An Old Testament Situation Reproduced
AN OLD TESTAMENT SITUATION REPRODUCED
MATTHEW 13:10-17
The disciples wondered why Jesus spoke in parables rather than in plain teaching.
In these verses repeated reference is made (13:13-14f.) to Isaiah 6:9f., in which Isaiah at his inaugural vision receives his commission as a prophet to his people but is warned that they will pay no attention to him: in fact, all his speaking to them will but serve to make them the more insensitive and unresponsive to his message and the more incapable of enjoying the divine relief which repentance and obedience would have brought. This situation was being reproduced in Jesus’ ministry, since the majority of his hearers refused his message. The Aramaic term for “parable” can also mean “riddle” and Jesus’ words may have meant that whereas “the secrets (or mysteries) of the kingdom of heaven” were readily accessible to faith such as the disciples had, they remained “riddles” to the unbelieving multitudes. It is a truth of common experience that things which are easily understood by those who approach them in the proper attitude are unintelligible to others. But Matthew, narrating the parables against the background of Jesus’ rejection, makes the telling of them the consequence of the multitude’s unbelief: “because seeing they do not see … (13:13). The general echo of Isaiah 6:9f. in 13:13 is followed by the formal quotation of the passage in 13:14f., in a form resembling that of the Greek (Septuagint) version of the Old Testament. The allusion to the Old Testament passage in 13:13 is paralleled in the same context in Mark 4:11f. and Luke 8:10; it is quoted in different contexts in John 12:40 and Acts 28:26f. as an Old Testament “testimony” in advance to Israel’s failure to accept the gospel. The whole saying of Jesus in 13:11ff. is amplified by the inclusion of two utterances from other contexts: 13:12 is appended later to the parable of the talents (25:29), and 13:16f. have a parallel in Luke 10:23f., following on the return of the seventy from their mission. But the two additional utterances help to fix the sense of the accompanying words here.
How blessed are our ears
That hear this joyful sound,
Which kings and prophets waited for,
And sought, but never found!
How blessed are our eyes
That see this heavenly light!
Prophets and kings desired long,
But died without the sight.
The Lord makes bare his arm
Through all the earth abroad;
Let all the nations now behold
Their Savior and their God.
Compare In the application of Isaiah 6:9f., compare “because” of Matthew 13:13 with “so that” of Mark 4:12 and Luke 8:10.