Four Soils Parable

By not revealing what the Four Soils parable was about until its dramatic conclusion Jesus drew in his audience and held their attention, making them the very thing the parable urged them to be: good listeners.

Matt. 13:1-9; Mark 4:1-9; Luke 8:4-8
(Huck, 90; Aland, 122; Crook, 144)^[1]

Updated: 13 February 2025

וַיְהִי בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא וְהִנֵּה אֻכְלוּסִים גְּדוֹלִים הוֹלְכִים אֵלָיו וַיִּמְשׁוֹל לָהֶם מָשָׁל לֵאמֹר יָצָא הַזּוֹרֵעַ לִזְרוֹעַ אֶת זַרְעוֹ וּבִזְרִיעָתוֹ זֶה נָפַל עַל הַדֶּרֶךְ וְנִדְרַךְ וְעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם אָכְלוּ אוֹתוֹ וְאַחֵר נָפַל עַל הַסֶּלַע וְעָלָה וְיָבֵשׁ מֵאֵין לֵחָה וְאַחֵר נָפַל בֵּין הַחוֹחִים וְעָלָה וְהַחוֹחִים חָנְקוּ אוֹתוֹ וְאַחֵר נָפַל בָּאֲדָמָה הַטּוֹבָה וְעָלָה וְעָשָׂה פְּרִי וּמָצָא מֵאָה שְׁעָרִים מִי שֶׁיֵּשׁ לוֹ אָזְנַיִם לִשְׁמוֹעַ יִשְׁמַע

Later that day large crowds of people gathered and came to Yeshua, and he told them this parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed. As he sowed, some fell on a footpath. First it was trampled, then the birds of the sky ate it. Some fell on rock. At first it sprouted, but then it dried out from want of moisture. Some fell among thistles. At first it sprouted, but then the thistles choked it. And some fell on good soil. It not only sprouted, it even produced grain, so that the sower saw a hundredfold return!

“Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear!”^[2]

Table of Contents

1. Reconstruction

2. Story Placement

3. Conjectured Stages of Transmission

4. Crucial Issues

5. Comment

5a. Seed-on-the-Path Scenario

5b. Seed-on-the-Rock Scenario

5c. Seed-among-Thorns Scenario

5d. Seed-in-Good-Soil Scenario

6. Redaction Analysis

7. Results of This Research

8. Conclusion

Reconstruction

To view the reconstructed text of the Four Soils parable click on the link below:

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Conclusion

The Four Soils parable drew hearers in with its vivid descriptions of how the seeds that fell into different environments fared. It also drew them in by causing them to wonder what real life situation the parable illustrated. Jesus’ audience had to listen carefully and thoughtfully if they wanted to catch the point of his parable. The audience must have felt a rush of pleasure and satisfaction when they realized that the parable was about the right way to listen—the very thing they had been doing before they figured out what the parable was about.

Medieval illustration of the Parable of the Sower. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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^[1] For abbreviations and bibliographical references, see “Introduction to ‘The Life of Yeshua: A Suggested Reconstruction.’” ↩
^[2] This translation is a dynamic rendition of our reconstruction of the conjectured Hebrew source that stands behind the Greek of the Synoptic Gospels. It is not a translation of the Greek text of a canonical source. ↩