And he spake many things. Of which but a few are here recorded (cf. Matthew 13:34, Matthew 13:51). Unto them in parables. Taking the expression in the widest sense, "speaking in parables" began in the very earliest ages, when natural or spiritual truths were described under figures taken from everyday life, and continues until the present time, more especially among Eastern nations.
Interesting examples of such a method of instruction are to be seen in the Haggadoth (which are frequently parabolic narratives) of the Talmuds and other Jewish works. But both myth (cf. Alford) and parabolic Haggada share the common danger of being misunderstood as narratives which are intended to be taken literally, while in the parable, in the narrower sense of the word, such a confusion is hardly possible.
For the narrative then suggests, either by its introduction or its structure, that it is only the mirror by which a truth can be seen, and is not the truth itself. Such parables also, though seldom even approaching in beauty to our Lord's, are very frequent in Jewish writings, though they come but seldom in the Old Testament (Isaiah 28:23-29; 2 Samuel 12:1-6; 2 Samuel 14:6-11; 1 Kings 20:35-40; comp.
also Isaiah 5:1-7 and Ezekiel 17:1-10, which are rather allegories; and 9:7-15 and 2 Kings 14:9, which are fables). (On the distinction of parable in the narrower sense from fable, myth, proverb, allegory, see Alford and Trench.
) Weiss ('Life,' 2.115) thinks that the most profound reason of all which the Lord had for employing parables was that he wished to show that the same regulations which hold good for the world round us and ourselves in relation to the world and each other, hold good also in the higher ethical and religious life.
But at the most this can have been a very subsidiary motive with him. Saying, Behold, a sower. Observe that our Lord enters upon his parable at once (contrast Matthew 13:24). He will attract attention.
Mark's "Hear ye" would have forwarded this. A sower; literally, the sower, as the Revised Version; i.e. the sower of whom I am about to speak (cf. Driver on 1 Samuel 19:13; also Matthew 1:23; Matthew 12:43).
Went forth. In the Greek this verb comes first, as though our Lord wished to call attention, not so much to the sower himself as to his action. To sow.