What Does Matthew 13:13 Mean?

(13) **Because they seeing see not.**—As the words stand in St. Matthew, they might mean that our Lord adopted the method of parables as a condescension to their infirmities, feeding them, as babes in knowledge, with milk, and not with meat. In St. Mark and St. Luke the reason given assumes a penal character, “that seeing they might not see;” as though they were not only to be left in their ignorance, but to be plunged deeper in it. And this, it is obvious, is even here the true meaning, for only thus does this clause answer to the conclusion of the proverb of Matthew 13:12, “From him shall be taken away even that which he hath.” In one aspect, then, the parable was a veil hiding the truth from them, because they did not seek the truth, and this was the working of the divine law of retribution. But even here we may venture to trace beneath the penalty an element of mercy. The parable could, at all events, do men no harm. It could not rouse the fierce enmity that had been kindled by truth spoken in its plainness. And it might prepare the way, might set men thinking and questioning, and if so, that was at least one step towards the “having,” though it were but a very little, which might place them among those to whom more shall be given.