Mark 4:15

15 And these are the ones beside the path where the word is sown, and whenever they hear [it], immediately Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.

Mark 4:15 Meaning and Commentary

Mark 4:15

And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown,
&c.] Such hearers are represented by the way side, in which the seed fell; who, coming where the Gospel is preached, stop awhile and hear it, and so are only casual and accidental hearers of it:

but when they have heard;
and indeed whilst they are hearing, and before they are well got out of the place of hearing,

Satan cometh immediately and taketh away the word that was sown in
their hearts.
The devil, signified by the fowl, or fowls of the air, immediately takes notice of such hearers, and is very busy with them; filling their minds with other things suitable to their dispositions, and setting before them other objects, whereby their minds are, at once, taken off from what they have been hearing; so that all that they have observed, and laid up in their memories, is lost at once, and never thought of any more.

Mark 4:15 In-Context

13 And he said to them, "Do you not understand this parable? And how will you understand all the parables?

14 The sower sows the word.

15 And these are the ones beside the path where the word is sown, and whenever they hear [it], immediately Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.

16 And these are like the ones sown on the rocky ground, who whenever they hear the word immediately receive it with joy.

17 And they have no root in themselves, but are temporary. Then [when] affliction or persecution comes because of the word, immediately they fall away.

Footnotes

• [a]. *Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation