Judges 9:8-15

It was a very favorite way in the Eastern world, to deliver weighty subjects by parable. And hence, in accommodation to this general mode of instruction, our adorable Redeemer chiefly delivered his precious discourses, under the cover of similitudes; so much so indeed, that at one time without a parable Jesus did not speak unto them. See Matthew 13:34. The figure of the tree chasing a king, and the nobler ones declining the station, while the bramble hastily caught at it, was plainly intended to show how Gideon had, modestly for himself and his lawful sons, declined this honour! while his illegitimate son, like a worthless bramble, seized it on the first offer. Nothing, in a figurative way, could have been more happily chosen, to point out the object Jotham had in view.