When anyone heareth the word of the kingdom
Hence it appears, that by the "seed" in the parable is meant the
Gospel, called the "word of the kingdom": because it treats of
the king Messiah, of his person, office, and grace; and of his
kingdom, and the administration of it by him, under the present
dispensation; of the kingdom of grace saints enjoy now, and of
the kingdom of heaven they shall enter into hereafter, through
the grace and righteousness of Christ. Now such a hearer of this
word is here described, who hears it accidentally, and only
externally; hears the sound of it with his ears,
and understandeth it not
with his heart. He is one that is careless and inattentive,
negligent and forgetful; has some slight notions of things as he
hears, but these pass away as they come; his affections are not
at all touched, nor his judgment informed by them, but remains as
stupid, and as unconcerned as ever; his heart is not opened to
attend to, and receive the word, but continues hard and obdurate;
and is like the common and beaten road, that is trodden down by
everyone, and is not susceptible of the seed, that falls upon it.
Then cometh the wicked one,
Satan, the devil, ( Mark 4:15 ) ( Luke 8:12 ) who is, by
way of eminency, so called, being the first creature that became
wicked, and the worst that is so; who is entirely and immutably
wicked; whose whole work and employment lies in wickedness; and
who, was the original cause of the wickedness that is among men,
and which he is continually instigating and promoting: so the
Jews frequently call F17 Samael, by whom they mean the
devil, Samael, (evdh) ,
"the wicked". This evil spirit, as soon as ever he observes one
hearing the word, especially that has not been used to attend,
comes immediately, and, as he is hearing,
catcheth away that which is sown in his heart:
not the grace of God, which being once implanted in the heart,
can never be taken away by Satan; but the word which was sown,
not in his understanding, in a spiritual sense, nor even in his
affections, so as to love it, delight, and take pleasure in it;
much less in his heart, so as to become the engrafted word able
to save, or so as to believe in it, and in Christ revealed by it;
but in his memory, and that but very slightly neither; for the
heart sometimes means the memory; see ( Luke 2:51 ) . Besides,
the word only fell "upon", not "into" his heart, as into the good
ground, as the metaphor in the parable shows; and it made no
impression, nor was it inwardly received, but as soon as ever
dropped, was "catched" away by the enemy; not by frightening him
out of it, by persecution, as the stony ground hearer; nor by
filling the mind with worldly cares, as the thorny ground hearer;
but by various suggestions and temptations, darting in thoughts,
presenting objects, and so diverted his mind from the word, and
fixed his attention elsewhere; which is done at once, at an
unawares, secretly, and without any notice of the person himself;
so that the word is entirely lost to him, and he does not so much
as remember the least thing he has been hearing:
this is he which receiveth the seed by the way
side;
such an hearer is comparable to such ground, on whom the word has
no more effect, than seed sown upon a common beaten path.
F17 Sepher Bahir apud Zohar in Gen. fol. 27. 2. Debarim Rabba, fol. 145. 3.