This is the first and main point in the Parable. The other, concerning the birds which are attracted to its branches and lodge' - literally, make tents' [2860] - there, or else under the shadow of it, [2861] is subsidiary. Pictorial, of course, this trait would be, and we can the more readily understand that birds would be attracted to the branches or the shadow of the mustard-plant, when we know that mustard was in Palestine mixed with, or used as food for pigeons, [2862] and presumably would be sought by other birds. And the general meaning would the more easily be apprehended, that a tree, whose wide-spreading branches afforded lodgment to the birds of heaven, was a familiar Old Testament figure for a mighty kingdom that gave shelter to the nations. [2863] Indeed, it is specifically used as an illustration of the Messianic Kingdom. [2864] Thus the Parable would point to this, so full of mystery to the Jews, so explanatory of the mystery to the disciples: that the Kingdom of Heaven, planted in the field of the world as the smallest seed, in the most humble and unpromising manner, would grow till it far outstripped all other similar plants, and gave shelter to all nations under heaven.
To this extensive power of the Kingdom corresponded its intensive character, whether in the world at large or in the individual. This formed the subject of the last of the Parables addressed at this time to the people - that of the Leaven. We need not here resort to ingenious methods of explaining the three measures,' or Seahs, of meal in which the leaven was hid. Three Seahs were an Ephah, [2865] of which the exact capacity differed in various districts. According to the so-called wilderness,' or original Biblical, measurement, it was supposed to be a space holding 432 eggs, [2866] while the Jerusalem ephah was one-fifth, and the Sepphoris (or Galilean) ephah two-fifths, or, according to another authority, one-half larger. [2867] To mix three measures' of meal was common in Biblical, as well as in later times. [2868] Nothing further was therefore conveyed than the common process of ordinary, everyday life. And in this, indeed, lies the very point of the Parable, that the Kingdom of God, when received within, would seem like leaven hid, but would gradually pervade, assimilate, and transform the whole of our common life.
With this most un-Jewish, and, to the unbelieving multitude, most mysterious characterisation of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Saviour dismissed the people. Enough had been said to them and for them, if they had but ears to hear. And now He was again alone with the disciples in the house' at Capernaum, to which they had returned. [2869] Many new and deeper thoughts of the Kingdom had come to them. But why had He so spoken to the multitude, in a manner so different, as regarded not only the form, but even the substance of His teaching? And did they quite understand its solemn meaning themselves? More especially, who was the enemy whose activity would threaten the safety of the harvest? Of that harvest they had already heard on the way through Samaria. [2870] And what were those tares,' which were to continue in their very midst till the judicial separation of the end? To these questions Jesus now made answer. His statement of the reason for adopting in the present instance the parabolic mode of teaching would, at the same time, give them farther insight into those very mysteries of the Kingdom which it had been the object of these Parables to set forth. [2871] His unsolicited explanation of the details of the first Parable would call attention to points that might readily have escaped their notice, but which, for warning and instruction, it most behooved them to keep in view.
The understanding of the first Parable seems to have shown them, how much hidden meaning this teaching conveyed, and to have stimulated their desire for comprehending what the presence and machinations of the hostile Pharisees might, in some measure, lead them to perceive in dim outline. Yet it was not to the Pharisees that the Lord referred. The Enemy was the Devil; the field, the world; the good seed, the children of the Kingdom; the tares, the children of the Wicked One. And most markedly did the Lord, in this instance, not explain the Parable, as the first one, in its details, but only indicate, so to speak, the stepping-stones for its understanding. This, not only to train the disciples, but because - unlike the first Parable - that of the Tares would only in the future and increasingly unfold its meaning.