Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Sower
Luke 8:4-15
4 When a great multitude came together and people from every city were coming to him, he spoke by a parable: · WEB
The same parable, with one soil described differently and the good ground given a quality the other tellings do not name.
"The farmer went out to sow his seed" Luke 8:5.
The parable and its explanation are given in the earliest account Mark 4:1–25, with the four soils, the hardened path, the shallow rock and the thorns. This telling is the shortest of the three, and the differences are all in the wording of the explanation.
Some fell along the road, and it was trampled under foot Luke 8:5. The trampling is added here. Before the birds arrive, the seed on the path has been walked on — the traffic of ordinary life does the first damage.
Some seed fell on the rock, and as soon as it grew, it withered away, because it had no moisture Luke 8:6. The other tellings name the sun as what killed it. Here the cause is stated from underneath: no moisture. The failure is in what the plant could not reach rather than in what fell on it.
"The seed is the word of God" Luke 8:11. The identification is made plainly, and it governs everything after it.
"Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, that they may not believe and be saved" Luke 8:12. This account alone states the purpose behind the snatching, and it is worth stating plainly: there is an intelligence at work in inattention, and it has an objective.
"They believe for a while, then fall away in time of temptation" Luke 8:13. The word believe is used of the rocky ground here, which the other accounts do not say. The account is not squeamish about it — something real began, and it did not last.
"They are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life; and they bring no fruit to maturity" Luke 8:14. Three thorns rather than two, and the third is this book's addition: pleasures. Anxiety, wealth and enjoyment are listed together as the same kind of hazard, and none of the three is a sin. And the failure is precisely dated — not that nothing grows, but that nothing reaches maturity.
"Those in the good ground, these are those who with an honest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it tightly, and produce fruit with perseverance" Luke 8:15.
The last verse is where this telling does its own work. An honest and good heart is a phrase out of ordinary Greek moral speech, the description of a decent person — the writer reaches for the vocabulary his Gentile reader already uses. Hold it tightly is what the other three soils failed to do.
And with perseverance is the word that answers everything above it. Three soils failed at three different speeds, and the difference in the fourth is not intensity but duration. Nothing here is quick.
settled What this mark means