He answered them, “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man,
Parallel Translations
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He answered them, “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man,
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Then answered he and sayde to them. He that soweth the good seed is the sonne of man.
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Then answered he, and saide to them, He that soweth the good seede, is the Sonne of man.
Cross-references (14)
Passages linked to Matthew 13:37 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Corinthians 3:5-7 Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed, and each as the Lord gave to him? I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
- Matthew 13:24 He set another parable before them, saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field,
- Matthew 13:27 The servants of the householder came and said to him, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where did these darnel weeds come from?’
- Matthew 13:41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather out of his Kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and those who do iniquity,
- Luke 10:16 Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me. Whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
- Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”
- Matthew 8:20 Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
- Matthew 10:40 He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me.
- Matthew 16:13-16 Now when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” They said, “Some say John the Baptizer, some, Elijah, and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
- John 13:20 Most certainly I tell you, he who receives whomever I send, receives me; and he who receives me, receives him who sent me.”
- John 20:21 Jesus therefore said to them again, “Peace be to you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.”
- Romans 15:18 For I will not dare to speak of any things except those which Christ worked through me, for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed,
- Hebrews 1:1 God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways,
- Hebrews 2:3 how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation—which at the first having been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard,
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (7 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain He expoundeth the former parable of the good and…
He expoundeth the former parable of the good and evil seed.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 37 He answered and said unto them, He that…
37 He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
Ver. 37. Is the Son of man] i.e. Signifies the Son of man: as circumcision is the covenant; that is, the sign of the covenant. And as Christ saith of the sacramental bread, "This is my body," which Luther interprets synecdochically, for in, or under, this is my body. Calvin, after Tertullian and Augustine, interpret it metaphorically, for this is the sign or the figure of my body. Hence the Jesuits presently cry out, the Spirit of God disagreeth not with itself. But these interpretations do utterly disagree, therefore they are not of the Spirit. But let them first agree among themselves, before they quarrel our disagreements; for their own doctors are exceedingly divided even about this very point of the Eucharist, and know not what their holy mother holdeth. Bellarmine teacheth, that the substance of the bread is not turned into the substance of Christ’s body productive, as one thing is made of another, but that the bread goes away, and Christ’s body comes into the room of it adductive, as one thing succeeds into the place of another, the first being voided. And this, saith he, is the opinion of the Church of Rome, himself being reader of Controversies at Rome. But Suarez, reader at Salamanca, in Spain, confutes Bellarmine’s opinion, terming it translocation, not transubstantiation, and saith it is not the Church’s opinion.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The design that Christ had in this parable was…
The design that Christ had in this parable was to show them, that though he laid a good foundation of a church in the world, calling some home to himself; and making them partakers of his effectual grace, laying the foundation of his gospel church in such as took his yoke upon them; yet in process of time, while those that should succeed him in his ministry slept, (not being so diligent and watchful as they ought to be), the devil (who is full of envy and malice to men’s souls, and is continually going about seeking whom he may devour) would sow erroneous opinions, and find a party, even in the bosom of his church, who would hearken to him, and through their lusts comply with his temptations, both to errors in doctrine and errors in practice: and it was his will, that there should be in the visible church a mixture of good and bad, such bad ones especially as men could not purge out without a danger of putting out such as were true and sincere; but there would be a time, in the end of the world, when he would come with his fan, and thoroughly purge his floor, and take to heaven all true and sincere souls, but turn all hypocrites into hell. This appears, by our Saviour’s exposition, to have been our Saviour’s plain meaning in this parable. Hence he tells us, that by the sower here he meant himself,
the Son of man. By
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the field he meant
the world. By
the good seed he meant
the children of the kingdom; such as had a true change wrought in their hearts, were truly regenerated and converted. By
the tares he meant the children of the wicked one, that is, of the devil; such as did the works of the devil, Joh 8:44. That
the enemy that sowed these tares was the devil, who by his suggestions, presenting objects, &c., makes himself the father of all wicked men. Our Saviour here saith nothing to that part of the parable, where the tares are said to be sown
while men slept; that was plain and intelligible enough. The devil hath a power to seduce, persuade, and allure, none to force. If particular persons kept their watch, as they might, the devil could not by his temptation force them. If magistrates and ministers kept their watches according to God’s prescription, there could not be so much open wickedness in the world as there is. Neither doth our Saviour give us any particular explication of that part of the parable, which is Mat 13:28,29, where the servants say to their master,
Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up. And
he said unto them, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Our Saviour by this teacheth us, that every passage in a parable is not to be fitted by something in the explication. It was not the point that he designed in this parable to instruct them in, how far church officers might or ought to act in purging the church; but only,
1. That in the visible church they must expect it mixture, till the day of judgment.
2. That in that day he would make a perfect separation.
So as those that would from this passage in the parable conclude, that all erroneous and loose persons ought to be tolerated in the church till the day of judgment, forget the common rule in divinity, that parabolical divinity is not argumentative. We can argue from nothing in a parable but from the main scope and tendency of it. However, it is bold arguing from a passage in a parable, expounded by our Saviour himself, when he hath omitted the explication of that passage; nor can any thing be concluded, but that such must not be rooted out as have such a resemblance of wheat from the outward appearance, that they cannot be rooted out without a hazard of a mistake, and a rooting up of the wheat with them. But our Saviour reserves the point of the ministerial duty in purging the church to another more proper time; he here saith, nothing of that, but of his own design to purge it at
the harvest, which he interprets,
the end of the world, that is, the day of judgment. By
the reapers he tells us that he meaneth
the angels.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain The enemy that sowed them is the devil,.... He…
The enemy that sowed them is the devil,.... He that is designed by the enemy, who sowed the tares in the field among the wheat, is no other than the devil; the enemy of Christ, of mankind in general, of God's elect in particular, and the accuser of the brethren; and his getting of hypocrites and heretics into churches, is no small proof of his implacable enmity to Christ and his interest; and shows what an adversary he is to the peace, comfort, and fruitfulness of the churches of Christ,
The harvest is the end of the world; that which is meant by "the harvest", until which time wheat and tares, good and bad men, under a profession of religion, are to be together, is "the end of the world"; meaning either the day of wrath and vengeance upon the Jewish nation; when those that truly believed in Christ were separated from the rest, and that hypocritical generation of men were utterly destroyed; or else the day of judgment, the great and last day, when the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, shall be burnt up; when the righteous will enter into life, and the wicked go into everlasting punishment:
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and the reapers are the angels; the persons signified by "the reapers", who shall put in the sickle, cut down the tares, bind them in bundles, and cast them into the fire, and who shall gather the wheat into the barn; that is, who shall be the executors of God's wrath, upon wicked professors of religion, and who shall be the means of introducing the saints into the heavenly kingdom, are "the angels"; the holy and elect angels, who are the ministers of Christ, and ministering servants to them, who are the heirs of salvation; and are opposite to all secret and open enemies of Christ and his people; and will be employed in the end of time, against the wicked, and for the righteous.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain SOLUTION OF THE PARABLE OF THE TARES AND THE…
SOLUTION OF THE PARABLE OF THE TARES AND THE WHEAT, Mat_13:37-43.
37. He that soweth… the Son of man — The sower is the redeemer the field is not the Church, but the world; the good seed are the Christians; the tares are the wicked, their sower is Satan. At the end of the world the angels shall gather out the harvest of wicked men to cast them into the blaze of retribution.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (37) He that soweth the good seed is the…
(37) He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man.—Primarily, we must remember that the parable refers to the kingdom of heaven—i.e., to that new order of things which the Christ came to establish, and which is conveniently described as the Church which owns Him as its Lord. It offers, accordingly, an explanation of the presence of evil in that Church, and only by inference and analogy does it bear upon the wider problem of the origin of the evil in the world at large. That analogy, however, is not likely to mislead us. If the Son of Man has been “the Light that lighteth every man” (Joh_1:9), then He had been a sower of the good seed in the wider region of the world from the beginning, and then also all who followed after righteousness had been children of the kingdom.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain He answered and said unto them. In the following…
He answered and said unto them. In the following reply of our Lord (vers. 37-43) observe the change of style at ver. 40. Until then we have pithy, concise sentences all joined by the simple copula de , which can hardly be anything else than literal translations of the Lord"s own phrases. But vers. 40-43 are in the usual style of this Gospel. The Son of man. (Mat_8:20, note)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.