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Mat_13:1-52. Ἐν δὲ τῇ ἡμ . ἐκ .] fuller detail than in Mar_4:1, which evangelist, however, describes the situation with more precision, though he likewise introduces the parable of the sower immediately after the scene with the mother and brothers (otherwise in Luke 8), and indeed as one of the many (Luk_4:2; Luk_4:33) that were spoken at that time, and thereupon proceeds in Mat_13:26 ff. to add another having reference to sowing, which is followed again by the parable of the mustard seed, which Luke does not introduce till Mat_13:18 ff. along with that of the leaven. But seeing that Matthew lets it be distinctly understood (Mat_13:36) that the four first parables (on to Mat_13:34) were spoken in presence of the multitude, and the other three again within the circle of the disciples, there is the less reason for regarding the similarity of character which runs through the seven, as recorded by Matthew, in the light of an “overwhelming” with parables (Strauss), and the less need to ascribe some of them (Keim, comp. Schenkel), and especially those of the mustard seed and the leaven, to a different period, from their being supposed to be applicable (Weizsäcker) to a later order of things. Yet, when we consider that Jesus surveyed the future of his work with a prophetic eye, we need not be at a loss to see how a parabolic address might contemplate a later state of things just as fittingly as does the Sermon on the Mount, to which this series of parables stands in the same relation as the superstructure to the foundation of a building. Comp. Ewald, who holds, however, that originally the parables stood in a somewhat different order.
ἀπὸ τ . οἰκίας ] is to be taken in connection with ἔξω , Mat_12:46, and not to be regarded as referring to no house in particular (Hilgenfeld).