TALITHA CUMI
TARES
697
at least have taken it to those who would have traded witli it and returned it with interest. And, in any case, the slave had his orders, tacitly, it is true, in the parable of the Talents, but explicitly in the parable of the Pounds. The responsibility for misfortune was therefore removed from his shouklers ; his duty was to obey orders.
2. The question remains Jis to the relation between these two parables and the Second Cominf/. Lk. introduces the parable of the Pounds with the statement that it Avas occasioned by the approach of Jesus to Jerusalem, and the expectation enter- tained by His followers that the Messianic Kingdom was immediately to be established. The parable of the Pounds hts that situation in so far as it indicates that the master is going on a distant journey and will be away for a long time, and that the kingdom is to be established only upon his return. The opposition of the Jews to the Messi- anic claims of Jesus, and the vengeance that is to come upon them at the Parbusia, are also suggested. The eschatological colour is not so deep in the parable of the Talents, still it is present. It is, however, noteworthy that the main point of both parables is not the explanation of the delay in the Second Coming. This comes out more clearly in Mt 24'**'^^ There the unfaithful servant abuses his trust precisely because his lord delays his coming, and there are other closely related say- ings and parables which bear on the need for watchfulness and on the suddenness of the Second Coming. There is no need to sujjpose that the parables of the Pounds and the Talents are a development of Mk IS^'*'^, or to think that the experience of delay in the early Church created the parables. Even if it be true that Jesus expected to return within a generation, the evidence that He warned His disciples that His absence might be protracted is very strong. Lk. may have accurately stated the occasion of the parable of the Pounds, though there are other parables that would suit better the particular situation.
Literature. — Commentaries on Matthew and Luke. Dis- cussions in works on New Testament Theology, Teaching of Jesus, and Lives of Christ, and especially the works on the Parables by Trench, Bruce, Dods, Jiilicher, and Bugge.
Arthur S. Peake.
TALITHA CUMI (for Greek TaXida Kotifii, which, in turn, is a transliteration of the Aram. 'n?p nh'^tp ' Maiden, arise'). — The words occur in Mk 5^^ and were uttered by our Saviour over the daughter of tiie Jewish ruler, Jairus. The Aram, noun is 'ho = 'lamb.' This has its emphatic form, masc. N;^a, fern. Nn;^a ; or, according to the analogy of Edessene Aram, preserved in the Peshitta, nh'^m. It is interesting to note that in Palestinian Aram, the word ''?9 passes from meaning 'lamb' to being a term of endearment for a ' child. ' We thus repro- duce the words of Jesus accurately, if we render them, 'Lambkin, arise.' In the Gr. of Mk 5^^ the Aram, words are translated rb Kopdcnov, ^yeipe. The ' articular nominative ' is in NT used sixty times for the vocative case (Moulton, Grayn. of NT Gr. p. 70). In Lk S'^-* we have v Trats, ^yeipe.
The Gr. codices KBC read Kovfj. for Kovfj.i. The latter is more accurate for Galil.Tean Aramaic. The former is due to the fact that in some Aram, dialects the final letter, though written, was not pronounced. J, T. M.arshall.
TAMAR.— An ancestress of Jesus (Mt P). Cf. art. Rahab.
TARES (ftfi.'ta, Mt 1.32"''- ; only in this passage in NT and only in Gr. and Lat. authors influenced by the NT ; Arab. zawAn ['nausea']; Syr. zizna; Lat. and scientific name, Lolinm temidentmn ['drunken']).— The bearded darnel, a weed much
resembling wheat in its earlier stages, and grow- ing mostly in grain fields. Its area of distribution is wide, embracing Europe, Western Asia, North Africa, India, and Japan. The kernel is black, bitter, and smaller than wheat. As a matter of fact it is poisonous, producing dizziness, sleepiness, nausea, diarrhcea, convulsions, gangrene, and some- times death ; this is due, however, not to the dar- nel itself, but to the ergot which usually infests it. It does not harm poultry, for which it is raised and sold in Oriental markets. Though very closely resembling wheat till the grain is headed out, .afterwards ' even a child knows the ditt'erence ' (Thomson). See Tristram (Nat. Hist, of the Bible, p. 486), and Thomson (LB, vol. ii. pp. 395-397) esp. for an explanation of the common Oriental but unscientific idea that darnel is degenerate wheat.
Tiie parable of the Tares and its explanation are found only in Mt i32^-3«- 36-43^ q^j- interpretation of it is affected by a few exegetical details. In v.^"* the aorist wfioiibdrj is significant (as also the aorists in 18^^ and 22^, and the future in 25^) if the use of this tense means that the Kingdom of heaven has 'been made like,' etc., by the course of events, that in the progress of the history it has become like. This ties the parable to the historical situation in which it was spoken, forbidding an exclusive reference to the future ; while the fact that it is the Son of Man ( = Messiah) who has sown the good seed (cf. v.^^) excludes all reference to the origin of evil in the world. The time of the parable is the time of the question of the servants (v.^^), when the tares had been already recognized as such (i<j)dv7], v.-®). As to v.^^, it is not at all necessary to think that this was a common method of revenge in Jesus' day and country. Thomson did not find a person in Palestine who had ever heard of sowing darnel maliciously. If new to Jesus' hearers, it would emphasize this quite pos- sible malice as extraordinary, unheard-of, and outrageous. In v.^® xopros means the grassy ci'op, in- cluding all that grew in the field, and was chosen just in order to embrace botli tares and wheat. ' Made fruit ' does not mean ' produced fruit,' but refers to the period of the formation of the kernel. ' Tlien, and not till then, appeared also the tares as tares. V.''^^ and the following ver.se show that the idea of wheat degenerating into darnel is foreign to the parable ; the servants think of mixed seed, the master of an independent sowing of darnel. Still less is there any idea in the parable that darnel may become wheat (B. Weiss). Weeding Avheat (yy_28. 29^ is common to-day in Palestine as in America, and has been observed there by Stanley, Thomson, and Robertson Smith ; but it must be done either before the milk stage of the wheat, i.e. before it is headed out (impossible in this case on"' account of the similarity between wheat and darnel in the earlier growth), or later when the kernel has hardened. The reason for this is that any disturbance of the wheat when ' in the milk ' is especially harmful to it. So the master will not allow the weeding then, lest the servants pull out and so disturb the roots of the wheat, interlaced as they are with the roots of the darnel. There is no question here of pulling up wheat for darnel by mistake. The darnel has already appeared as darnel, and just on that account comes the ser- vants' question (v.^). The question of the servants is then, from the point of view of the Galilajan agriculturists addressed, an intrinsically foolish one. No one who knew anything about farming would think of removing the darnel at that junc- ture. The master's reply does not seem strange to the crowd. It is reinforced by their knowledge and common sense. So Jesus gains the approvnl of the common man to back His teaching. The