The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.
Parallel Translations
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The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.
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And the enemye that soweth the is the devell. The harvest is the end of the worlde. And the repers be the angels.
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And the enemie that soweth them, is the deuill, and the haruest is the end of the worlde, and the reapers be the Angels.
Cross-references (24)
Passages linked to Matthew 13:39 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Matthew 13:49 So will it be in the end of the world. The angels will come and separate the wicked from among the righteous,
- Revelation 14:15-19 Another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, “Send your sickle, and reap; for the hour to reap has come; for the harvest of the earth is ripe!” He who sat on the cloud thrust his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. Another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven. He also had a sharp sickle. Another angel came out from the altar, he who has power over fire, and he called with a great voice to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, “Send your sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for the earth’s grapes are fully ripe!” The angel thrust his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vintage of the earth, and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God.
- Matthew 25:31 “But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.
- Joel 3:13 Put in the sickle; for the harvest is ripe. Come, tread, for the wine press is full, the vats overflow, for their wickedness is great.”
- Revelation 19:20 The beast was taken, and with him the false prophet who worked the signs in his sight, with which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.
- Matthew 13:25 but while people slept, his enemy came and sowed darnel weeds also among the wheat, and went away.
- Matthew 24:3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? What is the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?”
- 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10 and to give relief to you who are afflicted with us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, punishing those who don’t know God, and to those who don’t obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus, who will pay the penalty: eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints and to be admired among all those who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.
- Revelation 12:9 The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
- Revelation 13:14 He deceives my own people who dwell on the earth because of the signs he was granted to do in front of the beast, saying to those who dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the beast who had the sword wound and lived.
- Ephesians 6:11-12 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world’s rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
- Hebrews 9:26 or else he must have suffered often since the foundation of the world. But now once at the end of the ages, he has been revealed to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
- 1 Peter 5:8 Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
- Daniel 7:10 A fiery stream issued and came out from before him. Thousands of thousands ministered to him. Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The judgment was set. The books were opened.
- Matthew 13:28 “He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and gather them up?’
- Matthew 28:20 teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
- 2 Corinthians 2:17 For we are not as so many, peddling the word of God. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.
- 2 Corinthians 11:3 But I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
- 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as Christ’s apostles. And no wonder, for even Satan masquerades as an angel of light. It is no great thing therefore if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.
- Ephesians 2:2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience.
- 2 Thessalonians 2:8-11 Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth, and destroy by the manifestation of his coming; even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn’t receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Because of this, God sends them a working of error, that they should believe a lie;
- Jude 1:14 About these also Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of his holy ones,
- Revelation 20:2-3 He seized the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole inhabited earth, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were finished. After this, he must be freed for a short time.
- Revelation 20:7-10 And after the thousand years, Satan will be released from his prison, and he will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. They went up over the width of the earth, and surrounded the camp of the saints, and the beloved city. Fire came down out of heaven from God and devoured them. The devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet are also. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (6 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil;…
39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
Ver. 39. The enemy that sowed them, &c.] As Esther said, "The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman," so Satan. Why then have men so much to do with him? The Jews, as often as they hear mention of Haman in their synagogues, they do with their fists and hammers beat upon the benches and boards, as if they did knock upon Haman’s head. We have those also that can bid defiance to the devil, spit at his name, curse him, haply; {a} but in the meantime listen to his illusions, entertain him into their hearts by obeying his lusts. These are singularly foolish. For it is as if one should be afraid of the name of fire, and yet not fear to be burnt with the flame thereof.
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{a} Martinus Papae exactor ex Anglia pulsus, cum a Rege salvum conductum peteret, respondit, Rex, Diabolus te ad inferos ducat et perducat, ad mare tamen ei conmeatum dedit. Revius.
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.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain The Son of man shall send forth his angels,....…
The Son of man shall send forth his angels,.... Meaning himself, whose ministers the angels are; who wait upon him, and are at his beck and command; even the thousand thousands that minister unto him; these will be sent forth by his orders, into the several parts of the world, where he has any churches, or an interest,
and they shall gather out of his kingdom: the Gospel church, over which Christ is king, where he rules and governs in the hearts of his people; and who are cheerfully and willingly obedient to his laws, under the influence of his Spirit and grace: but all who are in the visible Gospel church state, are not such; some are wicked and rebellious, and though they are suffered to continue, yet not always; for if not removed by censures and excommunications, they will be at last by angels; who will separate them from the saints:
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even all things that offend; who are scandals to Christ, his church, and Gospel, by their wicked principles, or infamous practices; and who give offence, not only to God, and his righteous law, but lay stumbling blocks in the way of the children of God, and are the authors of divisions and offences among them:
and them that do iniquity; that do nothing else but iniquity; and who, though they profess to be religious persons, are secretly, or openly, workers of iniquity; and are even doing iniquity, in and whilst they are professing religion.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain The enemy that sowed them is the devil--emphatically "His…
The enemy that sowed them is the devil--emphatically "His enemy" (Mat 13:25). (See Gen 3:15; Jo1 3:8). By "tares" is meant, not what in our husbandry is so called, but some noxious plant, probably darnel. "The tares are the children of the wicked one"; and by their being sown "among the wheat" is meant their being deposited within the territory of the visible Church. As they resemble the children of the kingdom, so they are produced, it seems, by a similar process of "sowing"--the seeds of evil being scattered and lodging in the soil of those hearts upon which falls the seed of the world. The enemy, after sowing his "tares," "went his way"--his dark work soon done, but taking time to develop its true character.
The harvest is the end of the world--the period of Christ's second coming, and of the judicial separation of the righteous and the wicked. Till then, no attempt is to be made to effect such separation. But to stretch this so far as to justify allowing openly scandalous persons to remain in the communion of the Church, is to wrest the teaching of this parable to other than its proper design, and go in the teeth of apostolic injunctions (1Co. 5).
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And the reapers are the angels--But whose angels are they? "The Son of man shall send forth His angels" (Mat 13:41). Compare Pe1 3:22, "Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (39) The enemy that sowed them is the devil.—Here,…
(39) The enemy that sowed them is the devil.—Here, as in the parable of the Sower, there is the most distinct recognition of a personal power of evil, the enemy of God thwarting His work. It will be noticed that our Lord, as if training His disciples gradually in the art of the interpreter, gives rather the heads of an explanation of the parable than one that enters fully into details; and it is therefore open to us, as it was to them, to pause and ask what was taught by that which seems almost the most striking and most important part of the parable. Who were the servants? What was meant by their question, and the answer of the householder? The answers under these heads supply, it will be seen, a solution of many problems in the history and policy of the Church of Christ. (1.) The enemy sowed the tares “while men slept.” The time of danger for the Church is one of apparent security. Men cease to watch. Errors grow up and develop into heresies, carelessness passes into license, and offences abound. (2.) The “servants” are obviously distinct from the “reapers.” and represent the zealous pastors of the Church. Their first impulse is to clear the kingdom from evil by extirpating the doers of the evil. But the householder in the parable is at once more patient and more discerning than they. To seek for the ideal of a perfect Church in that way may lead to worse evils than those it attempts to remedy. True wisdom is found, for the most part, in what might seem the policy of indifference, “Let both grow together until the harvest.” That is the broad, salient lesson of the parable. At first it may seem at variance with what enters into our primary conceptions, alike of ecclesiastical discipline and of the duty of civil rulers. Is it not the work of both to root out the tares, to punish evil-doers? The solution of the difficulty is found, as it were, in reading “between the lines” of the parable. Doubtless, evil is to be checked and punished alike in the Church and in civil society, but it is not the work of the rulers of either to extirpate the doers. Below the surface there lies the latent truth that, by a spiritual transmutation which was not possible in the natural framework of the parable, the tares may become the wheat. There is no absolute line of demarcation separating one from the other till the time of harvest. What the parable condemns, therefore, is the over-hasty endeavour to attain an ideal perfection, the zeal of the founders of religious orders, of Puritanism in its many forms. It would have been well if those who identify the tares with heretics had been more mindful of the lesson which that identification suggests.
The harvest is the end of the world.—Strictly speaking, the end of the age—i.e., of the period that precedes the “coming” of the Son of Man as Judge, which is to usher in the “world,” or the “age,” to come.
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The reapers are the angels.—What will be the actual work of the ministry of angels in the final judgment it is not easy to define, but their presence is implied in all our Lord’s greater prophetic utterances about it (Mat_25:31). That ministry had been brought prominently before men in the apocalyptic visions of the Book of Daniel, in which for the first time the name of the Son of Man is identified with the future Christ (Mat_7:13), and the Messianic kingdom itself brought into new distinctness in connection with a final judgment. Our Lord’s teaching does but expand the hints of the “thousand times ten thousand” that ministered before the Ancient of Days when the books were opened (Dan_7:9-10), and of Michael the prince as connected with the resurrection of “many that sleep in the dust of the earth” (Dan_12:1-2).
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 The enemy that sowed them (o speirav); contrast ver.…
The enemy that sowed them (o speirav); contrast ver. 37 (oo speirwn to kalorma). Ver. 37 states what is ever true; ver. 39 merely refers back to the enemy spoken of in the parable. Is the devil. (Mat_4:1, note) (For the thought of this and the preceding clause, see Joh_8:44 1Jn_3:8, 1Jn_3:10) The harvest is the end of the world; literally, as the margin of the Revised Version, the consummation of the age (sunteleia aiwnov); when the present age shall have received its completion, and the more glorious one be ushered in. (cf. Mat_12:32, note) And the reapers are the angels; are angels (Revised Version). But it is exactly parallel to the preceding predicate, and if the insertion of our English idiomatic "the" fails to lay the stress which the Greek has on the fact that the reapers are such beings as angels, (as contrasted with human workers, Mat_9:37, Mat_9:38) its omission adds a thought which the Greek was probably not intended to convey that the reapers would be only some among the angels.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain Satan. Br. diabolos, accuser. See note, Mat 16:23; Gen…
devil
Satan. Br. diabolos, accuser. See note, Mat 16:23; Gen 3:1; Rev 20:10. (See Scofield "Rev 20:10").
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angels (See Scofield "Heb 1:4").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.