5. Stony places. Not ground covered with loose stones, but a hard, rocky surface, covered with a thin layer of soil.
7. Sprang up. The seed, therefore, fell, not among stand- ing thorns, but among those beneath the surface, ready to spring
up. Trench (“ Parables”) cites a striking parallel from Ovid, de-
scribing the obstacles to the growth of the grain :
‘¢ Now the too ardent sun, now furious showers, * With baleful stars and bitter winds combine The crop to ravage; while the greedy fowl Snatch the strown seeds; and grass with stubborn roots, And thorn and darnel plague the ripening grain.” Metamorphoses, v., 486.
78 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. XIII.
8. A hundred-fold. Mentioned as something extraordinary. Compare Gen. xxvi. 12. Herodotus (i., 93) says of Babylonia, “In grain it is so fruitful as to yield commonly two-hundred-
fold; and when the production is the greatest, even three-hun- dred-fold.”
11. Mysteries (uvornpia). From pte, to close or shut. In classical Greek, applied to certain religious celebrations to which persons were admitted by formal initiation, and the precise character of which is unknown. Some suppose them to have been revelations of religious secrets; others of secret politico- religions doctrines; others, again, scenic representations of mythical legends. In this latter sense the term was used in the Middle Ages of miracle-plays—rude dramas representing scenes from scripture and from the apocryphal gospels. Scuh plays are still enacted among the Basque mountaineers. (See Vincent, “Tn the Shadow of the Pyrenees.”)
A mystery does not denote an wnknowable thing, but one which is withdrawn from knowledge or manifestation, and which cannot be known without special manifestation of it. Hence appropriate to the things of the kingdom of heaven, which could be known only by revelation. Paul (Philip. iv. 12) says, “lam wnstructed (weutnpat) both to be full and to be hungry,” ete. But Rev. gives more correctly the force of in- structed, by rendering [have learned the secret: the verb being pvéw (from the same root as pvorijpia) to initiate into the mys- teries.
14. Is fulfilled (avawAnpotra:). Rather of something in progress : 7s being fulfilled or in process of fulfilment.
15. Is waxed gross (é7ayvvIn). Lit., was made fat. Wyc., enfatted.
Are dull of hearing (rots aolv Bapéws sxoveav). Lit., They heard heavily with their ears.
They have closed (ékéupuoar), xatd, down, pba, to close, as in wvortipia above. Our idiom shuts wp the eyes. The
Cu. XID] MATTHEW. 19
Greek shutsthem down. The Hebrew, in Isa. vi. 10, is besmear. This insensibility is described as a punishment. Compare Isa. xxix. 10; xliv.18; in both of which the closing of the eyes is described as a judgment of God. Sealing up the eyes was an oriental punishment. Cheyne (“ Isaiah ”) cites the case of a son of the Great Mogul, who had his eyes sealed up three years by his father as a punishment. Dante pictures the envious, on the second cornice of Purgatory, with their eyes sewed up:
‘‘ For all their lids an iron wire transpierces, And sews them up, as to a sparhawk wild Is done, because it will not quiet stay.” Purg., xiii., 70-72.
Be converted (émictpépwow). Rev., turn again; él, to or toward, otpéda, to turn ; with the idea of their turning from their evil toward God.
19. When any one heareth. Therendering would be made even more graphic by preserving the continuous force of the present tense, as exhibiting action in progress, and the simul- taneousness of Satan’s work with that of the gospel instructor. «“ While any one és hearing, the evil one as coming and snatch- ing away, just as the birds do not wait for the sower to be out of the way, but are at work while he is sowing.
He which received seed (6 orapels). Lit., and much bet- ter, Rev., He that was sown; identifying the seed of the figure with the man signified.