Grace
Theological Journal 9.3 (1968) 3-11
Copyright © 1968 by Grace Theological
Seminary.
Cited with permission.
THE SMALLEST MUSTARD SEED-
MATTHEW 13:32
W.
HAROLD MARE
Professor of New Testament
Language and Literature
Covenant
Theological Seminary
It is to be recognized that the Bible is
not intended to be a textbook on science
but rather
is a written revelation of God's redemptive history, involving the
fulfillment
of that redemptive history, involving the fulfillment of that redemptive
plan in the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
However, presupposing a God of truth who has revealed a rational
and inerrant
written
communication to his rational creature, man, we have the right to expect
that this
communication, the Bible, when touching on science and secular, historical
matters will
express such material accurately and meaningfully.
How, then, for example, is the statement of Jesus in Matthew 13:32
to be
understood,
a verse which sets forth the mustard seed as being "the least of all the
seeds"? Is this statement scientifically
accurate, the phrase seeming to express in
the language
and understanding of that day the fact that the mustard seed was the
smallest
seed, a statement which might well be disputed by a modern day botanist?1
The Greek text of Matthew
linguistic
and historical sitz im leben is as follows:
ho2 mikroteron men estin panton
ton spermaton, hotan de auxethei, meizon ton
lachanon estin kai ginetai dendron, hoste
elthein ta peteina tou ouranou kai kataskenoun
en tois kladoi autou.
This paper
was presented at the Thirteenth General Meeting of the Midwestern Section
of the E. T.
S., April 19, 1968, in response to a paper by Dr. Daniel Fuller entitled,
“Banjamin
Warfield's View of Faith and History" (Bulletin of the Evangelical
Theological
Society, Vol. 11, No.2 [Spring 1968], pp. 75-83). Dr. Fuller rejects Warfield's views
of Biblical
inerrancy and believes that Jesus "deliberately accommodated his language
in non-revelational
matters to the way the original readers viewed the world about them,
so as to
enhance the communication of revelational truth." For example, he insists
that
"although the mustard seed is not really the smallest of all seeds, yet
Jesus referred
to it as
such because to the Jewish mind of Jesus' day, as is indicated by several
passages
from the
Talmud, the mustard seed denoted the smallest thing the eye could detect"
(p. 81).
3
4 GRACE
JOURNAL
It is well
to observe how Matthew
versions.
They fall into three basic categories as follows:
1.
THOSE TAKING THE COMPARISON WORDS AS SUPERLATIVE
“Which
indeed is the least of all seeds…it is the greatest among herbs,
and
becometh a
tree…”(KJV).
“It is the smallest
of all seeds…it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a
tree…”(RSV).
"It is the smallest of all
seeds…it is the largest of plants and grows into a tree…”
(Goodspeed).
"welches das kleinste ist unter allen
Samen…so ist es das grosseste unter dem Kohl,
und wird ein Baum…" (Luther).
2. THOSE TAKING THE FIRST
COMPARISON WORD AS SUPERLATIVE
BUT THE SECONDONE
AS COMPARATIVE
"It is
the smallest of all seeds…it is bigger than any plant and becomes a
tree…”
(
"This indeed is the smallest
of all the seeds;…, it is larger than any herb and becomes a tree.
.."
(Roman Catholic Confraternity Edition).
3. THOSE TAKING THE FIRST
COMPARISON WORD AS COMPARATIVE,
BUT COMBINING IT
WITH THE IDEA OF TOTALITY,
AND THE SECOND
WORD AS COMPARATIVE
"Which
indeed is less3 than all seeds;…it is greater than the
herbs and becometh a
tree…" (ASV).
"It is less
than any seed on earth…it is larger than any plant, it becomes a tree…”
(Moffatt).
It is evident from the variation in these translations sampled
that there is a
struggle to find adequate words with which to express the meaning
of the
Greek words.
THE SMALLEST MUSTARD SEED – MATTHEW
13:32 5
THE
GREEK COMPARATIVE AND SUPERLATIVE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
In contrast to the rather distinct and separate categories
occupied by the comparative
and
superlative in classical Greek,4 these two forms of comparison in
the New Testament are
less
distinctive and tend to overlap.
Actually the superlative form is on the decline in the
New
Testament.5
As to meaning and function Robertson, in noting a blurring of
distinction between the
comparative
and superlative in the New Testament, observes that the comparative can be
used when
three things are compared (I Cor. 13:13) as well as be found in its usual sense
of comparing
two things (I Cor. 12:23, Luke 7:42f).6
It is to be observed further that as the New Testament
superlative, besides having
the normal
superlative sense, like biggest, fastest, etc., can have the elative force of
"very,"
so the comparative also may be used in the
elative sense (Acts 24:22; 25:10; II Tim. 1:18;
John 13:27).7
Robertson
observes that the comparative has both the ideas of contrast or duality (Gegensatz)
and of the relative comparative (Steigerung),
the latter idea being the dominant thought in
most of the
New Testament examples, the notion of duality, however, always being in the
background (cf. Matt. 10:15; II Pet. 1:19; I
Cor. 11:17; I Cor. 1:25).8
THE MEANING OF IMPORTANT WORDS IN
MATTHEW 13:32
In the discussion of the meaning of the words important to the
understanding
of Matthew
13:32, mikroteron is the first to be considered, being a comparative
form
used five
times in the New Testament, two of which occurrences are used similarly
in parallel
passages, Matthew 13:32 and Mark 4:31. Two other uses are likewise in
parallel
passages, Matthew 11:11 and Luke 7:28, in which Christians are compared
in greatness
to John the Baptist, with the thought that, although none humanly born
is greater (meizon)
than John, yet he who is "smaller" (mikroteros), or
"smallest" is
greater (meizon) than he.9 The comparative sense of mikroteros here
is to be preferred,
for the
comparison involves a duality between John the Baptist and another individual
who, on the
one hand, is considered smaller and, on the other, greater than John.
Cullmann
presents an interesting thought that mikroteros in Matt.
7: 28)
should be translated "younger," this being a reference to Christ as
John's greater
successor,10 an idea which fits the
concept of John 3:30.11
The last New Testament use of mikroteros is found in Luke
9:48 where
"the
smallest" one (ho mikroteros) among all the disciples is
declared to be great
(megas). The article used here may make the
superlative translation preferable
by specifying the one among all, but if this
were the idea exclusively, it would
seem that
the comparative or superlative12 form would more likely have been
used
than megas in the conclusion of the
thought.
6 GRACE
JOURNAL
The comparative, meizon, is common in the New Testament,
occurring some
fifty times,13
often used in comparing two things (as Matt. 23:17, 19; Luke 12:18; John
4:12),
sometimes comparing more than two things (as John 10:29, etc.)14 and
sometimes
having a
superlative meaning when comparing a number of things or persons (as Matthew
18:1, 4;
Mark 9:34; Luke 9:46). Thus, it is evident that the testimony is mixed as to
the specific
usage of meizon, the context alone having to determine its meaning
whether
comparative,
"greater," or superlative, "greatest.” In the context of Matthew 13:32
the seed,
when grown (auxethei, effective, punctiliar aorist passive) is declared
to be
meizon with respect to the lachana, not necessarily in respect to
every lachanon, nor
"greater"
in every way, but greater by becoming dendron, tree-size,15
the duality
concept16
being emphasized between the mustard seed which grows larger and the
other garden
herbs which at maturity are not so large.
Regarding sinapi, it is difficult to determine specifically
the exact species of
mustard seed
called in the text kokkos sinapeos,17 it being identified by
most as
being brassica
(or, sinapis) nigra (black mustard), but also claimed as being sinapis
alba (white mustard, a view held by Dalman), sinapis orientalis
(Pratt), sinapis
ar:venis (Dalman), salvadora persica (Royle), phytolacca
decandra (pokeberry)
(Frost), and
phytolacca dodecandra (an Abyssinian species of pokeweed).18
At any
rate, Jesus
identifies it with sperma, a seed from which anything springs, but in
the botany
area, a seed from which a plant germinates,19 in the context being
further
compared not
only with all spermata generally, but in particular with the lachana,
a vegetable
species of plants, the garden herbs, in contrast to the wild plants.20
The dendron here need not be considered the timber tree, but can
include tall
plants (Hdt.
1.193) and such small trees as the olive tree (Ar. Av. 617). The mustard
seed here
would be that plant which would grow to small tree size, up to ten feet in
height.21
Thus, this verse conveys the thought that a small seed, some
species of the
mustard
seed, of the biological phylum, the spermatophyta,22 of which there
are
more than
126,000 species,23 of that subdivision of seeds called the garden,
or
cultivated,
herbs, has the unusual characteristic of developing from a very small size
to that of
tree size, not the largest tree category, but to a height considerably
larger24
than that to which herb seeds usually grew.
Such a comparison from smallness
to largeness
was a fitting illustration to express an aspect of the kingdom of heaven,
that is,
although seen to be extremely small in its beginning, it develops into an
organism of
considerable size.
A RESULTANT INTERPRETATION AS TO THE SIZE OF THE
MUSTARD
SEED IN RELATION TO THE SCIENTIFIC
EVIDENCE
Some, as Daniel P. Fuller, have understood that such passages as
Matthew
13:32
involve scientific error. Fuller says that Jesus found it necessary to
illustrate
the small
beginnings of the
...by referring to what His hearers considered to be the smallest
seed
(Matt.
of all seeds, yet Jesus referred to it as such….
THE SMALLEST
MUSTARD SEED - MATTHEW
Surely God and Jesus subserved the interests of truth more by
accommodating
themselves to the people's understanding of botany than they would
have by being as careful to be inerrant in this non-revelational
matter as
they were in revelational ones.25
Jesus' statement in Matthew
need not,
and has no reason to, be interpreted as contradictory to scientific evidence for
the
following reasons.
In the first place, although, as noted above, the orchid seed may
be the smallest,
or one of the smallest plant seeds, and thus
smaller than the mustard seed, it is not necessary
to consider
Jesus' statement in Matthew 13:32 as containing scientific error since the
class
of seeds
with which the mustard seed is associated is the garden herb group (lachana)
which may
possibly be interpreted as being the “all the seeds” category to which
reference
is made in the earlier part of the statement,
"all" there being limited to the specific group
(lachana) under consideration in the
total context of the verse.26 Since the mustard seed
probably was
cultivated in
Jesus, when
speaking of this type of seed, was talking about it in a comparison with
all those
seeds which were planted by farmers for food. Since panton is used with
the
lachana group in the parallel passage in Mark 4:31, it may be further
argued that the
panton
ton spermaton group in both Matthew 13:32 and Mark 4:31
is intended to mean
only the lachana
species, the "all the garden herb" group. In this limited context
of garden
herbs then, Jesus speaks of the mustard seed
as extremely small.
With "all the seeds" being understood as limited in this
way by the context, the
minute
orchid seed28 need not be considered as being included by Jesus in
His statement.
It is to be observed that if Jesus had said,
"The mustard seed is smaller than the orchid
seed,
"He would have seemed to have spoken erroneously; but this He did not say.
Secondly, that the expression comparing smallness with the size of
mustard
seed was a common Jewish saying29
argues for the fact that scientific literalness and
preciseness
need not be pressed upon it, it being able to be understood then, as
men
certainly understand it now, as a general and popular expression of smallness.
Compare such
sayings as, "the four corners of the earth" (Isa. 11:12; Ezek. 7:2),
and
"the sun rises" (Matt. 5:45) which also must not be pressed as being
expressions
of a
technical scientific nature, being understood by all today as describing in
general
what men
from their localized and limited positions in a material world see and
experience.
However, it is to be realized that Jesus, in using the common
Jewish
proverbial
expression of the mustard seed as a figure of smallness, did so only
because the
proverbial expression so used was a true and accurate statement,
including
those implications involving scientific data regarding the mustard seed,
both as to
its very smallness as a seed and to its moderate largeness when grown.
In positing the doctrine of total Biblical inerrancy, two basic
principles
are always
to be found together (as is seen to be true in Matthew 13:32) in Biblical
statements
and propositions:
8 GRACE
JOURNAL
1. The words and concepts used are understandable to the hearers
and readers.
(Compare Paul's use of aner in Acts 17:31, a term
understandable to the
Athenians, instead of the term huios tou anthropou which
would rather be
meaningful to those who were exposed to the Old Testament
Scripture and its
background.)
2. Those words and concepts used are likewise true and accurate,
containing
no error of fact, doctrine or judgment.
It is not that one or the other of these principles applies, but
that both of
them are
true at the same time in all Scriptural statements, as is the case in Matthew
13:32.
Furthermore, the phrase in which mikroteron is found in
Matthew 13:32 may be
translated
as follows, “a grain of mustard seed…which is a smaller of all the seeds,"
or,
better
expressed, "a smaller group (or, example) from, or, out of, the total
group of all
the seeds,” this translation and/or paraphrase
being possible because the phrase can
be taken as
a partitive or ablatival genitive after the comparative,30 and
because the form
mikroteron is anarthous31 even as kokkos sinapeos is
anarthrous and translated "a grain of
mustard
seed,"32 and, being comparative in form, it can be taken as a
true comparative in
meaning,
such as certain other New Testament comparative forms elsewhere are to be
taken,
as has been
seen above.33
If the assumption be made that the comparison expressed in Matthew
13:32
involves
more species of seeds than just the garden herb group, and, if the mikroteron
phrase is
translated, "a smaller group (or, example) out of all the seeds,"
then, in such
a context,
the mustard seed species would compare favorably with the orchid seed
species, as
being another example, along with the orchid, of "a smaller seed group.”
It is to be observed that the elative sense, "very,” is a
possible interpretation
of
comparatives in some contexts, but not in this case, since the comparative here
is
used with a
following genitive rather than as an adverbial modifier of the verb, as is
seen in the elative comparatives in Acts
24:22; 25:10; II Tim. 1:18; John 13:27
(also MS D,
Acts 4:1634 and 10:28), where the idea of “very" fits.
An additional argument for taking mikroteron as comparative
in meaning is
that it is
thus parallel in meaning, as well as form, with the succeeding comparative,
meizon, which a number of the versions
take also as comparative in meaning,
translating
it, "bigger," "larger,” "greater,"35 the
complete comparative picture in
the verse
thus agreeing with Robertson’s thought that "the notion of duality always
lies in the
background" of the comparative.36
Even if mikroteron be taken as superlative in meaning, the
verse still need not
be
interpreted as teaching that the mustard seed is exhaustively the smallest of
the seeds,
inasmuch as being anarthrous, it may be
translated, "a smallest group out of all the seeds."
At any rate, mikroteron taken either comparatively or
superlatively in the manner
suggested
above may, together with the whole ho relative clause, be properly
interpreted
as teaching
that the seed mentioned sinapi, whatever its specific nature,37
is to be thought of as
THE SMALLEST MUSTARD SEED - MATTHEW
a seed group
which develops into a plant larger than the garden herbs (lachana) with
which class
it seems to be a part, and also which begins in its growth as a very small
seed (as
presumably other lachana begin) being "a smaller" or "a
smallest" seed of all
the seed groups (panton ton spermaton).38
Therefore, on the basis of the above discussion, it is not
necessary to
consider
that Matthew 13:32 in its sitz im leben includes a botanical scientific error,
since the text can be culturally, historically
and linguistically interpreted as describing
scientific
phenomena in general, but accurate, terms which agree with current Greek
syntax and
are readily understandable In this terminology as presenting that which
men
ordinarily see and experience in the material world, this text being an
accurate
and adequate
expression of truth coming from a God of absolute truth who has revealed
Himself
through the propositional truth of the Bible.
DOCUMENTATION
1. Compare Moldenke's
remarks about the orchid seeds "now usually regarded as the
smallest
in the world, being actually as fine as powder." H. N. Moldenke and A. L.
Moldenke, Plants of the Bible
(Waltham, Mass.:Chronica Botanica Company, 1952), p.61.
2. Mark 4:31 in the
parallel passage has the masculine relative pronoun, hon, which strictly
agrees
grammatically with the masculine, kokkos, whereas Matthew is evidently
thinking
more of to
sperma and so uses the neuter, ho.
See W. C. Allen, Gospel According to S. Matthew,
in the International
Critical Commentary (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907) p. 151.
The text of Mark
4:31 is much the same in Greek, but it is to be noted that panton there
is
also used with ton
lachanon.
3. Webster's
Collegiate Dictionary, 5th edition says under "less," "syn.
less, smaller, fewer.
Less (opposed to
greater, more) refer esp. to degree, value, or amount; smaller (opposed
to larger) esp.
to size, dimensions, or amount….”
4. H. W. Smyth, Greek
Grammar, rev. by G. M. Messing (
Press, 1963),
pp.278-283.
5. F. Blass and A.
Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament, translated and
revised by R. W.
Funk (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 33. A. T.
Robertson, A
Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research,
3rd ed. (London:
Hodder and Stoughton, 1919), p. 28.
6. Robertson, op.
cit., p. 668; and J. H. Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek,
3rd ed., Vol. I
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1908), p. 236.
7. Compare the
superlative, elachistos, in Luke.
Moulton, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 236.
8. Robertson, op. cit., p. 663.
9. These two passages
are identically word for word in the Greek text except that Matt. 11: 11
has ton
ouranon instead of tou theou found in Luke 7:28.
10. Blass-Debrunner, op.
cit., Par. 61, p. 33, notes this idea of O. Cullmann,
Con. Neot.
11 (1947) 30, which they say was also the concept of Franz Dibelius.
10 GRACE
JOURNAL
11. Compare Luke
providing the
interesting suggestion that the former word in the comparative might
be considered
equivalent to the meaning in neoteros.
12. Regarding
comparison forms of megas, Moulton (op. cit., Vol. I, p. 78)
observes that
megistos
"is practically obsolete in Hellenistic: its appearance in II Peter is as
significant
as its absence
from the rest of the New Testament."
13. Robertson, op. cit., p. 277.
14. However, this usage
could be interpreted as expressing duality, two classes again being
compared, the
Father on the one hand, all other beings and forces on the other. Compare
also in this
connection John 14:12; Hebrews 11:26; III John 4.
15. Compare J. .A.
.Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew
(Philadelphia:
American Baptist Publication Society, 1886), p. 296.
16. Robertson, op.cit., p. 663.
17. W. F. Arndt and F.
W. Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament,
4th
revised edition. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), “sinapi”;
A.
Plummer, An
Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to S. Matthew (
Robert Scott
Roxburghe House, 1915), p. 194.
18. Moldenke, op. cit., pp. 59-61.
19. J. H. Thayer, A
Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, rev. (
American Book
Company, 1889), "sperma.”
20. Lachanon is
from lachaino, to dig; thus developed the idea of herbs grown on
cultivated
(dug-up) land.
Thayer, op. cit., "lachanon."
21. Thayer, op. cit., "sinapi";
Moldenke, op. cit., p. 60.
22. Webster's New
International Dictionary, 2nd ed., unabridged (
G.& C.
Merriam Co., 1956), “plant.”
23. Webster, op. cit.,
"spermatophyta."
24. It is not necessary
to assume that the sinapi when grown was large enough and
strong enough to
be a nesting place for birds. All the verb kataskenoo
("settle") need
imply is that
small birds temporarily perched on its branches. See Moldenke, op. cit.,
p. 61.
25. Daniel P. Fuller,
"Benjamin B. Warfield's View of Faith and History," pp. 10, 11, a
paper
presented at the
Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society,
Dec. 27-29,
1967,
Bulletin of
the Evangelical Theological Society, Vol. 11, No.2 (Spring, 1968), pp.
75-83 (see pp.
81 and 82).
26. Compare, for
example, "all" limited by the context in John 6:37 and John 12:32.
27. Moldenke, op.
cit., pp. 59, 61.
28. A number of kinds
of orchids were known to be native to
op cit.,
p .61.
29. Plummer (op. cit.,
p. 194) says, "'small as a mustard seed' was a Jewish proverb
to indicate a very minute particle." See
also H. Alford, The Greek Testament, Vol. I,
(New
York: Harper and Bros., 1859), p. 132; H. A. W. Meyer, The Gospel of Matthew
(New York: Funk
and Wagnalls, 1884), p.259; H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck,
Kommentar
Zum Neuen Testament, 4th unchanged ed., Vol. I (Munchen: C. H.
Beck’she
Verlagsbuchhandlung, (1965), p. 669.
30. Actually the
partitive and ablatival genitives frequently blend into one another.
See Robertson, op.
cit., p. 519. Examples of the partitive genitive are tous ptochous ton
THE SMALLEST MUSTARD SEED -MATTHEW
hagion (Rom.
genitive used after the comparative form, which construction is
common in the
New Testament are, ischuroteros mou (Matt.
ton spermaton (Mark 4:31), this
latter example suggested by Robertson being
in the parallel passage on the mustard seed. Robertson, op. cit.,
p. 516.
31. The other three
uses of mikroteros{aside from Matt. 13:32 and its parallel,
Mark 4:31) to
which reference has been made above, Matt. 11:11, Luke 7:28; 9:48,
all have the
article and are to be translated, "the smaller" (possibly,
"younger,"
Matt. 11: 11),
or “the smallest."
32. It is to be noted
that the anarthrous form, kokkos, in Matt. 13:31 is generally
translated
"a grain…," as is evidenced by the KJV, RSV, Luther, R. C.
Confraternity
Edition, and the
ASV.
33. Compare meizon
used in the true comparative sense in Heb. 11:26; and John 14:12.
34. Moulton, op. cit., p. 236.
35. See the fo1lowing
English versions: Berkeley, Roman Catholic Confraternity Edition,
ASV, and Moffatt's
translation.
36. Robertson, op. cit., p.663.
37. H. Alford, The
Greek Testament, Vol. I (New York: Harper and Bros. 1859), p. 132.
38. Blanchan has said,
"…the comparison between the size of a seed and the plant's
great height was
already proverbial in the East when Jesus used it…” Through
Moldenke, op.
cit., p. 60.
This
material is cited with gracious permission from:
Grace
Theological Seminary
www.grace.edu
Please
report any errors to Ted Hildebrandt at:
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