Matthew 13:1 - 9

The Parable of the Sower

1 On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea.

2 And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.

3 Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow.

4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them.

5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth.

6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.

7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them.

8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

The previous conversation, at the end of chapter 12, was in a house on the same day. Now Jesus leaves the house and goes down by the Sea of Galilee. He sits there by the shore.

Jesus' teaching and the miracles He accomplished attracted a large crowd, enough of a crowd He went onto a boat in order to teach the large number of people.

The boat served as a dais, the sea shore, raising from the level of the water for several feet or meters, made a natural amphitheater so that all could see and hear Him speak.

He then began to speak a parable to them, a parable is an earthly story with a spiritual meaning.

Jesus spoke parables, about thirty in all regarding the plan of salvation. But not every parable covered the entire plan. So we have to be careful we do not include more in a parable than was intended. Different parables covered different parts of the plan. Jesus uses subjects for His parables from nature and art, and from different customs of man.

This parable is about a man who is planting seed in a field. This was the times before the use of farm equipment. It is describing a method called “broadcasting”

In the first description the man is throwing his seed and some lands on packed dirt, a walkway which is walked on and made as hard as concrete. The ground is so hard the seeds just lay on top and is eaten by the birds.

The second area, the “stony ground” is an area which has much stone and little soil. It is such that the seeds start growing and has to rise into the open where there is plenty of sunlight and air, but little moisture or nutrients, which causes a weakened root system.

Because these plants had very weak roots when the hot sun came out they withered and died because they could not get nutrients and moisture.

The next area the seed scattered into was an area predominated by thorns. These thorns were defined as brambles, a brier which grows near the ground in the same manner as a course grass, it is why it was so easily woven and placed on Jesus head.(Matthew 7:29)

This seed, whether it was wheat or barley could not compete with the thorns for moisture and nutrients so it was deprived from its necessities and was stunted and eventually smothered by the wild tough thorn bushes.

The final area Jesus describes is the seed which falls on the good ground, the ground which provides all the seed needs to grow, sunlight, air, moisture, and nutrients and no competition from wild plants and it produced appropriately, not every area the same, but all this will be explained in verse 23.

Then Jesus tells us this is all important for us to hear and know.