But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
Verse 29. But he said, Nay] God judges quite otherwise than men of this mixture of good and evil in the world; he knows the good which he intends to produce from it, and how far his patience towards the wicked should extend, in order to their conversion, or the farther sanctification of the righteous. Men often persecute a true Christian, while they intend only to prosecute an impious person. “A zeal for the extirpation of heretics and wicked men,” said a pious Papist, “not regulated by these words of our blessed Saviour, allows no time for the one to grow strong in goodness, or to the other to forsake their evil courses. They are of a spirit very opposite to his, who care not if they root up the wheat, provided they can but gather up the tares.” The zeal which leads persons to persecute others for religious opinions is not less a seed of the devil than a bad opinion itself is.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
29. But he said, Nay“Itwill be done in due time, but not now, nor is it your business.”
lest, while ye gather up thetares, ye root up also the wheat with themNothing could moreclearly or forcibly teach the difficulty of distinguishing the twoclasses, and the high probability that in the attempt to do so thesewill be confounded.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But he said, nay,…. The answer is in the negative; and which, if spoken to angels, is to be understood, that they should not inflict punishments, or pour out, their vials, as yet, on formal professors, lest the righteous should share in them; and if to magistrates, the sense of it is, that they should not persecute with the sword, or put men to death for heretical opinions; but if to ministers of the word, which sense I choose, the meaning is, that not everyone suspected to be a tare, or a nominal professor, is to be removed from the communion of the church, because there is often danger in so doing:
lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them: not that men of openly scandalous lives are to be tolerated in churches; they are to be withdrawn from, and put away; nor men of known, avowed, heretical principles; such, after the first and second admonition, are to be rejected: yet there may be such in churches, not altogether agreeable in principle and practice, whose character and situation may be such, that there is no removing them without offending some truly gracious, useful persons, in whose affections they stand, who may be tempted, by such a step, to leave their communion; and so cannot be done without a considerable prejudice to the church. The scope of the parable, and the design of our Lord in it, are chiefly to be attended to; which are to show, that a pure and perfect church cannot be expected in the present state of things; and that saints should not be immoderately uneasy, but patiently bear such exercises, until Christ’s time is come to relieve them, when the tares and chaff shall be separated from the wheat; when sinners shall not stand in the congregation of the righteous, and there shall be no more a pricking briar, nor a grieving thorn in the house of Israel.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Ye root up the wheat with them ( ). Literally, “root out.” Easy to do with the roots of wheat and darnel intermingled in the field. So is not “gather up,” but “gather together,” here and verses 28 and 30. Note other compound verbs here, “grow together” (), “burn up” (, burn down or completely), “bring together” ().
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “But he said, Nay;” (ho de phesin ou) “Then he replied, no,” hold off for now.
2) “Lest while ye gather up the tares,” (mepote sullegontes ta zizania) “Lest as you all collect or gather out the tares,” harvest the tares, before the harvest time, while the wheat is yet growing, not fully matured.
3) “Ye root up also the wheat with them.” (ekrizosete hama autois ton siton) “You should root up (uproot with them) the wheat also.” Cause an interruption of its growth, disturb, hinder its maturity. More care is given by the Lord for the wheat, the children of the kingdom, than pity for the tares or children of the wicked one, Mat 13:38; 2Pe 2:1-3; 2Pe 2:9; 2Pe 2:12; 2Pe 2:17; Jud 1:12-16.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(29) But he said, Nay.Prior to the interpretation the householder of the parable is clearly intended to be a pattern of patient wisdom. He knows that he can defeat the malice of his foe, but he will choose his own time and plan. While both wheat and tares were green, men might mistake between the two; or, in the act of rooting up the one, tear up the other. When harvest came, and the stalks were dry, and the difference of aspect greater, it would be comparatively easy to gather the tares and leave the wheat.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘But he says, “No, lest it happen that while you gather up the tares (darnel), you root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, ‘Gather up first the tares (darnel), and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn’.” ’
The householder said ‘no’ because he was concerned lest in attempting to root out the darnel they root out some of the good wheat as well, for their roots would have become intertwined. So he commands that both be allowed to grow together until the Harvest. At that point he will tell the reapers to first gather in the darnel and bind them into bundles so that they can be used to stoke fires, and then gather the wheat, which can be gathered into the barn (the scene is very similar to that in Mat 3:11). The interpretation will follow shortly.
We are often told that ‘the experts say’ that the darnel would be uprooted as soon as it was found. But even if it is so, (and authorities tend to disagree on this as on all such matters), it does not affect the story, for that was intended to bring out a point which could only be brought out by telling it in the way that Jesus told it. He was not giving gardening lessons. He was talking about the interaction and complexity of human beings. Nor was Jesus saying, ‘do not root out false prophets’. What He was saying was, ‘do not pass judgments on the genuineness of the conversions of ordinary individuals. Eventually they will be know by their fruits’.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mat 13:29. But he said, Nay, &c. These words account for the justice of God in suspending his judgments. To see the full force of the reason in this respect, it is necessary we should understand what sort of sinners are spoken of, for this reason is not always applicable to all cases; many sinners are spared upon other accounts than this which is here given: the sinners intended in this passage are spared merely on account of the righteous, that they may not be involved in the punishment due to the sins of others; but some sinners are spared out of a mercy which regards themselves, in hopes of their amendment. The sinners represented by the tares are such, of whose repentance and amendment there is no hope and our Saviour has told us that these sinners shall certainly be punished at the last; which cannot certainly be said of any but incorrigible sinners: these sinners, therefore being considered as incorrigible, there was no room to justify the delay of punishment from any circumstances arising out of their own case. Even the mercy of God was excluded in this respect; for if the incorrigible sinner be the object of mercy, no sinner need fear punishment. Our Saviour, therefore, gives them up intirely, and justifies the wisdom and goodness of God in sparing them, from other motives. The interests of good and bad men are so united in this world; there is such a connection between them in many respects, that no signal calamity can befal the wicked, but therighteous must have his share in it. This was Abraham’s plea when he interceded with the Lord for the men of Sodom. In public calamities it is evident that all must be sufferers without distinction: fire and sword, famine and pestilence, rage indifferently in the borders of the righteous and the sinner, and sweep away one as well as the other. Thus far then the reason of this verse most certainly extends, and shews us the mercy of God in forbearing to appear against sinners in such punishments as would bring upon the best of men the punishments due only to the worst. You see a great wicked man in a prosperous condition, and you think his happytranquillity a perpetual reproach to the providence of God: you would not have God rain fire and brimstone upon the city for the sake of this great offender, since many innocent persons would necessarily suffer in the ruin? No; but you would have God take him suddenly away by some secret and silent method; or you would have him punished in his fortune, and reduced to that misery which his sins deserve. This you think would be very just and reasonable, and highly becoming the wisdom of God. But do you not consider that there is no great man who is not related to others? are all the relations and dependents of this great sinner as wicked as himself? Is there not one good man the better for him? Are his children all abandoned? Or would you turn out a family of innocent children to seek their bread in the streets, rather than let the iniquity of the father go unpunished for a few years! Till you can answer these questions, you must not pretend to arraign the wisdom and goodness of God, in sparing thisoffender. Now these considerations plainly shew the equity and goodness of God in delaying the punishment of the wicked; in both the cases above-mentioned you see that mercy triumphs over justice, and the guilty is preserved for the sake of the innocent, which is such an act of goodness, as no man surely has reason to complain of. Nor will the justice of God suffer in this account, as will plainly appear from the following considerations: the parable is evidently intended as an answer to the common objection against Providence, drawn from the prosperity of sinners, or the impunity of offenders. Ask the man who makes this objection against God’s government, why he thinks it unbecoming the wisdom of God to delay the punishment of sinners? He will readily answer, because it is contrary to his justice; and to support his reason,he will farther add, that it is an undoubted maxim of justice, that all sinners deserve punishment. And here I thinkhe must stop; for he cannot enter into particular cases, unless he knew more of man than he does, or can know. In answer to this, our Saviour owns the truth of the general maxim, as far as it relates to the desert of sinners; and thereforeteaches us, that God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world: but then he shews, from superior reasons of justice, that the application of the principle in the present case is wrong; for though it be just to punish all sinners, yet to punish them immediately, would destroy the very reason which makes it just to punish them. It is just to punish them, that there may be a difference made between the good and the bad, according to their deserts, that their punishment may be a discouragement to vice, and an encouragement to holiness and virtue. Now our Lord shews in this parable, that the immediate punishment of the wicked would quite destroy those ends of justice; for the righteous and the wicked, like the wheat and the tares, growing together in one field, are so mixed and united in interests in this world, that, as things stand, the wicked cannot be rooted out, but the righteous must suffer with them: consequently, the immediate destruction of the wicked, since it must inevitably fall upon therighteous also, would make no proper distinction between the good and the bad; could be no encouragement to holiness and virtue, for the virtuous would suffer; could be no discouragement to vice, for vice would fare as well as virtue: And therefore it is not only reasonable to delay, in innumerable instances, the punishment of the wicked, but even necessary, to the obtaining of the ends of justice, since they cannot be obtained in their immediate destruction. See Bishop Sherlock’s 8th Discourse, parts 1 and 2 vol. 3. See also the Reflections.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
Ver. 29. Lest while ye gather up the tares ] Those that are now tares, hypocrites, may become good corn, good Christians. Jethro, an Ishmaelite by nation, may prove an Israelite by religion. Simon Magus may perhaps have the thoughts of his heart forgiven him, Act 8:22 . In the year 1553, a priest at Canterbury said mass on one day: and the next day after he came into the pulpit, and desired all the people to forgive him; for he said he had betrayed Christ, yet not as Judas did, but as Peter; and so made a long sermon against the mass. Bucer, of a Dominican, became a famous Protestant, being converted by Luther’s sermon before the emperor at Worms.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
29. ] Jerome in loc. says: ‘Inter triticum et zizania quod nos appellamus lolium, quamdiu herba est, et nondum culmus venit ad spicam, grandis similitudo est, et in discernendo nulla aut perdifficilis distantia.’ Jerome, it must be remembered, resided in Palestine. As regards the construction, is not a prep. governing , but merely an adv. used for elucidation; see Klotz, Devar. p. 97. Still the construction here would hardly bear its omission.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 13:29 . , emphatic; laconic “no,” for good reason. : the risk is that wheat and “tares” may be uprooted together. , with dative ( ) but not a preposition, the full phrase is : “at the same time with,” as in 1Th 4:17 ; 1Th 5:10 . On this word vide Bos, Ellip. Graee. , p. 463, and Klotz, Devar. , ii. 97. The roots being intertwined, and having a firm hold of the soil, both wheat and tares might be pulled up together.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Nay. Greek. ou. App-105.
ye gather up = [while] gathering them together.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
29.] Jerome in loc. says: Inter triticum et zizania quod nos appellamus lolium, quamdiu herba est, et nondum culmus venit ad spicam, grandis similitudo est, et in discernendo nulla aut perdifficilis distantia. Jerome, it must be remembered, resided in Palestine. As regards the construction, is not a prep. governing , but merely an adv. used for elucidation; see Klotz, Devar. p. 97. Still the construction here would hardly bear its omission.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Mat 13:29. , no) The zeal of the godly against the zizans is not blamed, but yet it is reduced to order.-) at the same time.- , the wheat) which you might mistake for zizans.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Reciprocal: Ecc 3:2 – a time to plant Mar 9:39 – Forbid
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
3:29
The close resemblance between the tares and the wheat might cause some of the servants to mistake the one for the other while the plants were not fully matured.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mat 13:29. Lest haply while ye gather up, etc. The answer of a wise husbandman. The servants might distinguish the two, but their roots were intertwined. Impatient zeal for purity in the Church has often rooted up the wheat.