Mark 4:15

15 These are the ones on the path where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is 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? Then how will you understand all the parables?
14 The sower sows the word.
15 These are the ones on the path where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.
16 And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, they immediately receive it with joy.
17 But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.