Wheat and Tares: Darnel in the Field

Identifying darnel as the parable's zizania

The parable of the wheat and tares (Matt 13:24-30, explained in 13:36-43) is one of the most botanically specific of Jesus's agricultural parables. The 'tares' (Greek: zizania, translated 'weeds' in the NIV) is a term that almost certainly refers to Lolium temulentum, known in English as darnel or cockle - a grain-mimicking weed with a remarkable and dangerous relationship to the grain crops among which it grows. The parable's agricultural logic is precise and illuminating.

Identifying the Zizania: The Greek word zizania (from Aramaic zizanya or Hebrew zerunim) was used in Jewish and early Christian literature to describe darnel or tares. The Aramaic Targum of the Hebrew word zerunim uses the term for a plant that grows among grain. Jerome's Vulgate translates zizania as lolium - precisely the genus Lolium that includes darnel. This identification is supported by the parable's narrative details: a plant that looks exactly like wheat in early stages, that grows among wheat, and that must be separated at the harvest rather than earlier.

Darnel's toxic mimicry and harvest separation

Lolium temulentum - The Toxic Mimic: Darnel (Lolium temulentum, also called 'poison darnel' or 'darnel ryegrass') is one of the most fascinating agricultural weeds in the ancient Near East. In its early growth stages, the young plant is nearly indistinguishable from wheat and barley - the leaves have the same color, texture, and growth pattern. Even experienced farmers have difficulty identifying individual darnel plants in a field of grain before the plants mature and produce their distinctive seed heads. The servant's question in the parable - 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?' - is realistic; farmers did occasionally attempt to weed out darnel, though the risk of pulling up wheat in the process was significant.

The Toxicity: Darnel's common English names ('poison darnel,' 'drunk darnel,' 'sleepy grass') all reflect its most dangerous property. Mature darnel grains are commonly infected with the endophytic fungus Neotyphodium temulentum (formerly Endoconidium temulentum), which produces compounds that cause what ancient writers called 'drunkenness' or 'dizziness' in humans and animals who consume infected grain. Symptoms of darnel poisoning include: dizziness, trembling, inability to walk (hence 'staggering'), and in severe cases vomiting and drowsiness. Roman soldiers reportedly used darnel deliberately to contaminate enemy grain supplies. The Latin term lolium became an idiom for anything causing confusion or disorder (as in the expression lolium secare - 'to cut the darnel,' meaning to eliminate troublemakers).

Appearance Change at Maturity: The parable's key agricultural detail is the timing of separation: 'Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn' (Matt 13:30). This reflects genuine agricultural practice. As grain and darnel mature, the difference becomes visible: wheat stalks droop under the weight of the grain-filled seed heads, while darnel stalks remain erect (lighter seed heads); wheat turns golden, while darnel stays slightly greenish. By harvest time, experienced reapers could distinguish them and separate them at the threshing floor.

Separation Technique: The text describes the tares being 'collected first' and tied in bundles for burning. In Palestinian harvest practice, darnel was sometimes bound separately during reaping, set aside for burning (as fuel) or disposal, and the wheat then gathered. At the threshing floor, any remaining darnel seeds mixed with wheat could be separated by a specialized fine-mesh sieve (kebara in Mishnaic Hebrew) with holes large enough to let the smaller, narrower darnel seeds through while retaining the larger wheat kernels. Amos 9:9 references this sieving process: 'I will shake the people of Israel among all the nations as grain is shaken in a sieve.' The parable's harvest imagery thus encompasses both field separation and threshing floor sieving.

Enemy sowing as recognized agricultural crime

Intentional Sowing by an Enemy: The parable introduces a uniquely malicious element: 'an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat' (Matt 13:25). Deliberate darnel-sowing in a neighbor's field as an act of sabotage was apparently known in the ancient world - the Roman jurist Gaius (Institutes 3.197) records legal penalties for sowing darnel in another's field, confirming that this was a recognized crime. The enemy's action in the parable is therefore not fantastical but consistent with known agricultural malice. The parable's theological move is to shift this human act into a cosmic frame: the field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom, the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy is the devil (Matt 13:38-39).

Parable's explanation and ecclesiological debate

The Explanation's Imagery: Jesus's explanation of the parable (Matt 13:36-43, unique to Matthew) is more explicit about judgment than almost any other parable: 'The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father' (Matt 13:41-43). The image of righteous shining 'like the sun' deliberately echoes Daniel 12:3 ('Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens'), connecting the parable's harvest judgment with Daniel's resurrection-and-judgment vision.

Mixed Church Interpretation: The early church immediately applied the parable to the question of purity in the Christian community. The Donatists (4th-5th century) used it to argue that the church should be pure and separated from those who had compromised during persecution; Augustine countered that the parable counsels patience with mixed communities until the final judgment. 'Let both grow together until the harvest' became Augustine's key text for his ecclesiology of the mixed church (corpus permixtum) - the institutional church contains both wheat and darnel, and the final sorting belongs to God's judgment, not human ecclesiastical discipline.

Botanical calendar grounding the patience theme

Agricultural Calendar Context: Wheat in Palestine was sown in November-December after the early rains, and harvested in May-June. The normal agricultural cycle meant that darnel sown in winter (either by negligence or malice) would be growing alongside wheat for approximately five months before harvest. This long co-growing period makes the parable's patience theme agriculturally realistic - pulling up darnel during the growing season would indeed risk destroying significant wheat, whereas waiting for harvest made separation both possible and safe.

Scholarly Sources: Jeremias, Parables of Jesus (1972), pp. 224-227, provides the classic analysis. Michael Zohary, Plants of the Bible (1982), pp. 162-163, covers Lolium temulentum in Palestinian context. For the fungal toxicity, see Roger Lacey, 'Bad Grass: The Darnel Weed of the Gospels,' Biblical Archaeology Review (2012). For the legal evidence of darnel-sowing as crime, see Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8-20 (Hermeneia, 2001), pp. 264-265. For Augustine's ecclesiological application, see Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (1967), pp. 213-218.

• ISBE: Tares; Darnel
• ABD: Wheat; Tares
• Jeremias, Parables of Jesus (1972)
• Zohary, Plants of the Bible (1982)
• Luz, Matthew 8-20 Hermeneia (2001)