Charles Ellicott Commentary John 10:6

"This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them." — John 10:6 (ASV)

This parable spake Jesus unto them.—Better, this allegory spoke Jesus to them. The word rendered "parable" is the wider term (παροιμία, paroimia), which includes every kind of figurative and proverbial teaching—every kind of speech that, as its etymology reminds us, departs from the usual course (οῑμος, oimos). John nowhere uses the word "parable." The word paroimia occurs again in John 16:25; John 16:29, and once elsewhere in the New Testament: in 2 Peter 2:22 (according to the true proverb), in a quotation from the Greek version of Proverbs 26:11, where the Hebrew word is mâshal. (Compare the note on Matthew 13:3, and Trench, On the Parables, pp. 8-10.)

The discourse of this chapter differs from the true parable. A true parable is a story in which the outer facts are kept wholly distinct from the ideal truths that are to be taught; whereas here, the form and the idea interpenetrate each other at every point.

This is also true of the other so-called "parable" in this Gospel (John 15:1). Strictly speaking, neither the "Good Shepherd" nor the "True Vine" is a parable. Both are "allegories," or rather, as there is every reason to think, they are allegorical interpretations of actual events in the material world, which are thus made the vehicle of spiritual truths.

It follows from this that the interpretation of every point in the history of the material facts (e.g., "the porter" in John 10:3) is not always to be pressed.

In a parable, the story is made to express the spiritual truth, and with greater or lesser fullness, every point in it may have its spiritual counterpart. The outer facts that are allegorized, however, exist independently of the spiritual truth. That these facts express the spiritual truth at some central points is all that is necessary for the allegory. Consequently, greater caution should attend any addition to the given interpretation.

But they understood not what things they were . . .—They, of course, understood the outer facts then passing before their eyes or, in any case, well known to them. What they did not understand were the spiritual truths underlying these phenomena. They must have known His words had some spiritual meaning. They were accustomed to every form of allegorical teaching and could not have thought that He was simply describing to them the everyday events of a shepherd’s life. But those who think that they see (John 9:41) are spiritually blind and cannot understand the elements of divine truth.