tares Summary and Overview

the bearded darnel, mentioned only in Matt. 13:25-30. It is the Lolium temulentum, a species of rye-grass, the seeds of which are a strong soporific poison. It bears the closest resemblance to wheat till the ear appears, and only then the difference is discovered. It grows plentifully in Syria and Israel.

There can be little doubt that the zizania of the parable, #Mt 13:25| denotes the weed called "darnel" (Lolium temulentum). The darnel before it comes into ear is very similar in appearance to wheat; hence the command that the zizania should be left to the harvest, lest while men plucked up the tares "they should root up also the wheat with them." Dr. Stanley, however, speaks of women and children picking up from the wheat in the cornfields of Samaria the tall green stalks, still called by the Arabs zuwan. "These stalks," he continues, "if sown designedly throughout the fields, would be inseparable from the wheat, from which, even when growing naturally and by chance, they are at first sight hardly distinguishable." See also Thomson ("The Land and the Book" p. 420): "The grain is in just the proper stage to illustrate the parable. In those parts where the grain has headed out, the tares have done the same, and then a child cannot mistake them for wheat or barley; but where both are less developed, the closest scrutiny will often fail to detect them. Even the farmers, who in this country generally weed their fields, do not attempt to separate the one from the other." The grains of the L. temulentum, if eaten, produce convulsions, and even death.

TARES , bearded darnel (Lolium temulentam), a grass sometimes found in our own grain-fields, but very common in Eastern countries. Matt 13:25. Until the head appears its resemblance to wheat is very close. The seed is noxious, even when ground with wheat in small quantities producing dizziness, and in larger proportions convulsions and death. Many instances of such pernicious effects are on record, some having been observed in England. Owing to its smaller size, the grain of tares is readily separated from wheat by winnowing. Travellers describe the process of pulling up this grass and separating it from the genuine grain, Tares. and their descriptions perfectly accord with the language of our Saviour in the parable.

Matthew 13:24-30. Zizanion, Arabic, zowan, Hebrew zownin; zan means "nausea." Not our vetch, but darnel; at first impossible to distinguish from wheat or barley, until the wheat's ear is developed, when the thin fruitless ear of the darnel is detected. Its root too so intertwines with that of the wheat that the farmer cannot separate them, without plucking up both, "till the time of harvest." The seed is like wheat, but smaller and black, and when mixed with wheat flour causes dizziness, intoxication, and paralysis; Lolium temulentum, "bearded darnel", the only deleterious grain among all the numerous grasses. French, ivraie, "tipsy grass," from from whence our harmless "rye grass" is named. Hollow professors, having the form without the reality of godliness, nay, even hurtful and bad (Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 15:8; Mark 7:6; Ezekiel 33:31). None but the Lord of the harvest can distinguish the seeming from the real. The attempt to forestall His judgment for the sake of securing a pure church has always failed, and has only tended to foster spiritual pride and hypocrisy. Trench makes the "tares" into degenerate wheat (Parables, 91); sin is not a generation but a degeneracy.