Luke 8:5

A sower went out Rather, The sower; as also the rock, the thorns. St Mark (Mark 4:3) preserves for us the graphic detail that Jesus prefaced this new method of teaching by the one emphatic word "Hearken!"as though to prepare them for something unusual and memorable.

some fell by the way side The nature of the land in the plain of Gennesareth would, as Dean Stanley noticed (Sin. and Palest,p. 496), and as many have subsequently remarked, furnish an immediate illustration of the words. In the fields close to the shore may be seen the hard beaten paths into which no seed can penetrate; the flights of innumerable birds ready to peck it up; the rocks thinly covered with soil, and the stony ground; the dense tangled growth of weeds and thistles in neglected corners; and the rich deep loam on which the harvests grew with unwonted luxuriance.

it was trodden down This touch is found in St Luke only.