Matthew 13:18

13:18 “So listen to the parable of the sower:

Matthew 13:3

13:3 He ¹  told them many things in parables, ²  saying: “Listen! ³  A sower went out to sow. ⁴ 

Matthew 13:19

13:19 When anyone hears the word about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one ⁵  comes and snatches what was sown in his heart; ⁶  this is the seed sown along the path.

Matthew 13:37

13:37 He ⁷  answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man.

Matthew 13:4

13:4 And as he sowed, some seeds ⁸  fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.

Matthew 13:20

13:20 The ⁹  seed sown on rocky ground ¹⁰  is the person who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.

Matthew 13:24-25

The Parable of the Weeds

13:24 He presented them with another parable: ¹¹  “The kingdom of heaven is like a person who sowed good seed in his field. 13:25 But while everyone was sleeping, an enemy came and sowed weeds ¹²  among the wheat and went away.

Matthew 13:27

13:27 So the slaves ¹³  of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Then where did the weeds come from?’

Matthew 13:39

13:39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.

Matthew 6:26

6:26 Look at the birds in the sky: ¹⁴  They do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds ¹⁵  them. Aren’t you more valuable ¹⁶  than they are?

Matthew 13:22-23

13:22 The ¹⁷  seed sown among thorns is the person who hears the word, but worldly cares and the seductiveness of wealth ¹⁸  choke the word, ¹⁹  so it produces nothing. 13:23 But as for the seed sown on good soil, this is the person who hears the word and understands. He bears fruit, yielding a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown.” ²⁰ 

Matthew 13:31

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

13:31 He gave ²¹  them another parable: ²²  “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed ²³  that a man took and sowed in his field.

Matthew 25:24

25:24 Then the one who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Sir, I knew that you were a hard man, harvesting where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed,

Matthew 25:26

25:26 But his master answered, ²⁴  ‘Evil and lazy slave! So you knew that I harvest where I didn’t sow and gather where I didn’t scatter?

[13:3]  ¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[13:3]  ² sn Though parables can contain a variety of figures of speech (cf. the remainder of chapter 13), many times they are simply stories that attempt to teach spiritual truth (which is unknown to the hearers) by using a comparison with something known to the hearers. In general, parables usually advance a single idea, though there may be many parts and characters in a single parable and subordinate ideas may expand the main idea further. The beauty of using the parable as a teaching device is that it draws the listener into the story, elicits an evaluation, and demands a response.

[13:3]  ³ tn Grk “Behold.”

[13:3]  ⁴ sn A sower went out to sow. The background for this well-known parable, drawn from a typical scene in the Palestinian countryside, is a field through which a well-worn path runs. Sowing would occur in late fall or early winter (October to December) in the rainy season, looking for sprouting in April or May and a June harvest. The use of seed as a figure for God’s giving life has OT roots (Isa 55:10-11). The point of the parable of the sower is to illustrate the various responses to the message of the kingdom of God.

[13:19]  ¹ sn Interestingly, the synoptic parallels each use a different word for Satan here: Mark 4:15 has “Satan,” while Luke 8:12 has “the devil.” This illustrates the fluidity of the gospel tradition in often using synonyms at the same point of the parallel tradition.

[13:19]  ² sn The word of Jesus has the potential to save if it germinates in a person’s heart, something the devil is very much against.

[13:37]  ¹ tn Grk “And answering, he said.” This construction is somewhat redundant in English and has been simplified in the translation. Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[13:4]  ¹ tn In Matthew’s version of this parable, plural pronouns are used to refer to the seed in v. 4 (ἅ…αὐτά [Ja…auta]), although the collective singular is used in v. 5 and following (indicated by the singular verbs like ἔπεσεν [epesen]). For the sake of consistency in English, plural pronouns referring to the seed are used in the translation throughout the Matthean account. In both Mark and Luke the collective singular is used consistently throughout (cf. Mark 4:1-9; Luke 8:4-8).

[13:20]  ¹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[13:20]  ² tn Grk “The one sown on rocky ground, this is the one.” The next two statements like this one have this same syntactical structure.

[13:24]  ¹ tn Grk “He set before them another parable, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant and has not been translated.

[13:25]  ¹ tn Grk “sowed darnel.” The Greek term ζιζάνιον (zizanion) refers to an especially undesirable weed that looks like wheat but has poisonous seeds (L&N 3.30).

[13:27]  ¹ tn See the note on the word “slave” in 8:9.

[6:26]  ¹ tn Grk “the birds of the sky” or “the birds of the heaven”; the Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated either “sky” or “heaven,” depending on the context. The idiomatic expression “birds of the sky” refers to wild birds as opposed to domesticated fowl (cf. BDAG 809 s.v. πετεινόν).

[6:26]  ² tn Or “God gives them food to eat.” L&N 23.6 has both “to provide food for” and “to give food to someone to eat.”

[6:26]  ³ tn Grk “of more value.”

[13:22]  ¹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[13:22]  ² tn Grk “the deceitfulness of riches.” Cf. BDAG 99 s.v. ἀπάτη 1, “the seduction which comes from wealth.”

[13:22]  ³ sn That is, their concern for spiritual things is crowded out by material things.

[13:23]  ¹ tn The Greek is difficult to translate because it switches from a generic “he” to three people within this generic class (thus, something like: “Who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one instance a hundred times, in another, sixty times, in another, thirty times”).

[13:31]  ¹ tn Grk “put before.”

[13:31]  ² tn Grk “He set before them another parable, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant and has not been translated.

[13:31]  ³ sn The mustard seed was noted for its tiny size.

[25:26]  ¹ tn Grk “But answering, his master said to him.” This is somewhat redundant and has been simplified in the translation.