These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father.
Ver. 25. These things have I spoken, &c.] He spake plain enough, but they were so slow of hear and dull of hearing, that they thought he spake to them in riddles and parables. Legum obscuritate non assignemus culpae scribentium, sed inscitiae non assequentium. (Sex. Cecil. apud Gell.) So though the prophet dealt with the people as with little ones newly weaned, mincing and masticating their meat for them, laying before them "precept upon precept, line upon line," &c., yet was he to them (through their singular stupidity) as one that lisped half words, or spake in a strange tongue, Isaiah 28:10,12. Ac si btaeais esset labiis.