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Mat_13:37-38. In explaining this parable Jesus contents Himself, as far as Mat_13:39, with short positive statements, in order merely to prepare the way for the principal matter with which He has to deal (Mat_13:40), and thereafter to set it forth with fuller detail. There is consequently no ground for treating this explanation as if it had not belonged to the collection of our Lord’s sayings (Ewald, Weiss, Holtzmann),—for regarding it as an interpolation on the part of the evangelist, in advocating which view Weiss lays stress upon a want of harmony between the negative points in the parable and the positive character of the exposition; while Hilgenfeld questions the correctness of this exposition, because he thinks that, as the progress that takes place between the sowing and the harvest corresponds with and is applicable to the whole history of the world, therefore the sower cannot have been Christ, but God and Him only,—an objection which has been already disposed of by the first parable in the series.
The good seed represents the sons of the kingdom, the (future) subjects, citizens of the Messianic kingdom (comp. note on Mat_8:12), who are established as such by the Messiah in their spiritual nature, which is adapted thereto ( ὁ σπείρων τὸ καλὸν σπέρμα ἐστὶν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου , Mat_13:37). It is not “fruges ex bono semine enatae” (Fritzsche) that are intended by τὸ δὲ καλὸν σπέρμα , but see Mat_13:24-25.
οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ πονηροῦ ] whose ethical nature is derived from the devil (see Mat_13:39). Comp. Joh_8:41; Joh_8:44; 1Jn_3:8; 1Jn_3:10. Not specially: the heretics (the Fathers and several of the older expositors).