Bibliotheca Sacra 155 (April-June 1998) 172-88.
Copyright © 1998 by
THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER
AND THE SOILS*
Mark L. Bailey
Matthew 13, the third of Jesus' five
major discourses in
Matthew,
includes the Lord's address to the crowds (vv. 1-35) and
His address to the disciples (vv. 36-52). This chapter contains
His
presentation of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven which
He
revealed in response to the Jewish leaders' rejection of Him
(12:1-45).
This section focuses on the new and unexpected phase
of the kingdom of heaven, as will be demonstrated
in the articles
in this series.
The word "parable" does
not occur in Matthew until chapter
13.
Kingsbury sees this as significant in that before chapter 13 Je-
sus spoke to the Jews
openly. (The word "parable" occurs twelve
times in chapter 13 and only five times thereafter.)
The parables
in Matthew 13 were given in some measure as an
apology against
the Jews for their rejection of Christ.1
This chapter is a great turn-
ing point in Matthew's
presentation. Jesus was preaching and
teaching the kingdom to the Jews (4:17, 23; 9:35;
11:1), but they re-
jected Him. In reaction to
this rejection Jesus presented the para-
bles to show them they were
no longer the privileged people to
whom God would impart His revelation, but instead
they were in
danger of being judged by the Son of Man for having
spurned
their Messiah.2 As Maier observes,
"The parables portray a
breach between Jesus and
The
very fact that Jesus now withdraws into a parabolic form of
teaching is a sign of judgment upon
Mark
L. Bailey is Vice President for Academic Affairs, Academic Dean, and Pro-
fessor of Bible Exposition,
Dallas Theological Seminary,
*This
is article two in an eight-part series, "The Kingdom in the Parables of
Matthew
13."
1 Jack Dean Kingsbury, Matthew 13: A Study in Redaction Criticism
(
VA: Knox, 1969), 31.
2 Ibid.
3 John P. Maier, The Vision of Matthew: Christ, Church, and
Morality in the
First Gospel (New York: Paulist, 1978), 90.
The Parable of the Sower and the Soils 173
THE STRUCTURE OF MATTHEW
13
Each
of the two sections in Matthew 13 (vv. 1-35 and vv. 36-52)
includes a statement of setting (vv. 1-3a; 36a),
an excursus (vv.
10-23;
36b-43), four parables (vv. 4-9, 24-33; 44-50), and a con-
clusion (vv. 34-36; 51-52).
While many scholars say Matthew 13
has seven parables,4 the possibility of
an eighth may be suggested
by two observations. First, in verse 52 the phrase
oi[moio<j
e]stin is
the masculine equivalent of the feminine form used
earlier to
introduce other parables (o[moi<a e]stin, vv. 31, 33, 44, 45,
47). Sec-
ond, the concluding clause
immediately following verse 52 is the
Matthean formula that serves as a textual marker
to indicate the
ends of the five major narrative/discourse cycles
(7:28; 11:1;
13:53;
19:1; 26:1).
Of the parables in this chapter, two
are recorded in Mark and
Luke
and a third in Luke only: the sower and its
interpretation
(Mark
4:1-9, 13-20; Luke 8:5-15), the mustard seed (Mark 4:30-
32; Luke 13:18-19), and the leavening process
(Luke 13:20-21).
The
remaining five are unique to Matthew: the tares and its ex-
planation (13:36-43), the hidden
treasure (v. 44), the pearl mer-
chant (vv. 45-46), the dragnet (vv. 47-50), and the
householder
(vv. 51-52).
Both macrostructures and
microstructures can be detected in
this chapter. Jesus told the first four parables in
the presence of the
multitudes and disciples beside the sea, while He
presented the
last four to the disciples alone after they left the
multitudes and
went to a house (vv. 36-52). Toussaint has argued
that the first
and last parables of the chapter are a fitting
introduction and con-
clusion by virtue of their
placement as well as the absence of the
introductory formula that is present
in the other six parables.5
The
parables of the tares and the dragnet both contain portraits of
separating judgments that will take place at the
end of the age.
The
eight parables include a series of four couplets that progres-
sirely reveal their messages
by means of images of planting,
growth, values, and responsibilities.
Matthew 13 has been recognized as a
chiasm which includes
the parables, their introductions and
interpretations, and support-
ing Old Testament
quotations. This argues not only for the in-
clusion of the householder as
the eighth parable, but also for the
unity and authenticity of the entire passage. Such a
structure also
4 For example Fredrick D.
Bruner, Matthew: A
Commentary (
1990), 480.
5 Stanley D. Toussaint, "The
Introductory and Concluding Parables of Matthew
Thirteen,"
Bibliotheca Sacra 121 (October-December
1964): 351-55.
174
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA / April—June 1998
reflects the greater message of the entire
Gospel. The following
chiasm serves as the framework for a study of the
parables.
Sower and the Soils (vv. 1-9)
Question by Disciples/Answer by
Jesus (Understanding) (vv. 10-
17)
Interpretation of the Sower and the Soils (vv. 18—23)
Tares (vv.
24—30)
Mustard Seed
(vv. 31—32)
Leavening
Process (v. 33)
Fulfillment
of Prophecy (vv. 34—35)
Interpretation
of the Tares (vv. 36—43)
Hidden
Treasure (v. 44)
Pearl
Merchant (vv. 45—46)
Dragnet (vv.
47—48)
Interpretation of the
Dragnet (vv. 49—50)
Question by Jesus/Answer by the Disciples
(Understanding) (v. 51)
Householder
(v. 52)6
Verses 13-17, a subsection of the
entire structure, can be ar-
ranged as follows.
Therefore
I speak to them in parables
A.
Because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do
not hear, nor do
they understand
B. And in their case the prophecy of
Isaiah is being fulfilled,
which says,
C. You will keep on
hearing, but will not understand,
D. And you
will keep on seeing, but will not perceive;
E.
For the heart of this people has become dull,
F.
And with their ears they scarcely hear,
G.
And they have closed their eyes
G.'
Lest they should see with their eyes,
F.'
And hear with their ears
E.'
And understand with their heart and return,
and I should heal
them.
D.' But
blessed are your eyes, because they see;
C.' And
your ears, because they hear.
B.' For
truly I say to you, that many prophets and righteous men
A.'
Desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what
you hear, and did not hear it.7
These chiasms indicate that the
entire chapter represents not
only Jesus' authentic ministry, including both the
parables and
their interpretations, but also the intentionally
structured literary
product of the human author, Matthew, who wrote
under the inspi-
ration of the Holy Spirit to preserve a record of that
ministry and
6 For a slightly
different arrangement of the chiasm, see David Wenham, "The
Structure
of Matthew 13," New Testament
Studies 25 (1979): 517-18.
7 Kenneth E. Bailey, Past and Present (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 61-62.
The Parable of the Sower and the Soils 175
to address the needs of his first-century
audience.8 Kingsbury
says this chapter honors Jesus as the Christ,
identifies the major
characters, and provides an apology for the use of
parables.9 He
has also pointed out that each of the eight
parables has an apolo-
getic purpose and a paraenetic purpose.10 Apologetically the para-
bles of Matthew 13 served to
warn the Jewish leaders of the dan-
gers of thinking they had
exclusive rights as the eschatological
community of God's kingdom.11 The paraenetic purpose was to
encourage the disciples that they had now come
into a privileged
relationship with God through a
right attitude toward His will,
and as recipients of "the mysteries of the
kingdom" they had a
new responsibility to become caretakers of that
message in the
world.12
"MYSTERIES" IN
MATTHEW 13
The
term "mysteries" in verse 11 has its background in Old Tes-
tament secrets communicated
through divine revelation and di-
vinely interpreted. This New
Testament word is linked to the
Aramaic
zrA,13 which is used eight
times in Daniel in relation to
what God had revealed and what needed to be
interpreted (Dan.
2:18-19,
27-30, 47; 4:6).
Jesus said these parables concern
"the mysteries of the king-
dom" (ta> musth<ria th?j basilei<aj,
Matt. 13:11). They are enig-
matic to those who fail to
understand the message because of a re-
jecting heart, but they are
understandable by those privileged by
God to know and receive more (vv. 10-11). These mysteries of the
kingdom both reveal and conceal truths of the
kingdom of
heaven, so that it is appropriate that these parables
followed im-
mediately after the Jewish
leaders rejected Jesus.
The parables of the kingdom in
Matthew 13 introduce some-
thing new in the Gospel of Matthew. The kingdom, as
preached by
John
(3:2), Jesus (4:17), and the disciples (10:7), correlates with
the general expectation of the earthly kingdom
identified with
8 Wenham notes the implications
of these observations for questioning the criti-
cal: approaches so often taken by both source and
redaction critics ("The Structure
of Matthew 13," 25).
9 Kingsbury, Matthew 13, 27.
10 Ibid.
11 Au]toi?j
is a technical term for the crowds in Matthew 13:3, 10, 13, 24, 31, 33, 34.
12 Ibid.,
52.
13 Raymond E. Brown, The Semitic Background of the Term
"Mystery" in the New
Testament (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1968), 31-35.
176
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA / April—June 1998
David
and
been addressed almost exclusively to a Jewish
audience. But the
kingdom realities described in the parables of
Matthew 13 are far
different from the grandeur of the Davidic kingdom
described in
the Old Testament (Dan. 7:13-14; Hag. 2:20-23;
Zech. 14). Even
Ladd
notes that these mysteries differ from the Old Testament ex-
pectation. "That there
should be a coming of God's kingdom in the
way Jesus proclaimed, in a hidden secret form,
working quietly
among men, was utterly novel to Jesus'
contemporaries. The Old
Testament
gave no such promises."14 The parables of Matthew 13
differ from that expectation of the politically
victorious, geograph-
ically and ethically defined
kingdom of the Old Testament.
What Jesus spoke through the
parables was distinct from the
message He had been preaching up to that point
in His ministry.
The
enigmatic and judicial elements revealed in the apology
section (13:10-17), which Jesus stated after the
people were seen as
obstinate, was not what He had taught them
earlier. Twice the
ministry of Jesus had been couched in terms of
the Old Testament
expectation (4:23; 9:35). But after chapter 13 such
vocabulary was
no longer associated with Him until it was used
again with refer-
ence to the Second Coming
(Matt. 24—25; 26:29). The same could
be said of the "nearness" language of
the kingdom. After chapter
13
the verb "preach" (khru<ssw) was also no longer used by Matthew
to describe Jesus' ministry.15
The reason "mystery" is an
appropriate designation is that
what would be revealed in the parables of Matthew 13
(and be-
yond) had not been seen nor heard by the prophets of
the Old Tes-
tament. As Pentecost
concludes, "But what the Old Testament had
not revealed was that an entire age would intervene between the
offer of the kingdom by the Messiah and
King and enjoyment of
full kingdom blessings. "16
THE SOWER AND THE SOILS
All
three Synoptic Gospels include the parable of the sower
with
Jesus' interpretation of it. While some call this
the parable of the
soils,17 Jesus identified it as the parable of
the sower (v. 18).
14 George E. Ladd, The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of
Biblical Real-
ism (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 225.
15 This is especially
noteworthy when one considers the use of this term to sum-
marize Jesus' ministry in a
number of earlier passages (4:17, 23; 9:35; 11:1).
16 J. Dwight Pentecost, Thy Kingdom Come (Wheaton, IL: Victor,
1990), 219 (italics
his).
17 For example W. H.
Griffith Thomas, Outline Studies in the
Gospel of Matthew
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1961), 188.
The Parable of the Sower and the Soils 177
While
this parable is not introduced with the formula character-
istic of the other kingdom
parables in this chapter, the interpreta-
tion (vv. 18-23) identifies
the seed sown on each soil as "the word
of the kingdom," thereby identifying this as
a kingdom parable.
THE
SETTING
The
setting for the parables of Matthew 13 includes temporal, geo-
graphical, cultural, and literary elements. The
temporal setting
is indicated by the phrase "on that day"
(13:1), thus linking it with
the preceding controversial discussion with
leaders. That day
was the Sabbath (12:1-10). Jesus' clarification in
12:46-50 that
familial relationship with God the Father depends
not on one's
Jewish
nationality but on obedience to the will of God is a fitting
introduction to the parables in
chapter 13. The disciples and not
the leaders of
because of their response to the will of God.18
The geographical context for the
first four parables of the
chapter, of which the sower
is the first, was "by the sea," that is, the
had just ministered there in the synagogue (12:9).
Jesus' sitting in a boat (13:2) may
have helped the crowd see
and hear Him, and may have given Him added security
from the
hostile leaders.19 The audience for
the first four parables beside
the sea was the multitude and the disciples, but
the audience for
the last four parables was only the disciples, who
had gone with
Jesus into a house (vv. 36-52).
While Jesus spoke a few parabolic
sayings and metaphors be-
fore this chapter (e.g., 7:24-27), no full-length
parable or example
story was recorded by Matthew before chapter 13. Bornkamm ob-
serves that Matthew did not use the term
"teaching" in reference
to Jesus' communicating the parables because he
reserved the
word "teaching" for the Lord's instruction
about the Law.20 This
is borne out by the fact that the formulaic
conclusion for the first
two discourses mentions teaching (7:28; 11:1), but
the conclusion
to the parable pericope
in Matthew 13 does not (13:53). What Jesus
began to do in the parables chapter related not so
much to
and her relationship to the Law as it did to His
disciples as a new
18 Kingsbury also sees the
parable of the sower as validating the denunciation
and
blessing that was clarified in verses 10-17
(Matthew 13, 34 ).
19 Alan Hugh McNeile, The Gospel
according to Matthew (
1980), 185.
20 Gunther
Bornkamm, "Enderwartung
and Kirche im Matthausevangelium," in
Tradition and
Interpretation in Matthew, ed. Gunther Bornkamm,
Gunther Barth,
and H. J. Held (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963),
35.
178 BIBLIOTHECA SACRA / April--June 1998
audience who were understanding what He was
proclaiming. To
them the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven were
given. In the
literary structure of the chapter the first
parable (the sower) intro-
duces the theme of
understanding and the last parable (the house-
holder) includes a question and an exhortation based
on the dis-
ciples' understanding. As
noted earlier, these two function as
parallels in the chiastic structure of the
chapter.
THE
NEED OR PROBLEM PROMPTING THE PARABLE
In
the eight parables of this chapter Jesus explained to the disci-
ples why the kingdom had not
yet arrived in grandeur, glory, and
power, and He confirmed to others their refusal to
respond to Him,
the Messiah.21 Ridderbos
believes the unbelief of the crowds must
have been a bitter disappointment to the disciples.22
The combina-
tion of the questions by His
own family (Mark 3:21), the desertion
by some of His own followers (John 6:66), and the
reactions and
rejections by the Jewish religious leaders (Matt.
9:34; 12:22–27)
may have been troublesome to those who had
committed them-
selves to Him. Since all three Synoptic Gospels record
Jesus' ex-
hortation to hear, He explained
why more people were not hear-
ing, understanding, and
responding to "the word of the king-
dom." Hence one purpose of this parable of the
sower and the soil
is to explain why the word of the kingdom, as
preached by John the
Baptist,
Jesus, and His disciples, had not been better received.
Further,
as will be seen from the concluding exhortation, the
parable was also intended to encourage the
hearers to listen. to Je-
sus' words.
THE
NARRATIVE STRUCTURE AND THE DETAILS
The
parable consists of a series of four scenes describing various
qualities of soil (13:3–8) and a hortatory
conclusion (v. 9).
Though
four kinds of soils are mentioned, the parable may be
thought of as presenting basically only two
kinds of soil with the
first three being unproductive.23 The good
soil is stressed by its
position at the end of the narrative (in the
position of "end stress")
and because it alone was productive.
In interpreting the parable
(13:18–23) Jesus explained the
21 David Hill, The Gospel of Matthew, New Century Bible (
Eerdmans,
1972), 223-24.
22 Herman N. Ridderbos, Matthew
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), 251; also see
Philip
Barton Payne, "The Authenticity of the Parable of the Sower
and Its Inter-
pretation," in Gospel Perspectives, ed. R. T. France
and David Wenham (
JSOT,
1980), 1:164.
23 Kingsbury, Matthew
13, 33.
The Parable of the Sower and the Soils 179
meaning of each of the four soils. Contrasted
with the one who
"does not understand" the message of the kingdom (v. 19)
is the
one "who hears the word and understands
it" (v. 23). Also of note
is the contrast between one who is
"unfruitful" (v. 22) and one who
"bears fruit" (v. 23). Blomberg
diagrams the parable as follows:24
sower
|
|----------------------------------|
fruitful seed unfruitful
seed
|
|--------------------|--------------------------|
seed
on path seed among rocks seed among thorns
THE
SOWER
Neither
the parable nor its interpretation identifies the sower.
But
the imagery of God as sower
and the people as different kinds of
soil was well known in Jewish circles (cf. 2 Esdras 4:26-32).25
Throughout
the Old Testament, sowing and harvest were recog-
nized metaphors for the
eschatological expectation of the kingdom
(Jer. 31:27; Ezek. 36:9; Hos.
2:23; cf. Matt. 9:35-38). In these Old
Testament
verses God was addressing
ing New Covenant relationship
with them. The proclamations by
John
the Baptist and Jesus fit this same expectation of the coming
of the Messiah to establish His kingdom and
fulfill God's
covenant promises. Matthew's emphasis on the
kingdom is seen
in Jesus' interpretation of the seed as "the
word of the kingdom"
(13:19).
THE
SOILS
The record of the pathway (vu. 3-4). This first scene is
virtually
identical in the Synoptic Gospels. Only a few
minor differences
are noted. Matthew always wrote of seed in the
plural whereas
Mark
used the collective singular. Mark emphasized the need for
the audience to "Behold!" (Mark 4:3),
while Luke's "trampled un-
24 Craig L. Blomberg,
Interpreting the Parables (
1990), 226.
25 Hans-Josef Klauck includes several other Jewish references to this
imagery
(Allegorie and Allegorese in
synoptischen Gleichnistexten
[
19781,
92-96. Craig A. Evans believes the passage is a midrash on Isaiah 55:10-21
("On
the Isaianic Background of the Sower
Parable," Catholic Biblical
Quarterly 47
[July
1985]: 464 68).
180
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA / April-June 1998
der foot" (8:5) and
the prepositional phrase "of the air" (8:5) are
typical of Luke the physician's concern for
physical details.
The
seed is said to have fallen "beside the road" (or "along the
path," para>
th>n o[do<n). In the absence of fences, paths ran around
and through plots of ground that were usually
topographically de-
fined because of variations in the terrain.
Inevitably some seed
would fall in these paths. The birds ate26
the seed, thus preventing
it from growing.
The interpretation of the pathway (vv.
18-19). Jesus called
this parable "the parable of the sower" (v. 18). "Against the fre-
quent inclination to retitle this the Parable of the Soils since the
soils are the variable in the story, Matthew's
[better, Jesus'] title
reminds the church that the focus in the parable
is the sower, not
ourselves."27 Though this parable
illustrates the response to the
message of the kingdom, the parable nonetheless
focuses on Jesus
Christ
and His kingdom.
Jesus said that the seed is
"the word [or ‘message’] of the
kingdom" (to>n
lo<gon th?j basilei<aj), and that the birds
represent
"the evil one" (o[ ponhro<j) who "snatches away" (a[rpa<zei) what
had been sown in the heart of the one who heard but
did not under-
stand the message of the kingdom. In Judaism birds
symbolized
satanic activity, and were symbols of robbers
(Gen. Rab. 44:15;
80:5; Lev. Rab. 3:1, 4; Book of
Jubilees 11:5-24; Apocalypse of
Abraham
13:14, 23, 31). "As the Holy Spirit could be pictured as a
dove, so it was natural to depict the action of evil
spirits with birds'
evil actions."29
This first kind of soil represents
one who has not understood
the message of the kingdom because of willful
rejection of that
message. Morris calls this soil an illustration
of a "careless
hearer."30
The hearer knows that there is some
spiritual truth here in-
tended for
his profit, but since he does not act on it, he soon finds
that what
he heard is lost. The failure to attend to the message
26 Katesqi<w is an emphatic compound
of e]sqi<w, probably in
anticipation of the vio-
lent action mentioned in the interpretation.
27 Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary, 489.
28 This word conveys the
notion of violence and therefore is fitting for the actions
of the archenemy himself (Walter Bauer, William F.
Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, A
Greek-English Lexicon of
the New Testament and Other Early Christian Litera-
ture,
2d ed., rev. F. Wilbur Gingrich and Frederick W. Danker [
of
29 Payne, "The
Authenticity of the Parable of the Sower and Its
Interpretation,"
170.
3O Leon Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew (
The Parable of the Sower and the Soils 181
and to find
out what it means results in total loss, first of the
message and
ultimately of the hearer.31
The
person's lack of understanding points up individual respon-
sibility.32
The record of the rocky soil (vv. 5-6).
"The rocky places" on
which this seed fell probably refer to limestone just
under the sur-
face of the soil rather than rocks above the soil,
since the parable
speaks of immediate reception, which would not be true
of rocks
above the surface. This seed lacked growth because it
had "no
root" (13:6); Luke added that it had "no
moisture" (Luke 8:6). The
shallow soil lying over the limestone bedrock
would allow for
rapid germination.33 But the plants that
"immediately" sprang up
were "scorched" and consequently
"withered." The soil was un-
productive because of the lack of depth, premature
germination,
scorching by the sun, and the drying of its roots.
"Plants with de-
fective root systems are not
equipped to handle the hot weather."34
The interpretation of the rocky soil
(vv. 20-21). Jesus said
this soil represents the person who, hearing the
Word, immedi-
ately receives it with joy,
but because "he has no root" in himself
the seed is shortlived.
This failure is attributed to the affliction
and persecution that come because of identification
with the
Word. The result is that this kind of person
"falls away" or liter-
ally, "is caused to stumble."35
Affliction (qli?yij) or persecution
(diwgmo<j), originating with people rather than
circumstances, is
primarily verbal or physical abuse, which
believers must be pre-
pared to suffer at the hands of hostile Jews,
Gentiles, family
members, and others because of their allegiance
to Jesus.36 Jesus
had already warned His followers that they could
expect persecu-
1992), 345.
31 Ibid.,
346.
32 Robert; Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Literary and
Theological Art
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1982), 259.
"The receiver bears the responsibility for
both the lack of understanding as well as opening
the door to the enemy" (Daniel
Patte, The
Gospel according to Matthew: A Structural Commentary
[
Fortress, 1987], 189).
33 Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus,
trans. S. H. Hooke, 2d ed. (
Scribner & Sons, 1954), 11. Sirach
40:15 employs the same metaphor: "The children
of the ungodly will not put forth many branches;
they are unhealthy roots upon
sheer rock."
34 Morris, The
Gospel according to Matthew, 337.
35 The word is