1In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. 2Above him stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face. With two he covered his feet. With two he flew. 3One called to another, and said,
“Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of Armies!
The whole earth is full of his glory!”
4The foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5Then I said, “Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of Armies!”
6Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. 7He touched my mouth with it, and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin forgiven.”
8I heard the Lord’s voice, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”
Then I said, “Here I am. Send me!”
9He said, “Go, and tell this people,
‘You hear indeed,
but don’t understand.
You see indeed,
but don’t perceive.’
10Make the heart of this people fat.
Make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their heart,
and turn again, and be healed.”
11Then I said, “Lord, how long?”
He answered,
“Until cities are waste without inhabitant,
houses without man,
the land becomes utterly waste,
12and Yahweh has removed men far away,
and the forsaken places are many within the land.
13If there is a tenth left in it,
that also will in turn be consumed,
as a terebinth, and as an oak whose stump remains when they are cut down,
so the holy seed is its stump.”
Parables are fictitious, true-to-life stories that illustrate a truth by making comparisons. Jesus explained His use of parables in Matthew 13 as having a two-fold purpose (vv. 11-17). Having just rejected the generation of Israel whose leaders had rejected Him (Matt 12:38-42), Jesus taught in parables in order to reveal to receptive individuals how His rule (the kingdom of heaven) would be conducted during this time between His rejection and return. At the same time, speaking in parables served to conceal that revelation from those whose rejection of the kingdom was a fulfillment of Isaiah 6:9, "'...You will keep on hearing, but will not understand; you will keep on seeing, but will not perceive...'" (Matt 13:14). Even when the enemies of Jesus later "understood that He was speaking about them" (Matt 21:45), they refused to repent and believe in Him.
Like proverbs, parables are vivid, memorable presentations of the need to make a critical decision. In His early ministry, Jesus tended to use parabolic sayings, which are short statements, such as "Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch" (Matt 15:14, NKJV). A similitude is a parable that has been expanded into a generalization, such as the parable of the ninety-nine sheep (Luke 15:4-6). Some parables present a general truth by an example story, or typical-case, such as that of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37), or the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). Symbolic parables, like that of the prodigal son (Luke 15), and the wheat and the tares (Matt 13), teach about relationships by describing things from everyday life. To interpret a parable, look in the immediate context for the problem the parable was given to solve. Identify the central truth of the parable and determine which elements simply add realism to the comparison. The central truth will never contradict the clear teaching of Scripture elsewhere.