Mark 4:15

15 Some are like the seeds ^[a] along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, 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 Then Jesus said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand any of the parables?

14 The farmer sows the word.

15 Some are like the seeds along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.

16 Some are like the seeds sown on rocky ground. They hear the word and at once receive it with joy.

17 But they themselves have no root, and they remain for only a season. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

Footnotes

• [a]. Or the word; similarly in verses 16, 18, and 20; literally Now these are the ones