The twenty-sixth passage of the Sefer Yeshua is based on Mk 4:3-9, Mt 13:3-9, Lk 8:5-8, and Thomas 9:1-5. Mark and Thomas have similar versions, and Mt and Lk seemed to be based on Mark. Luke’s is the shortest. It is possible that the parable was a well-known and commonly quoted story told by Yeshua, sufficient that various sources could quote it without necessarily quoting off each other.
26. 1Yeshua said to his followers, ‘A sower went out to sow his seed. 2As he scattered the seed, some fell by the path, and little birds came and devoured them.
3‘Other seed fell on rocky ground where there wasn’t much soil. And they grew quickly because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered away because they didn’t have much root.
4‘And other seed fell among thorns, and as they grew, the thorns choked them.
5‘Still other seed fell on good soil, where it yielded a good crop, 6producing thirty, sixty, even a hundred times what was sown.
7‘Anyone who has ears to hear, let him hear!’
Overview and background
This is an allegory rather than a straight parable. A parable is a stand-alone story, where the characters do not necessarily represent anyone or anything. In true parables, it is the concluding object-lesson that we are supposed to take note of. An allegory, on the other hand, is a story where the various elements deliberately stand for something else, hence this is why the story is an allegory, rather than a straight parable.
Tales like this parable were fairly common in the ancient world – the ways of farming life were never too far from most human beings at the time. Sirach 6:19 says, “Come to her (that is, Wisdom) like one who ploughs and sows, and wait for her good crops. For in her work you will toil a little, and soon you will eat of her produce.” The Roman philosopher, Marcus Fabius Quintilianus writes, “…if you say that the mind needs to be cultivated, you would use a comparison to the soil, which if neglected produces thorns and brambles, but if cultivated produces a fruitful crop…” (Oratorical Instruction, 5.11.24).
In Jer 31:27-28 and Hos 2:23, it is God who is portrayed as the sower, sowing seed in Israel and Judah. However, there is no connection with regard to the actual purpose of what the sower is doing there (repopulating the land in Jeremiah and Hosea, in contrast to sowing the message in people’s hearts in Yeshua’s parable). Furthermore, in spite of the imagery being common around the Middle East and the Mediterranean, the parable most likely originated from Yeshua’s own experiences, from him seeing the sowing and ploughing of the fields in the Galilee, rather than being directly based on the words of the Prophets.
Yeshua’s audience would have understood the meaning of any given parable, because of the relevance of the parable to their life-context, or because of what Yeshua had said in the build-up to a parable. Otherwise, would people really clamour to listen to a preacher whose words were so confusing, that they had no idea what he was saying? Yeshua wanted people to be challenged by his teaching, not lead them to scratch their heads in bewilderment – if you don’t understand a parable, it loses its power, and is soon forgotten.
In contrast, the gospels present the purpose of parables as being a deliberately secretive device, so that only those in the know would understand them. This motif is especially prevalent in Mark, who used the plot-device of secrecy and mystery, purely to explain why the Jewish people did not convert to Christianity. Because of this discrepancy, the scholars of the Jesus Seminar (‘Five Gospels’, p. 192) felt that this strange way of understanding parables was alien to Jesus. Jesus’s philosophy was about doing away with the distinctions between insiders and outsiders, but secretive parables create these distinctions instead.
Yeshua was someone who wanted his teachings to be shouted from the housetops, not hidden in mysterious stories. “Nothing is hidden, except for it to be revealed” (Mt 10:26). The job of a good teacher is for the hidden to be revealed; the job of an excellent teacher is for the secret to be made known.
Perhaps Mark used this as a way of explaining the purpose of parables to formerly pagan Gentiles, in whose cultures strange and puzzling oracles were commonly given by seers. In pagan culture, oracles were always given in vague, enigmatic language, in order for the underlying message to remain obscure, so that the seer or diviner could never be accused of giving a false or misleading oracle.
This is completely different to how parables are used in Jewish culture. Most Jewish teachers used parables, and they used them when they wanted to make a concept clearer, and put it into terms that ordinary people could understand. Prophetic language can, of course, provide imagery that perhaps only someone in Jewish culture could understand (suggested by Isaiah 6:9-10, quoted in Mark), but allegories and parables were meant to make things clearer, not more complicated or hidden. Prophetic ‘riddles’ given by the prophets were often explained later to the very people the prophecy was given to. For example, in the Book of Daniel, he mentions the figure ‘like a son of man’ (Dan 7:13), but later explains to them who the son of man actually is (Dan 7:18, 7:22, 7:27 – the ‘son of man’ is not the messiah nor even one person, but rather ‘the holy ones of the Most High’, who represent Israel and perfected humanity in the far future).
We might also take note of the fact of how the Kingdom of God is portrayed by Yeshua. Some religious people can only comprehend the concepts of religious community and faith in terms of battles and warfare – that is, in terms of a cosmic struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. However, Yeshua himself presents the Kingdom of God here as a field that is sown with seed, and some of the seed yields a bountiful harvest. The language of the Kingdom is not that of warriors and conflict, but that of ordinary people in ordinary life.
The seed
Each gospel-writer appends their own version of the parable’s interpretation, placing the words in Yeshua’s mouth as if he himself had given the interpretation (Mk 4:13-20, Mt 13:18-23, Lk 8:11-15). However, if the parable was relevant to the life-context of the audience, then the general meaning of the various elements of the parable are self-explanatory. Preachers, such as the apostles, would focus on the sowing and the eventual harvest, while an ordinary follower might focus on the four types of soil instead.
The seed represents the message of God that Yeshua was given to teach. In the Greek of Mark and Matthew, they don’t actually use any word for ‘seed’. They merely use singular quantifiers (‘one that fell…’, ‘another one fell…’). Only Luke uses the word ‘seed’, and even he uses the singular. It is possible that the original Aramaic also did not use any word for seed; the Syriac translation literally says, ‘a sower went to sow, and there was which fell…’ (there’s no word for seed in the sentence). The verb ‘fell’ is in the singular. However, this does not all mean that only one seed fell in each case. This would be what is known as a collective singular, as in English.
The Sower
In rural Galilee, the image of a sower scattering seed would have been commonplace. Carrying either a bag or basket of grain, the sower would scatter seed in a sweeping motion, to cover a broad area. In 19th century English, this manner of scattering seed would be called ‘broadcasting’, because you are ‘casting’ the seed in a broad sweep.
Whereas in European farming methods, fields are ploughed first and then the seed is sown, in ancient Israel the seed was scattered first, and then the field was ploughed.
The simple, rural character of the sower obviously represents someone who is disseminating God’s Message. Yeshua was teaching his apostles to spread God’s message that was in turn given to him, and so he is explaining to them what they might expect when they embark on their mission. I don’t think it was meant to portray them as if they were dense and unable to understand parables (which is how Mark frames the story), but on the contrary, it was meant to encourage them – not to become disheartened when initially faced with people don’t listen to their preaching. Eventually their teaching will fall on willing and fertile ears, where it will take root and bear fruit. For the apostles, because of the urgency of their ministry, it is the act of sowing which is important, casting the seed broadly, not the different types of person who will receive it. The eventual harvest (or lack of harvest) is up to the individual listener.
Both William Lane and RT France, in their commentaries on Mark, make the point that it is not the condition of the three types of soil which is the point of the parable, but rather the sowing and the harvest. The gospel-writers focus on the types of soil, but the point of the parable is to encourage the apostles by getting them to focus on the act of sowing, and to be heartened by the eventual harvest, not be put off by what happens in-between.
The Message of the Kingdom
In Israelite theology, the ‘Message’ (or ‘word’) of God is not merely the literal words that are spoken or written; this is the mistake that fundamentalists make. The Message of God is the entire body of teaching that comes from God, and that includes the underlying spirit of God’s Message. One can act according to the literal ‘word’, but if we do not act according to the spirit of God’s Message, we are not living up to the full potential of what God is asking of us.
As a prophet of God, what Yeshua taught came from God, and he would have been aware of this at all times. What we follow as disciples of Yeshua are the emphases of what Yeshua taught. What we need to realise as followers of a Jewish Yeshua, is that those emphases come as part and parcel of a wider cultural body of teaching; they were not meant to be taken in isolation, as if they had suddenly sprung up from nowhere, or didn’t exist before Yeshua. There are topics that Yeshua never spoke about, or ever gave rulings on. Whatever is missing from his recorded message, is more than made up for in the Miqra (Hebrew Bible).
The sower therefore stands for the disciples of Yeshua who disseminate God’s Message – that is, those who spread an awareness of the emphases that God gave Yeshua to teach. Yeshua’s emphasis is ‘the Message of the Kingdom’ (as Mt 13:19a puts it). It is the core premise of his teaching and ministry, upon which everything else is founded.
Some seed fell on the path
All 4 gospel-versions have the details of seed falling on the path, and birds eating the seed. Luke alone adds, ‘and was trampled on’; this is probably Luke’s own addition, as a result of his own interpretation of the story.
Each plot of land would be separated by a footpath – a bare stretch of earth that has nothing growing on it, which allows the public to pass through a field to get to somewhere on the other side. As the sower casts the seeds, some will inevitably fall on these paths. The seeds are easily visible, and since there is nothing to block the birds’ access to the seeds, they are easily picked off.
The seed that is snatched away by birds, represents the message that falls in the hearts of those who are easily dissuaded by doubt, or by the counter-arguments of others. They could also represent those who hear the message, but do nothing about it – their inner voice dismisses the message immediately as something unimportant. In such people, the message of the Kingdom comes to nothing, and never gets a chance to even start growing.
One particular type of person who hears the message but does not act, would be those who believe they already have the answers, and the Message of God flies in the face of everything they believe in. For example, if someone thinks that Judaism should be one way, and only that way, then when they hear a different view, even if it is the original intent of God, they are not going to listen. They are so convinced they are right, there is no room for another opinion. When a prophetic message is delivered by a genuine prophet, there are people who are not going to listen, because it contradicts with what they believe. This is how it was with Yeshua and certain members of the Jewish community.
Yeshua’s teaching was intended to help save as many as possible from the hardships of the coming tribulation, by giving them a perspective on living their faith which would protect them. Some people, however, could easily be persuaded otherwise – maybe to not listen, or even to actively work against the message.
Some seed fell on shallow soil
Other seed fell on rocky ground where there wasn’t much depth of soil. This doesn’t mean that there were a lot of small rocks mixed in amidst the soil, it is referring instead to shallow soil which has bedrock underneath. In the Galilee, this occurs quite often, since it has a lot volcanic basalt rock underlying the soil in many parts of the region.
Because ploughing followed sowing in the Holy Land, the sower would not have known that a particular area of soil was shallow or rocky. This seed grew quickly, but faced by the heat of the sun, it withered because there wasn’t much depth of soil, nor much water in it. The seed grows and puts out roots, but it finds little moisture or depth in the rocky soil.
This represents those who eagerly receive the Message at first, but then when hardships come along, the message in them dies, ‘because they have no root’. This can be interpreted as someone in whom God’s Message is not imbedded well enough, that is, someone who has no adequate or appropriate foundation within them, whereby the Message can take root and develop, and stay strong despite what comes their way.
Sometimes, a person’s pre-existing values are so different from the Message they are being asked to take on board and nurture, that the Message cannot thrive within them. There is a grating dissonance between what they have so far learned in life, and this new understanding they have initially accepted so eagerly. What is already within them is not conducive to carefully nurturing the new message. They have to change their mindset, their set of values and their way of understanding the world, before the Message can take root within them.
Some seed fell among thorns
Other seed fell among thorns, and as they grew, the thorns choked them. Yeshua probably meant some kind of bramble (Rubus sanctus) or thistles. If such plants are not removed by the root, they will grow again, even if nothing is visible of the plants above ground. When the seed was sown, there were likely no visible bramble plants above ground, but as the seeds grew, so did the thistles and thorns, and choked the growing barley. This is probably what Yeshua had in mind with this part of the tale.
Anyone who has tended a garden, knows that most plants will not thrive if they have competition from weeds. However, these are not just weeds; these are plants that kill the growing barley. The gospels generally interpret the thorns as representing competition from material attractions, the allure of wealth and the baser pleasures in life. Such things choke off the message we have been given, and it can’t thrive because our spiritual attention is being torn away to focus on material things.
There is also another interpretation. Sometimes, individuals have misinformed, personal ideals and values which compete with God’s values for attention. There can be people you think understand your Jewish values, but then they go and say something which dashes your expectations, because all the while they have held competing values which do not allow God’s ideals to thrive.
Some seed fell on good soil
Then there is seed that falls on good, rich soil, and so it grows and thrives. It does so well, that it produces far in excess of what was originally sown. This represents those who ‘hear the word and understand it’ (Mt 13:23a), who accept it and ‘hold it fast in an honest and good heart’ (Lk 8:15a).
When you don’t understand what you are being given, it becomes something superficial, something without depth, and consequently, it doesn’t stick. This is why it is important to make sure that you understand what you are being asked to accept. Don’t just accept things without question, or simply because a respected teacher says so. Always make sure that you know what something means and implies before taking it on board. Only then can it take root and grow into something far greater than what was originally laid down in your heart.
Summary of the four types of soil
To summarise:
1. The path where the seed gets eaten straightaway, represents those who dismiss the good news of the Kingdom almost immediately.
2. The shallow soil where the seeds spring up quickly, but then wither away, represents those who receive the message eagerly at first, but become easily distracted by the material world; or, it’s because the implications of the message are at variance with their personal values, so they don’t persevere and soon lose interest.
3. The soil where thorns and thistles grow, represents those who ‘see and hear’, and even understand the message being taught them, but they are unable to persevere in the face of hardships and trials.
4. The soil where the seed thrives represents those in whom the message of God’s Kingdom flourishes. They understand the message, they realise its application in life, they have a willingness to persevere, and they are able to nurture and tend their faith to fruition. Consequently, their harvest is good and bountiful.
There are those who hear the message and at once reject it; there are those who hear and accept the message, but are quickly dissuaded or become doubtful; there are those whose troubles choke off their faith; and then there are those in whom God’s Kingdom thrives.
It yielded an abundant crop
The conclusion of the parable is the bountiful harvest, which more than makes up for all the seed that was lost – that’s the point. On average, one seed can produce an ear of barley that bears about 20 to 30 grains. The amount of 100 times what was sown is therefore an unrealistically large amount. The questionable amounts are not the point of quoting the figures; the point is to stress the abundance of the harvest. Exaggeration is a common factor in Yeshua’s parables.
In Yeshua’s teachings, the end-harvest is a common theme in how God’s Kingdom comes to fruition. The harvest means slightly different things in different parables though; in the parable of the darnel grass in the wheat (Mt 13:24-30), the harvest represented the reaping at the tribulation. Here however, it is the great bounty of the harvest which is important – what the Kingdom produces in fertile hearts.
Those who bear fruit are those who hear the message of God and do it (cf Lk 11:28). Bearing fruit means, for example, producing a community which acts as a light to the world, an agent for God’s peace and good neighbourliness. Bad fruit – a bad harvest – is tribalism, enmity and conflict.
Each version of this parable quotes different amounts of what the seed yields. Mark quotes ‘thirty and sixty and a hundredfold’, Matthew reverse the sequence, Luke simply quotes ‘a hundredfold’, and Thomas says, ‘sixty-fold, and a hundred and twenty-fold’. Some might interpret the amount harvested as meaning that sowing the gospel will yield many converts, but that’s not the intended interpretation. The seed is sown in individual hearts, and each individual yields differing amounts – perhaps according to ability. It is what the individual produces from their faith, not what the preacher yields in numbers of converts.
The scholars of the Jesus Seminar (‘The Five Gospels’, p. 54), felt that the ending in Mark was likely the most original. They felt that originally, the parable might have contained examples of three failures and three successes, and that the reason for the three different numbers, is to recount the yield that each of the three success stories had. In the version of the parable that we have recorded in the gospels, there are three failures, but only one success. If this theory is correct, it means that we no longer know what two of the successful conditions were.
This hypothesis is connected to how, in the Greek, no word for ‘seed’ is used, and the verbs and quantifiers are in the singular; there are 3 examples of seed that falls on bad soil, only one example of seed that falls on good soil, but then three examples of various amounts of crop:
[one] which fell on the path…and other [one] fell on the stony-place…. and other [one] fell among the thorns….
and other [one] fell on good soil….
and bearing one thirty-fold, and one sixty-fold, and one a hundred.
Perhaps the missing two examples were simply seed sown in different types of field, or different sizes of plot – we can no longer reconstruct what they might have been (my own guess is that they were three different sizes of field). Luke might have realised the possibility of missing examples in the story, and that’s why he only mentioned one amount in his version (a hundredfold).
How to avoid being the bad types of soil
I don’t expect all Talmidis to agree with what I say; I don’t see it as my job to convince everyone I meet, and it doesn’t bother me if someone holds a different viewpoint. However, sometimes an individual will immediately reject what I say out of hand, and those are the people I am curious about – I’m interested to know why. Upon further, exploratory discussion with such individuals, I have found that sometimes, the individual is not in full possession of the facts.
I remember reading a short sci-fi story, about various individuals who were promised entry into a new life and a new, utopian world. They were told to go to a large barn in the middle of nowhere, and wait for a sign. So they went. The main protagonist in the story was a doubter, but he went anyway. He waited in the rain with all the others. Eventually, having waited for hours and hours, with nothing happening, he got fed up; he felt he had been duped, so he headed back up the long path to where his car was. He then heard something, and he turned round. He saw the last of those who had waited entering a bright light coming from inside the barn. He tried to run back to the barn, but by the time he arrived, it was too late. He opened the doors of the barn, and there was nothing there – no people, no bright light, no shining new world, nothing.
When you hear a message taught by a teacher, in order to avoid dismissing something which might turn out to be really important, I encourage you all to learn more about the Yahwist way of thinking, Yahwist theology, Israelite culture, and the Israelite way of approaching life. Then you will be more discerning in what you accept, and what you immediately dismiss.
If you want to avoid being someone in whom the Message of God’s Kingdom finds no depth of root, again, it is a lot to do with knowledge and mindset. If you insist on holding onto values which are incompatible with the Message of God – such as those values you have perhaps adopted from a Paullist Christian background, or from elements in one’s birth-culture which are simply incompatible with Yahwist values – then the things that you stubbornly hold onto, thinking that they will comfort you, will actually be what holds you back. You have an immediate joy and enthusiasm for the Message of God, but because your previous non-Yahwist values have not sufficiently prepared the ground, God’s Message withers within you, and you lose the initial passion you had when you first heard the Message.
Then there is the seed that falls among thorns, which is choked off as it grows. Avoid associating with people who deliberately drag you down and cause you pain, and instead, draw near to those who cause you peace. Pray to God for strength, and draw on the power of God for courage. The ups and downs of life are part of what life in this realm is, but if you put down your roots in the parts of life that are uplifting and enriching, and try not to dwell on those parts of life which are trying and wearisome, you will grow higher than any thorns that seek to choke your spirit; you will bear rich fruit, in spite of what happens around you.
Final thoughts
This allegorical tale is framed by two events: the scattering of the seed, and the abundant harvest. The types of soil in-between, representing the types of people who hear God’s Message, act as the underlining of the overall lesson of the tale. Yeshua was probably speaking to his apostles, who would propagate Yeshua’s teaching to the people. He encouraged them with the ideas of sowing and the abundant harvest. These are the positive points of the tale.
Others concentrate on the details of the types of soil, which is sort of the depressing part. The apostles, if they focussed on the potential failures, would not have been encouraged by focussing on the types of people in whom the message of the good news of the Kingdom would fail. Modern preachers might concentrate on the types of soil as a warning to their congregants, but the real focus of Yeshua was to uplift his apostles with the mission – sowing the seed of the Kingdom in people’s hearts and minds, and with the result – an abundant harvest, which would more than compensate for those in whom the Message did not thrive.
Where teachers of the Message are concerned, it should not be the job of the messenger to aggressively push home the message. I am personally not a fan of preachers who battle like enraged bulls to drive home their message, and won’t take no for an answer. Yeshua seemed to want to reach as many people as possible; it did not appear to be his apostles’ mission to keep arguing with each and every person until they accepted his message.
That’s why, even though the description of the types of soil are quite detailed, they are not the central point of the tale. The sowing and harvest are meant to encourage preachers and disseminators of the Message, and the types of unfruitful people they come across should not put them off their important task.
The types of soil remind those of us who are not preachers of the Message, to reflect and ponder on how we receive the Message of God, and how we react to it. Do we dismiss it? Do we eagerly take it on board, but are easily scared when trials come? Or because we have competing ideas fixed within us, does it then fail?
If we wish the Message of God to thrive within us, it often necessitates changing the way we see and understand the world, even how we perceive the role of religion itself. In order for the Message of God to bear fruit within us, it becomes necessary to change our values, and what we have learned up until the moment we received God’s Message. I for one have to admit that, I only began to understand the Message of God when I changed my value system – that is, what I had been taught by the religion I was brought up in. New understanding and discernment is needed.
In order for one’s faith to bear fruit, you have to nurture it and tend it. Take the time to learn about the depth and breadth of what your faith teaches; get to know people with whom you can discuss your faith openly, and so deepen your understanding and appreciation of it; nurture your prayer-life, and read material which will feed your faith with wisdom and knowledge. If you encounter difficulties, we always have YHVH our Comforter, from whom we can always draw strength to persevere.