Matthew 13:19

“When any one hears the word of the kingly rule, and does not understand it, then comes the evil one, and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is he who was sown by the way side.”

The sower sows the word of the Kingly Rule, the advancing of God's righteousness (Matthew 6:33). He is thus either the King or the King's personal representative. And as we already know, that Kingly Rule very much involves righteousness (Matthew 6:33). So here Israel are being ‘sowed to in righteousness'. But the question then is whether they will respond to this righteousness. And as John has already made clear, the raining of righteousness will only be on some (Matthew 3:11). Others will have judgment rained on them.

The seed sown on the pathway, where the birds of the air immediately seized it, is described as the word concerning the Kingly Rule of Heaven which, when ‘sown in the heart', is simply not comprehended, and the result is that the Evil One can, as it were, swoop down and snatch it away. In terms of Matthew 12:25 this would be expected to be so. For the evil one is the one most opposed to and affected by the Strong Man of the Kingly Rule of God, the mighty warrior of Isaiah 59:16.

The idea is clear and straightforward. The teaching is sown. It is heard and reaches the mind, but sadly often it does not reach the inner heart (‘heart' can signify mind, or will, as opposed to inner heart). There is no ‘understanding'. Thus it is not grasped and the result is that Satan can snatch it away. Paul puts it more theologically when he says, ‘the god of this world blinds the minds of those who do not believe so that the light of the good news of the glory of Christ should not dawn on them' (2 Corinthians 4:4).

There can be no doubt at all that Jesus believed in a personal Satan, and his minions, and that He did see him (and them) as interfering in men's lives (Matthew 4:1; Matthew 12:26; Luke 13:16; Luke 22:31; John 13:27). Furthermore we have learned in the previous chapter that Satan is very much at odds with the Kingly Rule of God (Matthew 12:28) and that his minions seek to congregate in ‘houses' that are left empty after receiving the word (Matthew 12:44). Thus this reminder is very timely, and is simply indicating the same thing in a different way. Indeed we can understand how Jesus, walking along and seeing the birds at work in the grainfields, saw in it a picture of the work of Satan's minions, doing the work that He has previously described.

“This is he who was sown by the way side.” This means ‘this is the person in whom the seed was sown alongside the pathway' (compare Colossians 1:6; Colossians 1:10). It is a definition of which people were in mind in this part of the parable.