The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
39. The enemy that sowed them is thedevilemphatically “His enemy” (Mt13:25). (See Gen 3:15;1Jn 3:8). By “tares” ismeant, not what in our husbandry is so called, but some noxiousplant, probably darnel. “The tares are the children ofthe wicked one”; and by their being sown “among the wheat”is meant their being deposited within the territory of the visibleChurch. As they resemble the children of the kingdom, so they areproduced, it seems, by a similar process of “sowing”theseeds of evil being scattered and lodging in the soil of those heartsupon which falls the seed of the world. The enemy, after sowing his”tares,” “went his way”his dark work soondone, but taking time to develop its true character.
The harvest is the end of theworldthe period of Christ’s second coming, and of the judicialseparation of the righteous and the wicked. Till then, no attempt isto be made to effect such separation. But to stretch this so far asto justify allowing openly scandalous persons to remain in thecommunion of the Church, is to wrest the teaching of this parable toother than its proper design, and go in the teeth of apostolicinjunctions (1Co 5:1-13).
And the reapers are theangelsBut whose angels are they? “The Son of man shallsend forth His angels” (Mt13:41). Compare 1Pe 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.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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:
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.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1) “The enemy that sowed them is the devil,” (ho de echthros ho speira auta estin ho dianolos) “Then the enemy who sowed them (the tares), is the devil himself,” who planted his own emissaries among the field workers of Jesus Christ, inclusive of Judas Iscariot, Joh 6:70; Mat 16:23; 1Jn 4:1-3; Jud 1:4.
2) “The harvest is the end of the world;” (ho de sunrelela alonos estin) “Then the harvest is the completion of the age,” the church age, 1Th 4:13-18; 2Co 5:10-11.
3) “And the reapers are the angels.” (hoi de theristai angeloi eisin) “Then the reaper servants are angels,” sent forth to minister to and serve the Lord, and the redeemed, Heb 1:14; Rev 7:1-4; Rev 7:11; Rev 8:2-3; Rev 20:1-2; Rev 21:9; Rev 22:8-9.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
39. The harvest is the end of the world. This is, no doubt, a very distressing consideration, that the Church is burdened with the reprobate to the very end of the world; but Christ enjoins on us to exercise patience till that time, that we may not deceive ourselves with a vain hope. Pastors ought to labor strenuously to purify the Church; and all the godly, so far as their respective callings enable them, ought to lend assistance in this matter; but when all shall have devoted their united exertions to the general advantage, they will not succeed in such a manner as to purify the Church entirely from every defilement. Let us therefore hold, that nothing was farther from the design of Christ than to encourage pollution by lending countenance to it. All that he intended was, to exhort those who believed in him not to lose courage, because they are under the necessity of retaining wicked men among them; and, next, to restrain and moderate the zeal of those who fancy that they are not at liberty to join in a society with any but pure angels. (212)
This passage has been most improperly abused by the Anabaptists, and by others like them, (213) to take from the Church the power of the sword. But it is easy to refute them; for since they approve of excommunication, which cuts off, at least for a time, the bad and reprobate, why may not godly magistrates, when necessity calls for it, use the sword against wicked men? They reply that, when the punishment is not capital, (214) there is room allowed for repentance; as if the thief on the cross (Luk 23:42) did not find the means of salvation. I shall satisfy myself with replying, that Christ does not now speak of the office of pastors or of magistrates, but removes the offense which is apt to disturb weak minds, when they perceive that the Church is composed not only of the elect, but of the polluted dregs of society.
The reapers are the angels. This term must be viewed in reference to the present subject. In another passage, the Apostles are called reapers, as compared with the Prophets, because they have entered into their labors, (Joh 4:38,) and it is enjoined on all the ministers of the word,
that they should bring forth fruit, and that their fruit should remain, (Joh 15:16.)
Such also is the import of that statement, that the fields are white, and are in want of reapers, (Joh 4:35😉 and again, that
the harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few, (Mat 9:37.)
But here the comparison is applied in a different manner; for those who occupy a place in the Church are said to be planted in the Lord’s field. Nor is this inconsistent with what is said elsewhere, that Christ, as soon as he comes forth with his Gospel,
hath a winnowing-fan in his hand, and will thoroughly cleanse his thrashing-floor, (Mat 3:12.)
These words describe the commencement of that cleansing, which, this passage declares, will not take place before the last day, because not till then will it be fully completed. Christ will put the last hand to the cleansing of the Church by means of angels, but he now begins to do the work by means of pious teachers. He assigns this office to angels, because they will not remain idle spectators before his tribunal, (215) but will hold themselves in readiness to execute his commands. It follows, that those who proceed, with undue haste, to root out whatever displeases them, prevent, as far as lies in their power, the sentence of Christ, deprive angels of their office, and rashly take that office on themselves.
(212) “ Qui ne pensent point qu’il soit bon de s’adioindre a la compagnie des fideles, sinon que tout y soit pur comme entre les Anges;”— “who do not think that it is proper to join themselves to the society of believers, unless every thing in it be as pure as among the Angels.”
(213) “ Et semblables reveurs;” — “and similar dreamers.”
(214) “ Quand la peine n’est pas a mort (comme est l’excommunication;)” — “when the punishment, as in the case of excommunication, is not to death.”
(215) “ Devant le siege iudicial de sa maieste;” — “before the judgment- seat of his majesty.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(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 agei.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.
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 Lords 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 Lords 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).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
“And the enemy who sowed them is the Devil, and the harvest is the end of the world (age), and the reapers are angels.”
Like all parables not all the details can be applied. It was not of course the Devil who actually introduced men into the world. What he did from the beginning was seduce those whom God had created, turning them from being under God’s Kingly Rule. He ‘sowed’ false men. He tried to do it in Eden (Genesis 3), then prior to the Flood (Gen 6:1-4), and has been doing it ever since. But the sad thing is that they are therefore now his workmanship, and fashioned after his image (Joh 8:41; Joh 8:44 ; 2Co 4:3-4; Eph 2:2-3; Eph 4:17-19; 1Jn 3:8; 1Jn 3:10; 1Jn 5:19), and they walk in darkness not knowing where they are going (Joh 12:35).
But the warning comes that there will be a Harvest. This will come at the end of all things as we know them, the end of the world (or the age). Note the emphasis on Harvest (compare Mat 3:11). For ‘the righteous’ that in itself is a time for rejoicing. The rest that goes with it is the unfortunate consequence of the effects of sin and Satan. In the Old Testament the idea of harvest symbolised judgment (compare. Jer 51:33; Hos 6:11; Joe 3:13). But here in the New, as in Mat 3:11, the emphasis is on the blessing for those who are His, even though judgment often accompanies it.
‘The end (sunteleia) of the age.’ Compare Mat 13:40; Mat 13:49; Mat 24:3; Mat 28:20; Heb 9:26. The word sunteleia originally meant a contribution, then a joint action and finally came to mean ‘consummation’. Thus here it is the consummation of the age. (Note its use in Hebrews demonstrating that the phrase is not uniquely a Matthaean translation of Jesus’ words. But even so a unique way of translating something would not necessarily indicate that the translator had actually composed the ideas contained in the translation himself). The idea here is of the period of the summing up of all things (Eph 1:10).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mat 13:39. The end of the world Of the age, literally, a Hebraism, frequently used in the New Testament. Comp. the next verse, and Heb 1:2. What follows is an allusion to Joe 3:13. See also Rev 14:15.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mat 13:39 . . ] not found in any of the other Gospels: the close of the (current) age (Mat 13:22 ), i.e. of the, pre-Messianic epoch; the great catastrophe that is to accompany the second coming, and which is to introduce the Messianic judgment, 4 Esdr. 7:43; Bertholdt, Christol . p. 39; comp. Mat 13:40 ; Mat 13:49 ; Mat 24:3 ; Mat 28:20 ; Heb 9:26 , and see note on Mat 12:32 .
The reapers are angels; see Mat 24:31 ; comp. Joh 15:6 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
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.
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.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Mat 13:39 . , the end of the world; phrase peculiar to this Gospel. . Weiss thinks this borrowed from Mat 24:31 , and certainly not original. Perhaps not as a dogmatic interpretation, but quite possibly as a poetic suggestion.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
the end of the world = the end of the age, age-time, or dispensation. The expression occurs six times (here, verses: Mat 13:40, Mat 13:49, Mat 13:3; Mat 28:20. Heb 9:26), always in this sense.
end. Greek. sunteleia (not “telos”) = closing time, denoting the joining of two age-times: i.e. the closing time of one leading on to the other. The sunteleia mark the closing period, while telos marks the actual and final end.
the angels = angels. In Mat 13:41 “His angels”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mat 13:39. -, consummation-angels) They form the predicate here, the subject elsewhere.- in Mat 13:49, is the meeting or combination of the ends ( ); see 1Co 10:11.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
devil
Satan. Br. diabolos, accuser. See note, Mat 16:23; Gen 3:1; Rev 20:10. (See Scofield “Rev 20:10”).
angels (See Scofield “Heb 1:4”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
enemy: Mat 13:25, Mat 13:28, 2Co 2:17, 2Co 11:3, 2Co 11:13-15, Eph 2:2, Eph 6:11, Eph 6:12, 2Th 2:8-11, 1Pe 5:8, Rev 12:9, Rev 13:14, Rev 19:20, Rev 20:2, Rev 20:3, Rev 20:7-10
harvest: Mat 13:49, Mat 24:3, Joe 3:13, Rev 14:15-19
reapers: Mat 25:31, Dan 7:10, 2Th 1:7-10, Jud 1:14
Reciprocal: Isa 17:5 – as when Jer 51:33 – the time Mat 13:30 – both Mat 20:8 – when Mat 28:20 – unto Mar 14:22 – this 1Co 10:4 – that Rock 1Co 10:10 – destroyer 1Co 15:24 – cometh
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
WHAT WILL THE HARVEST BE?
The harvest is the end of the world.
Mat 13:39
The harvest is used here to denote the Judgment
I. The soul.In this world God has set each of us, as the farmer sows the seed-corn in the field. A soul grows as a seed grows, and God watches every soul which He has planted in this field of the world, and sees it growing better and holier continually by prayers and sacraments, or else He sees it yielding again and again to temptations, and so growing worse and more wicked.
II. And its fruit.Bear in mind that God expects of you, of every soul among you, fruit for the harvest of eternity. He has given to you many gifts. He would have you use them in His service and for your brothers good.
(a) Talents He has given you, and He expects you to use them to his glory.
(b) Wealth He has given to some among you, and He reminds you, that whether it was inherited from your fathers or has been the gathering of your own industry, none the less it is His gift.
III. Ripeness for harvest.Ask yourselves, Am I ripe for the harvest? Am I full of good deeds, full of holy thoughtsam I rising day by day above my besetting temptations, day by day making steady progress towards what is good? Friends have passed away; for them the harvest is come, how soon will it come for me?
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
3:39
Devil is from DIABOLOS which means Satan or Beelzebub. He has always been an enemy of righteousness and has used his influence to keep men out of the kingdom of the Lord. World in this and the following verse is from AION and means age; specifically the age of the earth. Angels have been instruments of God since the human family has existed. They are said to be the reapers, and the same prediction is made of their part in the last harvest as recorded in Rev 14:14-20.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mat 13:39. The devil is here represented as the author of evil in the world (and in the Church as affected by the world).
The harvest, up to which time the tares are to be left, is the end of the world. The phrase may be rendered: the consummation of the age. According to Jewish notions the coming of the Messiah was to be the end of the present age. Our Lord and His Apostles refer the Jewish phrase to the second coming of the Messiah. Our Lord does not interpret more fully the conversation of the servants and the householder (Mat 13:27-29). Where He has been silent, controversy has been loudest. The application to the question of discipline has been hotly discussed from the fourth century until now. The parable assumes that earnest Christians will be zealous to remove impurities and offences (from the Church and the world as well) by forcible means. Without positively forbidding this which may at times be absolutely necessary, the whole drift of the parable enjoins caution and charity. Brute force, persecution, whether civil (rooting out of the world) or ecclesiastical (rooting out of the Church) finds little warrant here, and has generally resulted in actually tearing up the wheat. As regards discipline; when necessary, it is to be exercised with a prudential not a punitive purpose. The case is much simplified, when the Church is free, and not compelled by alliance with the State to allow wheat and tares to intertwine yet more closely.