Matthew 13:3

Spake many things. Heretofore Christ had occasionally made use of brief illustrations that might be called parables (see ch. 7:24-27; etc.); now for the first time (DA 333; COL 20) He made parables a principal vehicle for conveying truth. The Sermon on the Mount had probably been given no more than a few weeks earlier (see on ch. 5:1). It was now probably the autumn of A.D. 29, and across the Plain of Gennesaret, the most productive region of all Galilee (see on Luke 5:1), farmers could be seen sowing their winter grain (COL 34; see Vol. II, p. 108). For a summary of the events of this busy day see on Matt. 12:22; 13:1.

At least ten parables were given upon this occasion. To the eight recorded in Matthew, Mark adds those of the Lamp (ch. 4:21-23) and the Seed Growing Secretly (vs. 26-29). Taken as a whole, the parables as recorded by Matthew present a composite picture of the essential facts concerning the kingdom of heaven.

A sower. [The Sower, the Seed, and the Soils, Matt. 13:3-9, 18-23=Mark 4:3-20=Luke 8:5-15. Major comment: Matthew. See on parables pp. 203-207.] As Christ spoke (COL 34) farmers could be seen scattering seed into the rich soil of the Plain of Gennesaret as it sweeps up from the blue waters of Galilee to the foothills. Though this parable is known as the Sower, it could more appropriately be called the Soils, or the Sower, the Seed, and the Soils. Its characteristic feature is neither the sower nor the seed, both of which appear also in the parable of the Tares (vs. 24-30), but rather the four kinds of soil on which the seed fell when it was sown. The parable emphasizes the reception accorded the seed by each of the four kinds of soil, together with the effect this reception had upon the growth of the seed (see COL 43). The skill of the sower and the quality of the seed are the same in relation to each of the four kinds of soil. See on v. 8.

The particular truth represented by the seed in this parable is the nature of Christ’s mission to earth as the Messiah. In greater or lesser degree the true nature of Christ’s kingdom was a “mystery” (see v. 11), because pride had obscured men’s understanding of the OT Scriptures. The Jewish people expected the Messiah to come as a mighty conqueror, to sit upon the throne of David, and to subdue all nations to the Jews (see DA 30; see on Luke 4:19). But in the parable of the Sower, Jesus sets forth the true nature of His mission, the fact that He came, not to subdue the heathen to Israel, but to subdue the hearts of “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:24). This same truth He had already set forth more formally in the Sermon on the Mount (see on ch. 5:2).

Went forth. In Oriental lands, anciently, as they do today in some localities, farmers dwelt together in villages for protection against roving bands of robbers. In the morning, at daybreak, they “went forth” from their villages to the surrounding fields, and at twilight they returned home again. In the same way Christ, the Sower of truth, came “forth” from the Father in heaven to this world — the “field” (see v. 38) — in order that He might “bear witness unto the truth” (John 18:37; cf. ch. 10:10).