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Matthew 13 General Notes
Structure and formatting
Some translations set each line of poetry farther to the right than the rest of the text to make it easier to read. The ULB does this with the poetry in 13:14-15, which are words from the Old Testament.
This chapter begins a new section. It contains some of Jesus's parables about the kingdom of heaven.
Important figures of speech in this chapter
Metonymy
Jesus often says the word "heaven" when he wants his hearers to think of God, who lives in heaven (Matthew 13:11).
Implicit information
Speakers usually do not say things that they think their hearers already understand. When Matthew wrote that Jesus "sat beside the sea" (Matthew 13:1), he probably expected his hearers to know that Jesus was about to teach the people. (See: rc://en/ta/man/jit/figs-explicit)
Metaphor
Speakers often use words for things that can be touched to speak of things that cannot be touched. Jesus spoke of a bird eating a seed to describe how Satan kept people from understanding Jesus's message (Matthew 13:19).
Other possible translation difficulties in this chapter
Passive voice
Many sentences in this chapter tell that a person had something happen to him without saying who caused that something to happen. For example, "they were scorched" (Matthew 13:6). You may have to translate the sentence so that it tells the reader who performed the action. (See: rc://en/ta/man/jit/figs-activepassive)
Parables
The parables were short stories that Jesus told so that people would easily understand the lesson he was trying to teach them. He also told the stories so that those who did not want to believe in him would not understand the truth (Matthew 13:11-13).