Discovery BoxMatthew 23:1
Context23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples,
Matthew 13:3
Context13:3 He 1 told them many things in parables, 2 saying: “Listen! 3 A sower went out to sow. 4
Matthew 13:34
Context13:34 Jesus spoke all these things in parables to the crowds; he did not speak to them without a parable.
Matthew 14:27
Context14:27 But immediately Jesus 5 spoke to them: 6 “Have courage! It is I. Do not be afraid.”
Matthew 9:33
Context9:33 After the demon was cast out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowds were amazed and said, “Never has anything like this been seen in Israel!”
Matthew 28:18
Context28:18 Then Jesus came up and said to them, 7 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Matthew 13:33
Context13:33 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with 8 three measures 9 of flour until all the dough had risen.” 10
[13:3] 1 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.
[13:3] 2 sn Though parables can contain a variety of figures of speech (cf. the remainder of chapter 13), many times they are simply stories that attempt to teach spiritual truth (which is unknown to the hearers) by using a comparison with something known to the hearers. In general, parables usually advance a single idea, though there may be many parts and characters in a single parable and subordinate ideas may expand the main idea further. The beauty of using the parable as a teaching device is that it draws the listener into the story, elicits an evaluation, and demands a response.
[13:3] 4 sn A sower went out to sow. The background for this well-known parable, drawn from a typical scene in the Palestinian countryside, is a field through which a well-worn path runs. Sowing would occur in late fall or early winter (October to December) in the rainy season, looking for sprouting in April or May and a June harvest. The use of seed as a figure for God’s giving life has OT roots (Isa 55:10-11). The point of the parable of the sower is to illustrate the various responses to the message of the kingdom of God.
[14:27] 1 tc Most witnesses have ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς (Jo Ihsous, “Jesus”), while a few lack the words (א* D 073 892 pc ff1 syc sa bo). Although such additions are often suspect (due to liturgical influences, piety, or for the sake of clarity), in this case it is likely that ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς dropped out accidentally. Apart from a few albeit important witnesses, as noted above, the rest of the tradition has either ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς αὐτοῖς (Jo Ihsous autois) or αὐτοῖς ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς (autois Jo Ihsous). In uncial letters, with Jesus’ name as a nomen sacrum, this would have been written as autoisois_ or ois_autois. Thus homoioteleuton could explain the reason for the omission of Jesus’ name.
[14:27] 2 tn Grk “he said to them, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant and has not been translated.
[28:18] 1 tn Grk “coming, Jesus spoke to them, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn, “saying”) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated. Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.
[13:33] 2 sn This measure was a saton, the Greek name for the Hebrew term “seah.” Three of these was a very large quantity of flour, since a saton is a little over 16 pounds (7 kg) of dry measure (or 13.13 liters). So this was over 47 lbs (21 kg) of flour total, enough to feed over a hundred people.
