Mt 13:23
and brought forth fruit, some an hundred fold, some sixty fold, some thirty fold: some seeds produced an hundred, others sixty, and others thirty. The first of these especially was a large increase, but what was sometimes had, and which Isaac received in Gerar, in the land of the Philistines, Ge 26:12 and is what Pliny says {g} of Byzacium, a country of the Lybiphoenicians, that it yielded an hundred fold to its husbandmen; and of such fruitfulness was the land of Israel, of which the Jewish doctors say some things incredible: they tell us a story {h} of
"one that sowed a measure of vetches, or pease, Nyao twam vlv hvew, "and it produced three hundred measures"; they say unto him, the Lord hath begun to bless thee, &c.''
Here, in the parable, these various increases intend the different degrees of fruitfulness in gracious souls; for though the fruits of grace, in believers, are of the same quality, yet not of the same quantity. Some believers are grown to a greater maturity than others; some are but little children, some are young men, some are fathers.
{g} Nat. Hist. 1. 5. c. 4. {h} T. Hieros. Peah, fol. 20. 2.