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What is Mustard?
        MUS'TARD
     Matt 13:31-32; Matt 17:20; Luke 17:6. There can no longer be any question that this plant is the black mustard (Sinapis nigra), which often grows wild in our own country. In the fertile and warm soil of Palestine, especially when cultivated, this herb must have reached considerable size. Dr. Thomson has seen it there as tall as the horse and his rider, and the ground near the Sea of Galilee is often "gilded over with its yellow flowers." The Bible does not say, as is often supposed, that the birds build nests in the mustard, but only that they lodge there, as they often do in much smaller plants. Flocks of goldfinches and linnets are accustomed to settle in these plants and eat the seed, of which they are very fond. "Small as a grain of mustard-seed" was a proverbial expression of which Christ made use. Divested of the Orientalisms of the language, which our Saviour used in Mustard. (Sinapis nigra. After Dr. Carruthers.) popular teaching, the following is an accurate paraphrase of his well-known parable, as suggested in Smith's Bible Dictionary: "The gospel dispensation is like a grain of mustard-seed which a man sowed in his garden; which indeed is one of the least of all seeds, but which, when it springs up, becomes a tall branched plant, on the branches of which the birds come and settle, seeking their food."


Bibliography Information
Schaff, Philip, Dr. "Biblical Definition for 'mustard' in Schaffs Bible Dictionary".
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