As he sowed, some seeds fell by the roadside, and the birds came and devoured them.
Parallel Translations
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As he sowed, some seeds fell by the roadside, and the birds came and devoured them.
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And as he sowed some fell by the wayessyde and the fowlles came and devoured it vp.
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And as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the foules came and deuoured them vp.
Cross-references (1)
Passages linked to Matthew 13:4 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Matthew 13:18-19 “Hear, then, the parable of the farmer. When anyone hears the word of the Kingdom, and doesn’t understand it, the evil one comes, and snatches away that which has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown by the roadside.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (14 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by…
4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
Ver. 4. And when he sowed, some seed, &c.] The word is a seed of immortality. For, 1. As seeds are small things, yet produce great substances, as an acorn an oak, &c., so by the foolishness of preaching souls are saved, like as by blowing of rams’ horns the walls of Jericho were subverted. 2. As the seed must be harrowed into the earth, so must the word be hid in the heart, ere it fructify. 3. As the seedsman cannot make a harvest without the influence of heaven; so, let us, to the wearing of our tongues to the stump (as that martyr expressed it), preach and pray never so much, men will on in their sins, unless God give the blessing: Paul may plant, &c. {a} 4. As good seed if not cast into good ground yields no harvest; so the word preached, if not received into good and honest hearts, proves ineffectual. The Pharisees were not a button the better for all those heart piercing sermons of our Saviour, nay, much the worse. 5. As the harvest is potentially in the seed, so is eternal life in the word preached, Rom 1:16. As the rain from heaven hath a fatness with it, and a special influence more than other standing waters, so there is not the like life in other ordinances as in preaching. None to that, as David said of Goliath’s sword.
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{a} Mr Bradford, Serm. of Rep. Meum est docere, vestrum auscultare, Dei perficere. It is for me to teach, you to hear, and God to perform. Cyril.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain There is some difference in the terms used by…
There is some difference in the terms used by Mark and Luke in their relations of this parable, Mar 4:3-8, and Luk 8:4-8; but none that are material, nor much to be considered by us, being they are in the parable. I shall when I come to it more exactly consider what differences there are betwixt the evangelists in the terms they use in the explication which our Saviour giveth us of the parable; which he did not give before the multitude, but when he was alone, saith Mark, Mar 4:10. That which our Saviour spoke to the whole multitude was this. Now whether there were indeed any such sower, yea or no, is not at all material: our Saviour’s design was not to inform them in a matter of fact, but of the different success of the preaching of the word; and for this purpose he brought this similitude, leaving the generality of the hearers to study out his meaning, concluding,
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear; which is an epiphonema, or conclusion of a speech, we met with before, and spake something to.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain The scope of this parable is to shew, that…
The scope of this parable is to shew, that there are four several sorts of hearers of the word, and but one sort only that hear to a saving advantage: also to shew us the cause of the different success of the word preached.
Here observe, 1. The sowers, Christ and his apostles, he the prime and principal sower, they the secondary and subordinate seedsmen. Christ sows his own field, his ministers sow his field; he sows his own seed, they sow his seed. Woe unto us, if we sow our own seed and not Christ’s.
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Observe, 2. The seed sown, the word of God. Fabulous legends, and unwritten traditions, which the seedsmen of the church of Rome sow, these are not seed, but chaff; or their own seed, not Christ’s. Our Lord’s field must be sown with his own seed, not with mixed grain.
Learn, 1. That the word of God preached is like seed sown in the furrows of the field. As seed has a fructifying virtue in it, by which it increases and brings forth more of its own kind; so has the word of God a quickening power, to regenerate and make alive dead souls.
Learn, 2. That the seed of the word, doth not thrive in all grounds alike, so neither doth the word fructify alike in the hearts of men. There is a difference both from the nature of the soil, and from the influence of the Spirit.
Learn, 3. That the cause of the word’s unfruitfulness is very different, and not the same in all: in some it is the policy of Satan, that bird of prey, which follows God’s plough, and steals away the precious seed.
In others, it is a hard heart of unbelief; in others, the cares of the world, like thorns, choke the word, overgrow the good seed, draw away the moisture of the earth, and the heart of the soul, and hinder the influences of the sun. The far greater part of hearers are fruitless and unprofitable hearers.
Learn, 4. That the best ground doth not bring forth fruit alike; some good ground brings forth more, and some less; some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred-fold.
In like manner a person may be a profitable hearer of the word, although he doth not bring forth so great a proportion of fruit as others, provided he brings forth as much as he can.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And when he sowed,.... Or, "as he sowed", as…
And when he sowed,.... Or, "as he sowed", as the other evangelists; that is, "whilst he was sowing",
some seeds fell; either out of his hand, or out of the cart drawn by oxen; hence the (c) Talmudists distinguish between , "the falling of the hand", or what falls out of the hand; and "the falling of the oxen", or what falls from them; where the gloss is,
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"in some places they sow the grain with the hand; and in other places they put the seed on a cart full of holes, and oxen draw the cart on the ploughed land, and it falls upon it.''
By the wayside; by the common road, or private paths, which led through corn fields, in which Christ and his disciples walked, Mat 12:1 and which being beaten and trodden hard, the seed must lie open on it, and so be liable to be trampled upon by men, or devoured by the fowls of the air; and designs such hearers as are careless, negligent, and inattentive, who hear without understanding, judgment, and affection; see Mat 13:19
and the fowls came and devoured them; the other evangelists say, "the fowls of the air"; and so the Vulgate Latin, and Munster's Hebrew Gospel, and some copies; and mean the devils; so called, because their habitation is in the air; hence they are said to be "the power of the air": and because of their ravenous and devouring nature, their swiftness to do mischief, and their flocking in multitudes, where the word is preached, to hinder its usefulness, as fowls do, where seed is sowing. Satan, and his principalities, and powers, rove about in the air, come down on earth, and seek whom they may devour, and often mix themselves in religious assemblies, to do what mischief they can; see Job 1:6.
(c) T. Bab. Bava Metzia, fol. 105. 2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain And while he sowed, some seeds fell by the…
And while he sowed, some seeds fell by the highway side, and the birds came and devoured them - It is observable, that our Lord points out the grand hindrances of our bearing fruit, in the same order as they occur. The first danger is, that the birds will devour the seed. If it escape this, there is then another danger, namely, lest it be scorched, and wither away. It is long after this that the thorns spring up and choke the good seed. A vast majority of those who hear the word of God, receive the seed as by the highway side. Of those who do not lose it by the birds, yet many receive it as on stony places. Many of them who receive it in a better soil, yet suffer the thorns to grow up, and choke it: so that few even of these endure to the end, and bear fruit unto perfection: yet in all these cases, it is not the will of God that hinders, but their own voluntary perverseness.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 4. Some seeds fell by the way side]…
Verse 4. Some seeds fell by the way side] The hard beaten path, where no plough had broken up the ground.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Mat 13:4-9. When he sowed, some seeds fell by…
Mat 13:4-9. When he sowed, some seeds fell by the way-side — By the side of a beaten path which lay through the ground he was sowing. This wayside being neither broken up by the plough nor hedged in, the seed that fell here lay uncovered, and was partly trodden down, and partly devoured by the fowls, Luk 8:5, so that no fruit could be expected. Some fell upon stony places, επι τα πετρωδη, upon rocky places. Luke says, επι την πετραν, upon the rock; where they had not much earth — Either above them to retard their springing, or under them to nourish their roots; and forthwith, ευθεως, speedily, they sprung up, and looked very promising. And when the sun was up, and shone hot upon them, that is, upon the tender blades, they were scorched by the warmth of his beams, and because they had no root — No room for taking root in so shallow a bed of earth, and lacked moisture, (so Luke,) they withered away and perished. Observe, if they had had sufficient depth of earth, wherein to take root, and had not lacked moisture, the heat of the sun, however great, would not have caused them to wither, but rather would have promoted their growth. And some fell among thorns — Under the word thorns is included brambles, thistles, and every other kind of weed which is apt to spring up among corn, and to prevent its growth and fruitfulness. Weeds, of whatever kind, do not usually appear immediately when the corn is sown, nor perhaps till long after. The corn takes root, springs up, and perhaps even covers the ground, and bids fair for a plentiful crop, before they make their appearance: but as they are the natural product of the soil, they thrive better and grow faster than the corn, and soon overtop it. And, if they be suffered to remain, they absorb the moisture, and exhaust the fertilizing virtue of the ground; they also shade the corn from the kindly influences of the sun and rain, and so choke it that it has not room to expand itself. It therefore gradually declines, and at last dies away, and renders the husbandman’s labour, and the seed sown, fruitless. But other, the rest of the seed, fell into good ground, soft and ploughed up, not hard, unbroken, and trodden down, like a way-side; not a rocky place, but a deep soil; not a bed of thorns, brambles, and weeds, but ground purged of all such obstructions to fertility; and brought forth fruit — Being deeply rooted and nourished, it grew, and increased so as not only to produce an ear, but full and ripe corn in the ear, and that in rich abundance; some of it thirty times as much as the seed sown, some sixty, and some even a hundred times as much. Who hath ears to hear, let him — A proverbial expression used by our Lord, when he spake of things of very great importance, and which deserved peculiar attention. Such were the things now declared; they merited, and will merit, the most serious consideration of all who would not be forgetful or unfruitful hearers of the word of God, but would bring forth fruit worthy of their privileges.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain And whilst he soweth. St. Matthew and St. Mark…
And whilst he soweth. St. Matthew and St. Mark subjoin the following parables to what goes before, but St. Luke places the parable of the sower immediately after the second journey through Galilee, which he anticipates. Jesus Christ successively proposed four parables to the people, and then dismissed them; and being now retired with his disciples, he unfolded to them the meaning of the parables when in the house. (ver. 36) St. Matthew, however, interrupts the course of the parables, and after the first, anticipates the request of the disciples to have it explained; but from St. Mark, we learn that this did not take place till Christ was alone in the house. Of the eight parables, all spoken by Jesus on the same day, the first five were addressed to the people assembled on the sea-shore, the other three were added by him when alone with the apostles in the house, and are in some measure explanations of the former. In the first, we see the different success of the word of God from the different dispositions of the hearers. And as we find that only one-fourth part of the seed produced fruit, we may thence infer how many and great are the obstacles in the way of salvation, and how few will be the number of the elect. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 4. Fell by the wayside — Dropped in the…
4. Fell by the wayside — Dropped in the hard path and so lay on the surface, a ready food for birds. “The ordinary roads or paths in the East lead often along the edge of the fields, which are unenclosed. Hence, as the sower scatters his seed, some of it is liable to fall beyond the ploughed portion, on the hard, beaten ground which forms the wayside.” — Prof. Hackett.
Devoured them up — In the old English, the phrase “devoured them up” was intensive and energetic.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 4. by the way side] i. e. along the…
4. by the way side] i. e. along the narrow footpath dividing one field from another.
24–30. The Parable of the Tares. Confined to St Matthew
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25. while men slept] i. e. during the night. The expression is not introduced into the Lord’s explanation of the parable.
sowed tares] Travellers mention similar instances of spiteful conduct in the East, and elsewhere, in modern times.
tares] Probably the English “darnel;” Latin, lolium; in the earlier stages of its growth this weed very closely resembles wheat, indeed can scarcely be distinguished from it. This resemblance gives an obvious point to the parable. The good and the evil are often undistinguishable in the visible Church. The Day of Judgment will separate. Men have tried in every age to make the separation beforehand, but have failed. For proof of this read the history of the Essenes or the Donatists. The Lollards—as the followers of Wyckliffe were called—were sometimes by a play on the word lolium identified by their opponents with the tares of this parable. A friend suggests the reflection: “How strange it was that the very men who applied the word ‘Lollard’ from this parable, acted in direct opposition to the great lesson which it taught, by being persecutors.”
The parable of the Tares has a sequence in thought on the parable of the Sower. The latter shews that the kingdom of God will not be co-extensive with the world; all men have not the capacity to receive the word. This indicates that the kingdom of God—the true Church—is not co-extensive with the visible Church. Some who seem to be subjects of the Kingdom are not really subjects.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (4) The way side—i.e., on the skirts of the…
(4) The way side—i.e., on the skirts of the broad path that crossed the field. Here the surface was hard and smooth, the grain lay on the surface, the pigeons and other birds that followed the sower reaped an immediate harvest.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain And when (as, Revised Version) he sowed, some seeds…
And when (as, Revised Version) he sowed, some seeds (aa men). Here (cf. vers. 5, 7, 8) the seeds are, so to speak, each singled out. But in the parallel passages they are viewed as one whole (oo men ). Fell by the wayside. Along the road (para thn), which evidently was at no mere corner of the field, but ran for some distance by or through it. And the fowls (birds, Revised Version, as in modern English) came and devoured them up.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Mat_13:4; Mat_19:1-30
Mat_13:4; Mat_19:1-30
Some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up.
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Way seed devoured by birds
The birds devour the truth we neglect to cover. Let us study these birds:-
1. The first belongs to the heron species, having long legs, a long bill, broad strong wings, and an eye keen as an eagles, yet filmy at times, which causes serious mistakes. This is the bird of intellectual scepticism. It delays your acceptance of the truth with all kinds of questions.
2. There is another bird of dirty and ruffled feathers, a nondescript, but a hearty eater of the seed dropped by the wayside. It is evil associations. They neutralize the influences of the Spirit of God.
5. There is the muscular bird with curved beak that holds like a vice. It is a moth eater of the falcon order, and ravenous, evil habits, and belongs to a large family.
4. There is a bird of bad odour. Carrion drops from feather and from bill. It i; of the buzzard tribe. Let us call it the inconsistencies of Christian professors.
5. There is a dull and heavy bird, not easily seared away, of the booby order. It is religious indecision. All these hinder our salvation. (T. E. Brown, D. D.)
The seed by the wayside
The truth described as a seed. There are manifold facilities about the emblem on which we may dwell. The seed has a germinating power in itself that leads to endless reproduction. So has every true word. Then man is but the soil. If you are to get Divine desires in the human heart, they must be sown there: they are not products of the soil. Again, mans part is accurately described as a simple reception, not passive, but a co-operation. Then these different kinds of soil are not unalterably different: it is an acquired disposition, not a natural characteristic that is spoken of.
I. The beaten path.
II. The lost seed.
I. Let us think about that type of character which is here set forth under the image of the wayside. It is a heart trodden down by the feet that have gone across it; and because trodden down, incapable of receiving the seed sown. The seed falls upon, not in it. Point out ways in which the heart is trodden down.
1. By custom and habit. The process of getting from childhood to manhood is a process of getting less impressible.
2. The heart is trodden down by sin. It is an effect of sin that it uniformly works in the direction of unfitting men to receive Gods love. Every transgression deprives us, in some degree, of power to receive Gods truth, and make it our own.
3. The heart is trodden down, so far as receiving the gospel is concerned, by the very feet of the sower. Every sermon an ungodly man hear, which leaves him ungodly, leaves him harder by the passage of the Word once more across his heart.
II. The lost seed. Satans chosen instruments are those light, swift-winged, apparently innocent flocks of flying thoughts, that come swooping across your souls, even whilst the message of Gods love is sounding in your ears. (A. Maclaren D. D.)
Hardened by sin
Every transgression deprives us, in some degree, of power to receive the Divine word of Gods truth, and making it our own. And these demons of worldliness, of selfishness, of carelessness, of pride, of sensuality, that go careering through your soul, my brother, are like the goblin horseman in the old legend; wherever that hoof-fall strikes, the ground is blasted, and no grass will grow upon it any more for ever! (A. Maclaren D. D.)
Hardened by habit
The best way of presenting before you what I mean will be to take a plain illustration. Suppose a little child, just beginning to open its eyes and unfold its faculties upon this wonderful world of ours. There you get the extreme of capacity for receiving impressions from without, the extreme of susceptibility to the influences that come upon it. Tell the little thin; some trifle that passes out of your mind; you forget all about it; but it comes out again m the child weeks and weeks afterwards, showing how deep a mark it has made. It is the law of the human nature that, when it is beginning to grow it shall be soft as wax to receive all kinds of impressions, and then that it shall gradually stiffen and become hard as adamant to retain them. The rock was once all fluid, and plastic, and gradually it cools down into hardness. If a finger-dint had been put upon it in the early time, it would have left a mark that all the forces of the world could not make nor can obliterate now. In our great museums you see stone slabs with the marks of rain that fell hundreds of years before Adam lived; and the footprint of some wild bird that passed across the beach in those old, old times. The passing shower and the light foot left their prints on the soft sediment; then ages went on, and it has hardened into stone; and there they remain and will remain for evermore. That is like a mans spirit; in the childish days so soft, so susceptible to all impressions, so joyous to receive new ideas, treasuring them all up, gathering them all into itself, retaining them all for ever. And then, as years go on, habit, the growth of the soul into steadiness and power, and many other reasons beside, gradually make us less and less capable of being profoundly and permanently influenced by anything outside us; so that the process from childhood to manhood is a process getting less impressible. (A. Maclaren D. D. )
The seed sown on the wayside
I. What is the wayside?
1. The wayside hearers are such as are unploughed, unbroken up by the cutting energy of the law.
2. It is trampled upon by every passer by. The want of understanding lies in this: that they do not see their own connection with the Word.
II. What is the seed? No matter where the seed fell, in itself it was always good; that which fell on the wayside was the same ,us that which fell on good ground. Thus the blame of mans condemnation is in himself. The seed is the Word of God.
III. What are the disadvantages; which prove fatal to its being received at all?
1. The hardness of the ground.
2. The active agents of evil which were near at hand snatched it away. You give no advantage to the devil which is not immediately seized by him. (P. B. Power, M. A.)
The seed and the husk
Christ is the living seed, and the Bible is the husk that holds it. The husk that holds the seed is the most precious thing in the world, next after the seed that it holds. (W. Arnot.)
The Word falling on the external senses
Falling only upon the external senses, they are swept off by the next current; as the solid grain thrown from the sowers hand rattles on the smooth hard roadside, and lies on the surface till the fowls carry it away. (W. Arnot.)
Unskilful sowing fruitful
if the seed is good, and the ground well prepared, a very poor and awkward kind of sowing will suffice. Seed flung in anyn fashion into the soft ground will grow: whereas, if it fall on the wayside,it will bear no fruit, however artfully it may have been spread. My latimer was a practical and skilful agriculturist. I was wont, when very young, to follow his footsteps into the field, further and oftener than was convenient for him or comfortable for myself. Knowing well how much a child is gratified by being permitted to imitate a mans work, he sometimes hung the seed-bag, with a few handfuls in it, upon nay shoulder, and sent me into the field to sow. I contrived in some way to throw the grain away, and it fell among the clods. But the seed that fell from an infants hands, when it fell in the right place, grew as well and ripened as fully as that which had been scattered by a strong and skilful man. In like manner, in the spiritual department, the skill of the sower, although important in its own place, is, in view of the final result, a subordinate thing. The cardinal points are the seed and the soil. In point of fact, throughout the history of the Church, while the Lord has abundantly honoured His own ordinance of a standing ministry, He has never ceased to show, by granting signal success to feeble instruments, that results in His work are not necessarily proportionate to the number of talents employed. (W. Arnot.)
The wayside hearer
The proposals made to the wayside hearer suggest nothing at all to him. His mind throws off Christs offers as a slated roof throws off hail. You might as well expect seed to grow on a tightly-braced drum-head as the Word to profit such a hearer; it dances on the hard surface, and the slightest motion shakes it off. (Marcus Dods.)
What can we do with the trodden path?
May it not be possible to do as the farmer would do, if he had some piece of field across which men and animals were constantly passing? May we not pray for ability to put some sort of hurdles across, to prevent the mere animal portion of our life, whether of pleasure or business, or of our own animal passions, from crushing the spiritual life, and prevent us from giving earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. (Robert Barclay.)
No time for understanding
How is it, my dear, inquired a schoolmistress of a little girl, that you do not understand this simple thing? … I do not know, indeed, she answered, with a perplexed look; but I sometimes think I have so many things to learn that I have not the time to understand. Alas! there may be much hearing, much reading, much attendance at public services, and very small result; and all because the Word was not the subject of thought, and was never embraced by the understanding. What is not understood is like meat undigested, more likely to be injurious than nourishing. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 4. And when he sowed. The seed-time in Palestine…
4. And when he sowed. The seed-time in Palestine is usually in October, about the time when this parable was spoken. Sowing is always done by hand. Fell by the wayside. Where the field and the road join, or, rather, along the narrow, trodden foot-path through the fields, so common in Palestine. Fowls devoured them. The birds, because the grains were not covered.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.