Parables

<p><a href="http://barnes.biblecommenter.com/matthew/13.htm" >Barnes' Notes on the Bible</a>

In parables - The word "parable" is derived from a Greek word signifying "to compare together," and denotes a similitude taken from a natural object to illustrate a spiritual or moral subject. It is a narrative of some fictitious or real event, in order to illustrate more clearly some truth that the speaker wished to communicate. In early ages it was much used. Pagan writers, as Aesop, often employed it. In the time of Christ it was in common use. The prophets had used it, and Christ employed it often in teaching his disciples. It is not necessary to suppose that the narratives were strictly true. The main thing - "the inculcation of spiritual truth" - was gained equally, whether it was true or was only a supposed case. Nor was there any dishonesty in this. It was well understood no person was deceived. The speaker was not "understood" to affirm the thing "literally narrated," but only to fix the attention more firmly on the moral truth that he presented. The "design" of speaking in parables was the following:

To convey truth in a more interesting manner to the mind, adding to the truth conveyed the beauty of a lovely image or narrative.
To teach spiritual truth so as to arrest the attention of ignorant people, making an appeal to them through the "senses."
To convey some offensive truth, some pointed personal rebuke. in such a way as to bring it "home" to the conscience. Of this kind was the parable which Nathan delivered to David <a href="http://niv.scripturetext.com/2_samuel/12-1.htm" >2 Samuel 12:1-7</a>, and many of our Saviour's parables addressed to the Jews.
To "conceal" from one part of his audience truths which he intended others should understand. Thus Christ often, by this means, delivered truths to his disciples in the presence of the Jews, which he well knew the Jews would not understand; truths pertaining to them particularly, and which he was under no obligations to explain to the Jews. See <a href="http://bible.cc/mark/4-33.htm" >Mark 4:33</a>; <a href="http://niv.scripturetext.com/matthew/13-13.htm" >Matthew 13:13-16</a>.

Our Saviour's parables are distinguished above all others for clearness, purity, chasteness, importance of instruction, and simplicity. They are taken mostly from the affairs of common life, and intelligible, therefore, to all people. They contain much of "himself" - his doctrine, life, design in coming, and claims, and are therefore of importance to all people; and they are told in a style of simplicity intelligible to the child, yet instructive to people of every rank and age. In his parables, as in all his instructions, he excelled all people in the purity, importance, and sublimity of his doctrine.

<a href="http://clarke.biblecommenter.com/matthew/13.htm" >Clarke's Commentary on the Bible</a>

He spake many things unto them in parables - Parable, from παρα, near, and βαλλω, I cast, or put. A comparison or similitude, in which one thing is compared with another, especially spiritual things with natural, by which means these spiritual things are better understood, and make a deeper impression on an attentive mind. Or, a parable is a representation of any matter accommodated, in the way of similitude, to the real subject, in order to delineate it with the greater force and perspicuity. See more on this subject at the conclusion of this chapter. No scheme, says Dr. Lightfoot, of Jewish rhetoric was more familiarly used than that of parables; which, perhaps, creeping in from thence among the heathens, ended in fables.

It is said in the tract Sotah, chap. 9. "From the time that Rabbi Meri died, those that spake in parables ceased." Not that this figure of rhetoric perished in the nation from that time; but because he surpassed all others in these flowers, as the gloss there from the tract Sanhedrin speaks. "A third part of his discourses was tradition; a third part allegory; and a third part parable." The Jewish books every where abound with these figures, the nation inclining by a kind of natural genius to this kind of rhetoric. Their very religion might be called parabolical, folded up within the covering of ceremonies; and their oratory in their sermons was like to it. But is it not indeed a wonder, that they who were so much given to and delighted in parables, and so dexterous in unfolding them, should stick in the outward shell of ceremonies, and should not have brought out the parabolical and spiritual sense of them? Our Savior, who always spoke with the common people, uses the same kind of speech, and very often the same preface which they used, To what is it likened? See Lightfoot in loco. Though we find the basis of many of our Lord's parables in the Jewish writings, yet not one of them comes through his hands without being astonishingly improved. In this respect also, Surely never man spoke like this man.

<a href="http://vws.biblecommenter.com/matthew/13.htm" >Vincent's Word Studies</a>

Parables (παραβολαῖς)

From παρά, beside, and βάλλω, to throw. A parable is a form of teaching in which one thing is thrown beside another. Hence its radical idea is comparison. Sir John Cheke renders biword, and the same idea is conveyed by the German Beispiel, a pattern or example ; bei, beside, and the old high German spel, discourse or narration.

The word is used with a wide range in scripture, but always involves the idea of comparison:

Of brief sayings, having an oracular or proverbial character. Thus Peter (<a href="http://bible.cc/matthew/15-15.htm" >Matthew 15:15</a>), referring to the words "If the blind lead the blind," etc., says, "declare unto us this parable." Compare <a href="http://bible.cc/luke/6-39.htm" >Luke 6:39</a>. So of the patched garment (<a href="http://bible.cc/luke/5-36.htm" >Luke 5:36</a>), and the guest who assumes the highest place at the feast (<a href="http://niv.scripturetext.com/luke/14-7.htm" >Luke 14:7</a>, <a href="http://bible.cc/luke/14-11.htm" >Luke 14:11</a>). Compare, also, <a href="http://bible.cc/matthew/24-39.htm" >Matthew 24:39</a>; <a href="http://bible.cc/mark/13-28.htm" >Mark 13:28</a>.
Of a proverb. The word for proverb (παροιμία) has the same idea at the root as parable. It is παρά, beside, οἶμος, a way or road. Either a trite, wayside saying (Trench), or a path by the side of the high road (Godet). See <a href="http://bible.cc/luke/4-23.htm" >Luke 4:23</a>; <a href="http://bible.cc/1_samuel/24-13.htm" >1 Samuel 24:13</a>.
Of a song or poem, in which an example is set up by way of comparison. See <a href="http://bible.cc/micah/2-4.htm" >Micah 2:4</a>; <a href="http://bible.cc/habakkuk/2-6.htm" >Habakkuk 2:6</a>.
Of a word or discourse which is enigmatical or obscure until the meaning is developed by application or comparison. It occurs along with the words αἴνιγμα, enigma, and πρόβλημα, a problem, something put forth or proposed (πρό, in front, βάλλω, to throw). See <a href="http://bible.cc/psalms/49-4.htm" >Psalm 49:4</a> (Sept. 48:4); <a href="http://bible.cc/psalms/78-2.htm" >Psalm 78:2</a> (Sept. 77:2); <a href="http://niv.scripturetext.com/proverbs/1-6.htm" >Proverbs 1:6</a>, where we have παραβολὴν, parable; σκοτεινὸν λόγον, dark saying; and αἰνίγματα, enigmas. Used also of the sayings of Balaam (<a href="http://niv.scripturetext.com/numbers/23-7.htm" >Numbers 23:7</a>, <a href="http://bible.cc/numbers/23-18.htm" >Numbers 23:18</a>; <a href="http://niv.scripturetext.com/numbers/24-3.htm" >Numbers 24:3</a>, <a href="http://bible.cc/numbers/24-15.htm" >Numbers 24:15</a>).

In this sense Christ uses parables symbolically to expound the mysteries of the kingdom of God; as utterances which conceal from one class what they reveal to another (<a href="http://niv.scripturetext.com/matthew/13-11.htm" >Matthew 13:11-17</a>), and in which familiar facts of the earthly life are used figuratively to expound truths of the higher life. The un-spiritual do not link these facts of the natural life with those of the supernatural, which are not discerned by them (<a href="http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/2-14.htm" >1 Corinthians 2:14</a>), and therefore they need an interpreter of the relation between the two. Such symbols assume the existence of a law common to the natural and spiritual worlds under which the symbol and the thing symbolized alike work; so that the one does not merely resemble the other superficially, but stands in actual coherence and harmony with it. Christ formulates such a law in connection with the parables of the Talents and the Sower. "To him that hath shall be given. From him that hath not shall be taken away." That is a law of morals and religion, as of business and agriculture. One must have in order to make. Interest requires capital. Fruit requires not only seed but soil. Spiritual fruitfulness requires an honest and good heart. Similarly, the law of growth as set forth in the parable of the Mustard Seed, is a law common to nature and to the kingdom of God. The great forces in both kingdoms are germinal, enwrapped in small seeds which unfold from within by an inherent power of growth.

A parable is also an example or type; furnishing a model or a warning; as the Good Samaritan, the Rich Fool, the Pharisee and the Publican. The element of comparison enters here as between the particular incident imagined or recounted, and all cases of a similar kind.

The term parable, however, as employed in ordinary Christian phraseology, is limited to those utterances of Christ which are marked by a complete figurative history or narrative. It is thus defined by Goebel ("Parables of Jesus"). "A narrative moving within the sphere of physical or human life, not professing to describe an event which actually took place, but expressly imagined for the purpose of representing, in pictorial figure, a truth belonging to the sphere of religion, and therefore referring to the relation of man or mankind to God."

In form the New Testament parables resemble the fable. The distinction between them does not turn on the respective use of rational and irrational beings speaking and acting. There are fables where the actors are human. Nor does the fable always deal with the impossible, since there are fables in which an animal, for instance, does nothing contrary to its nature. The distinction lies in the religious character of the New Testament parable as contrasted with the secular character of the fable. While the parable exhibits the relations of man to God, the fable teaches lessons of worldly policy or natural morality and utility. "The parable is predominantly symbolic; the fable, for the most part, typical, and therefore presents its teaching only in the form of example, for which reason it chooses animals by preference, not as symbolic, but as typical figures; never symbolic in the sense in which the parable mostly is, because the higher invisible world, of which the parable sees and exhibits the symbol in the visible world of nature and man, lies far from it. Hence the parable can never work with fantastic figures like speaking animals, trees," etc. (Goebel, condensed).

The parable differs from the allegory in that there is in the latter "an interpenetration of the thing signified and the thing signifying; the qualities and properties of the first being attributed to the last," and the two being thus blended instead of being kept distinct and parallel. See, for example, the allegory of the Vine and the Branches (<a href="http://niv.scripturetext.com/john/15.htm" >John 15</a>) where Christ at once identifies himself with the figure' "I am the true vine." Thus the allegory, unlike the parable, carries its own interpretation with it.

Parable and proverb are often used interchangeably in the ;New Testament; the fundamental conception being, as we have seen, the same in both, the same Hebrew word representing both, and both being enigmatical. They differ rather in extent than in essence; the parable being a proverb expanded and carried into detail, and being necessarily figurative, which the proverb is not; though the range of the proverb is wider, since the parable expands only one particular case of a proverb. (See Trench, "Notes on the Parables," Introd.)</p>