Matthew 13:36 - Exposition

Then Jesus sent the multitude away; then he left the multitudes (Revised Version, ἀφείς ); cf. Matthew 26:44 . And went into the house ( Matthew 26:1 , note): and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare; explain (Revised Version, διασάφησον ); i.e. make it thoroughly clear. The verb is found elsewhere in the New Testament only in Matthew 18:31 , where the thought is that the man's fellow servants brought his behaviour fully before their lord's knowledge (cf. also 2 Macc. 1:18). As compared with φράσον (Received Text, and Matthew 15:15 ), it leaves room for the disciples having already partially understood it. Unto us the parable of the tares of the field. The addition, "of the field," indicates the point of the parable, considered even as a mere story, that the tares grew in no chance place, but in a piece of cultivated ground already allotted to other produce.