For this cause I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear nor understand;
Matthew 13 finds the Lord by the sea, teaching the crowds in stories. His disciples ask why He changed His way of speaking, and this verse gives His reason: the crowd could see and hear, yet took nothing in.
The change did not come out of nowhere.
This is the first time the word parable occurs in the New Testament. The disciples, struck by this way of teaching, asked Him: "Why do you speak to them in parables?" (v. 10). The Lord's answer is telling. It links the parables of the kingdom of heaven directly to the rejection of the king… This was a case of "judicial blindness". The Lord quotes Isaiah to show it: "their eyes they have closed" (v. 15). They could not see because they had refused to see.
That rejection changed God's dealings with the whole nation.
This rejection of Jesus, and the destruction of Jerusalem that followed, cut short all God's dealings with them as a nation for the time. They were set aside, and a new work began. Meanwhile judicial blindness falls on them, and the words of Isaiah the prophet come true. So He speaks to them in parables… Before this the Lord had not spoken in parables. But now He is the rejected One, and Israel is cut off for the time. None understand except those He instructs.
The verse describes eyes that work and still see nothing. So who closed them?
These people the Lord was speaking about had closed their eyes. It does not say God closed them. They closed them themselves, and so they did not receive the light of this new thing.
The order runs one way, and it still holds today.
Matthew 13:13-15 shows plainly that Israel's wilful blindness came before their judicial blindness… In His absolute justice, God has now confirmed that blindness for the whole time that grace is going out to the Gentiles.
The third failure in the verse is not about eyesight or hearing at all. The Greek word carries the idea of assembling things in the mind.
suniemi (from sun and iemi) means "to bring or set together"… It then stands for the soul's built-in capacity to do this. It joins the outward object to the inward sense. It is to weigh a thing, think it over closely, and so grasp its meaning. See Matthew 13:13-14 and the parallel passages.
Which failure gets named depends on who was listening:
Take people who did not have the word of God, whom the gospel would test when it went out to them in due time. For them the question was believing something they had never heard before. In Matthew the words go to a people who already had the word, and for them the great thing was to understand it. This they did not do.
A parable does not hide the truth from everyone. The same words land in two ways.
The same parable would be just like the cloud of Israel in an earlier day — full of light to those inside, full of darkness to those outside. The crisis with unbelieving Israel was so solemn that He did not intend to give clearer light… He kept it from the crowd because they had already rejected the clearest possible proofs that Jesus was the Messiah of God… They loved darkness rather than light. What is the good of a light to one who shuts his eyes?
Sharp intelligence is no help here; the difference lies elsewhere.
The design lies on the surface, so the opened eye can read it. Yet, clear as it is, "the wise and prudent" of this world do not see it… But it is always like this in God's teaching: to grasp the truth we must be taught by God. This is absolutely necessary. The keenest intellect is wholly unable to discern the mind of God.
The Lord had warned them first.
He had also warned them plainly. If they refused to hear Him, He would bring on them the sentence He went on to pronounce… So they were without excuse. No one can accuse the Lord Jesus of unfairness when He chose to begin speaking to them in parables. The Judge of the earth will always do right, even in judgment.
Yet the door stayed open to anyone who would ask.
If people would only admit their ignorance and ask in earnest, they too would be converted and find forgiveness of sins. Those who chose to stay ignorant would remain that way.
- Refusal first. They saw the clearest proofs and turned them down. Their own hands closed their eyes, and God's judgment then sealed them shut.
- Sentence next. They rejected the King, so His plain speech gave way to parables. He did not take the light away; He veiled it.
- Understanding is the issue. The failing word means to put things together and weigh them; a people who already held God's word would not do it.
- Two sides of one cloud. The same parable is light to those inside and darkness to those outside. Only those taught by God take its meaning.
- Still just, still open. No one can charge God with unfairness here. Anyone who admits ignorance and asks gets an answer, as the disciples did.
and in them is filled up the prophecy of Esaias, which says, Hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand, and beholding ye shall behold and not see;
The disciples asked why their Master had begun teaching the crowds in stories they could not decode. His answer reached back seven hundred years, to words God gave Isaiah about a people who would hear and never understand. The Lord said that word was coming true, in full, in the crowd standing in front of Him.
The verse turns on one verb. Writers who trace the Greek note that "understand" here means more than hearing a sound:
suniemi (from sun and iemi) means "to bring or set together"... As a picture, it came to stand for the soul's own power to do this: it joins the outward object to the inward sense. It means to weigh a thing, think it over carefully, and so grasp what it means.
So the failure is not in the ears. These people would not put what they heard together with what it meant.
God did not act on Isaiah's word at once. He waited on the nation for centuries:
Israel, as such, had forfeited its place, and therefore was "a people of no understanding" (Isa. 27:11). Long patience had waited on Israel. Seven hundred years had passed since God gave Isaiah the word, "Go and tell this people: you will hear indeed, but not understand." As individuals they might gather around the person of the Lord, but as a nation they were blinded... The testimony to Israel is now closed, though God's final purpose for them is not.
Does God blind people, or do they blind themselves first? One writer traces the order and the result:
The blinding here is plainly judicial. God Himself has given them sightless eyes and unhearing ears. But why is this? It is no arbitrary judgment. Matthew 13:13-15 shows clearly that Israel's wilful blindness came before their judicial blindness... Now God, in His absolute justice, has confirmed this blindness. It stands for the whole length of the present period of grace to the Gentiles — "until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in."
Matthew's wording of Isaiah does not match the Hebrew text. In the Greek Old Testament the shut eyes are the people's own act, not something done to them. That is the version the Lord used, and He spoke of the prophecy as now completely fulfilled:
Turn to Matthew's Gospel and you will see this. The Lord speaks of the complete fulfilment (anapleroo) of this prophecy, and He quotes the Greek version, not the Hebrew text (Matt. 13:13-15). The people had themselves closed their eyes. Mark and Luke record only the first part of the prophecy, which states Israel's condition of hearing and not understanding. All three agree in showing that the Lord took up teaching in parables because of their unfeeling moral state.
In Isaiah the same words are followed by a question and an answer. That answer marks out the age the parables describe:
Our Lord quotes another prophecy of Isaiah, which was now coming true... These words come from Isa. 6:9-10, and there they are joined to what follows. The prophet says, "Then I said, Lord, how long? And He answered, Until the cities lie waste with no inhabitant, and the houses are without people, and the land is utterly desolate, and the LORD has removed people far away, and there is a great forsaking in the midst of the land." The Saviour's quotation from this passage matters. It settles that this predicted period of Israel's desolation is the period in which the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven exist and develop.
One writer points out that the same chapter of Isaiah is quoted three times in the New Testament. Read together, the three show one process running to its end:
Paul spoke a final word to the unbelieving Jews before they left, quoting the passage from Isaiah 6 — the passage the Lord Himself quoted in Matthew 13, and John quotes in chapter 12 of his Gospel. This sad and terrible process of hardening and spiritual death had set in even in the days of Isaiah some seven centuries before Christ. It was much stronger when Christ was on earth, and now it has reached its final stage... As a nation they are blinded and without understanding in the things of God, though very sharp about the things of the world. This does not, of course, conflict with God still calling out a remnant according to the election of grace, as Romans 11 states.
- Patience. Seven hundred years stood between Isaiah's word and this moment; God waited before He acted on it.
- Refusal. The blinding was not arbitrary — wilful blindness came first, judicial blindness after.
- Their own hands. Matthew quotes the Greek version, where the closed eyes are something the people did to themselves.
- Sentence. Isaiah asked how long, and the answer was desolation. That stretch of time is where the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven run their course.
- Remnant. The nation is set aside for this age, yet grace still calls out people one by one — the hardening is national, never total.
for the heart of this people has grown fat, and they have heard heavily with their ears, and they have closed their eyes as asleep, lest they should see with the eyes, and hear with the ears, and understand with the heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
The Lord has just answered a question about why He teaches the crowds in parables. His answer reaches back to Isaiah. Here is a people surrounded by light who cannot take it in. Did God blind them, or did they blind themselves?
The Lord changed how He taught because the nation had rejected Him.
The Lord's answer is telling. It confirms that His teaching in parables about the kingdom of heaven is directly related to the rejection of the king (vs. 11, 13). This was a case of "judicial blindness." The Lord quotes from Isaiah to show this. This is solemn indeed. They could not see because they had refused to see.
The verse names three things: a heart, ears, and eyes.
The heart of the people had grown fat. A thick insulation encased it, so that the precious truth of God could make no impression. Their ears had become dulled so as not to hear properly, and they themselves had closed their eyes. This was willful blindness, because they did not want the truth.
The wording matters. Commentators note that this quotation follows the Greek version of the Old Testament. That version puts the closing of the eyes down to the people themselves.
Compare these passages. The Gospels quote this prophecy, and so does the apostle Paul when he speaks to the Jews at Rome. Both point to the nation deliberately closing its own ears. "Their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed" (Acts 28:27). This wording comes from the Greek version of the Old Testament, which gives the passage this turn. Their sin was therefore their own deliberate action, and the nation is held responsible for it.
This raises the hardest question in the verse: does God make people blind?
The hardening itself is clear and certain. God never made any man bad. But He may give people up to the consequences of their own folly and evil — and in certain cases He does. That is, He hardens in judgment those who despise and reject His grace. All are responsible. Sin destroys the capacity, not the responsibility, of obeying God.
One writer puts the two blindings in order:
The blinding here is a judgment from God. He Himself has given them sightless eyes and ears that do not hear. But why is this? It is no arbitrary judgment. Matthew 13:13-15 shows that Israel's willful blindness came before their judicial blindness. God, in His absolute justice, has now confirmed that blindness for the whole length of the present period of grace to the Gentiles — "until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in."
Mary shows what an open heart does with truth it does not yet understand.
Understanding is of the heart (Matt. 13:15). Mary kept the deep sayings about the Christ in her heart. In secret she kept pondering them, so that she might understand them in time (Luke 2:19, 51).
The verse ends with healing. For Israel that word covered more than the body.
If Israel would only listen to His voice, every present earthly blessing was to come upon them and overtake them, as the Lord's glorious promise put it. Among these blessings was the removal of all sickness, as we read again and again (Ex. 15:26; Ex. 23:15). So the pardon of their sins and their healing are treated as the same thing (see Matt. 13:15 and Mark).
A sentence passed on a nation is not a sentence passed on every person in it.
The nation as such is given up to hardness of heart. There is no use in increasing their condemnation with more light. And yet the very fact that He speaks to them at all shows that all are not given up. If any are in earnest enough to look past the outward form, they will still find a gracious heart beating towards them. The national rejection leaves individual responsibility where it always is. He that has an ear, as the Lord tells them, still may hear.
The warning reaches past Israel to anyone who reads it:
Are you a self-satisfied rejecter of the truth? Then beware, in case He gives you up to blindness and hardness of heart too. How long has God held out His hands, ready to receive you?
- Refused — the eyes in this verse are shut from the inside; they could not see because they had refused to see.
- Confirmed — God never starts the hardening. He gives people up to the consequences of their own choice. Sin removes the ability to obey, never the responsibility.
- Heart — understanding is of the heart. Truth pondered there is truth grasped in time.
- Forfeited — what they shut out was healing, which for Israel meant the pardon of their sins.
- Open — the sentence fell on the nation, not on every soul in it; anyone with an ear to hear may still hear, and the warning stands for every reader.