Matthew 13:31

THIRD PARABLE The Mustard Seed, Matthew 13:31-32.

31. Another parable The parable of the mustard seed is a sort of supplement to the parable of the tares and wheat. It supplies what that had omitted, namely, the fact that while the wicked would not be destroyed, yet the kingdom of God should be progressive and triumphant on the earth. Though there should be no millennium by the destruction of the wicked, yet there may be one by the growth of the cause of righteousness. The kingdom of heaven is in this parable, as in the last, the divine administration, and the field is again the world. The Church is here not the wheat, but the mustard seed, sown by the same divine hand as the wheat. If it was discouraging to the disciples to learn that the wicked would not be destroyed, yet it was cheering to know that righteousness, however small its beginning, would triumph on the earth.

Like to a grain of mustard seed The plant here spoken of was probably the “Khardal” or Turkish mustard, (botanically the Salvadora Persica,) which from a very small seed grows to a tree with a wooden fibre, and to such a size that it can be climbed by a man; and so it truly becometh a tree. It produces numerous branches and leaves, among which birds may and do take shelter, and build their nests. Such is the statement of Dr. Royle, Art. Sinapi, Kitto’s Encyc. Prof. Hackett, after long and doubtful search, found on the plains of Akka, on the way to Carmel, a little forest of mustard trees which he thus interestingly describes: “It was then in blossom, full grown, in some cases six, seven, and nine feet high, with a stem or trunk an inch or more in thickness, throwing out branches on every side. I was now satisfied in part. I felt that such a plant might well be called a tree, and, in comparison with the seed producing it, a great tree. But still the branches, or stems of the branches, were not very large, or, apparently, very strong. Can the birds, I said to myself, rest upon them? Are they not too slight and flexible? Will they not bend or break beneath the superadded weight? At that very instant, as I stood and revolved the thought, lo! one of the fowls of heaven stopped in its flight through the air, alighted down on one of the branches, which hardly moved beneath the shock, and then began, perched there before my eyes, to warble forth a strain of the richest music. All my doubts were now charmed away. I was delighted at the incident. It seemed to me at the moment as if I enjoyed enough to repay me for all the trouble of the whole journey.”