Matthew 13:4

“And as he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the birds came and devoured them.

The sower's ‘field' would not be like the ones we are familiar with. It would be a strip of ground, and within a larger area which was criss-crossed with pathways so that people could make their way to their own strip. And in spite of his efforts his strip of land would also contain scattered weeds which he could not get rid of, and areas where the ground was simply a rock foundation covered with a sparse covering of earth, areas which were quite unaccepting of seed. Each sower would sow his seed over the part of the field that he owned or rented. Sometimes he would plough the ground first, trying to break up the ground and the weeds with his wooden, rather ineffective, plough, others would seek to plough the seed in after sowing. Still others would do both. But in each case it was usually with a wooden plough which hardly disturbed the surface even at the best of times, and even less so when it was dry. Some of the seed would fall on the pathways which criss-crossed the fields. There it escaped the plough and lay on the surface, and the birds would be waiting to swoop down and devour it. Every subsistence farmer knew what it felt like for that to happen. It was a familiar sight. And many a Jew on listening would, against the background of Jewish tradition, think in terms of demons.