdom; three being addressed to the disciples in the house, and setting forth truths about it more fitted for them (A. Maclaren, D.D.).