NOTES for Mat 13:24-43
"The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; though it is smaller than all seeds, when it grows it becomes larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and shelter in its branches." This wonderful image that the Lord offers us today may have been inspired for the evangelist by the words of the prophet Ezekiel: "On the high mountain of Israel I will plant it, and it will put out branches, bear fruit, and become a majestic cedar; every kind of bird will dwell under it, every winged creature will dwell in the shade of its branches" (Ezek 17:23).
But in order to understand correctly the subtle difference that distinguishes the prophet's image from the image Jesus gives us, we need to know that an inaccuracy was most likely introduced here in translation, and it erases this subtle distinction.
Let us turn to the work of Jean Carmignac, the well-known French priest and Hebrew scholar, "The Birth of the Synoptic Gospels": "Matt 13:32 and Luke 13:19 say that the mustard seed 'becomes a tree,' which is an obvious exaggeration, because this plant does not exceed one and a half or two meters. <...> Everything would be explained if Mark, who apparently was inspired by Ezek 17:23, wrote NP, pronounced anaph, 'branch,' as in Ezekiel, and if the copyist whose copy preceded Matthew and Luke read S, pronounced es, 'tree,' because in Qumran script the letters NP, if they touch, are similar to the letter S."
And if it is a branch, then the theological meaning immediately becomes clear, because the branch really does indicate that these two texts should be read in parallel. But here is the essential difference: a mighty cedar or a little mustard tree. Strength and weakness. The strength of the Old Testament becomes weakness in the New, in order to become some other, new Strength.