Matius 13:31

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

13:31 He gave ¹  them another parable: ²  “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed ³  that a man took and sowed in his field.

Lukas 17:6

17:6 So ⁴  the Lord replied, ⁵  “If ⁶  you had faith the size of ⁷  a mustard seed, you could say to this black mulberry ⁸  tree, ‘Be pulled out by the roots and planted in the sea,’ ⁹  and it would obey ¹⁰  you.

[13:31]  ¹ tn Grk “put before.”

[13:31]  ² tn Grk “He set before them another parable, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant and has not been translated.

[13:31]  ³ sn The mustard seed was noted for its tiny size.

[17:6]  ⁴ tn Here δέ (de) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of previous action(s) in the narrative.

[17:6]  ⁵ tn Grk “said.”

[17:6]  ⁶ tn This is a mixed condition, with ἄν (an) in the apodosis.

[17:6]  ⁷ tn Grk “faith as,” “faith like.”

[17:6]  ⁸ sn A black mulberry tree is a deciduous fruit tree that grows about 20 ft (6 m) tall and has black juicy berries. This tree has an extensive root system, so to pull it up would be a major operation.

[17:6]  ⁹ tn The passives here (ἐκριζώθητι and φυτεύθητι, ekrizwqhti and futeuqhti) are probably a circumlocution for God performing the action (the so-called divine passive, see ExSyn 437-38). The issue is not the amount of faith (which in the example is only very tiny), but its presence, which can accomplish impossible things. To cause a tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea is impossible. The expression is a rhetorical idiom. It is like saying a camel can go through the eye of a needle (Luke 18:25).

[17:6]  ¹⁰ tn The verb is aorist, though it looks at a future event, another rhetorical touch to communicate certainty of the effect of faith.