13:34 Matthew stressed the importance of parables in Jesus' teaching. This verse is a chiasm in the Greek text with "parables"in the middle. Jesus constantly used parables in His spoken ministry to the multitudes following His rejection (cf. v. 3a).
"Jesus deliberately adopted the parabolic method of teaching at a particular stage in His ministry for the purpose of withholding further truth about Himself and the kingdom of heaven from the crowds, who had proved themselves to be deaf to His claims and irresponsive to His demands. Hitherto, He had used parables as illustrations, whose meaning was self-evident from the context in which they were spoken (e.g., vi. 24-27). From now onwards, when addressing the unbelieving multitude he speaks only in parables (34), which He interprets to His disciples in private."554
13:35 The writer claimed that this portion of Jesus' ministry fulfilled Asaph's statement in Psalm 78:2. Asaph wrote that he would explain to his readers aspects of Israel's history that had been previously unknown. He then proceeded to use Israel's history to teach the Israelites how consistently rebellious they had been toward God and how just and merciful God had been with them. He taught these lessons by using "parables,"by comparing various things. By comparing various incidents in Israel's history he revealed things previously unknown.555
Jesus did the same thing when He taught the multitudes using parables. He revealed to the people some things that they had not previously understood. Jesus was not teaching entirely new things any more than Asaph was in Psalm 78. He put things together that taught the crowds new lessons. Jesus concealed some truth by using parables, but He also revealed some truth to the multitudes with them. This is the point of Matthew's quotation of Asaph here. Jesus was bringing together pieces of previous revelation about the kingdom and by combining these was teaching the people new things about the kingdom. He was throwing new light on the kingdom with His comparisons (parables).
