Mark 4:1-9. The Parable of the Sower

1. by the sea side The scenery round the Lake doubtless suggested many of the details of the Parables now delivered. (1) On the shore was the vast multitude gathered "out of every city" (Luke 8:4); (2) from the fishing-boat the eye of the Divine Speaker would rest on (a) patches of undulating corn-fields with the trodden pathwayrunning through them, the rocky groundof the hill-side protruding here and there, the large bushes of thorngrowing in the very midst of the waving wheat, the deep loam of the good rich soilwhich distinguishes the whole of the Plain of Gennesaret descending close to the water's edge; (b) the mustard-tree, which grows especially on the shores of the Lake; (c) the fishermen connected with the great fisheries, which once made the fame of Gennesaret, plying amidst its marvellous shoals of fish, the drag-netor hauling-net(Matthew 13:47-48), the casting-net(Matthew 4:18; Mark 1:16), the bag-netand basket-net(Luke 5:4-9); (d) the women and children employed in picking out from the wheat the tall green stalks, called by the Arabs, Zuwân= the Greek Zizania= the Lolliaof the Vulgate, the taresof our Version; (e) the countless flocks of birds, aquatic fowls by the lake-side, partridges and pigeons hovering over the rich plain. See Stanley's Sinai and Palestine, pp. 425 427; Thomson's Land and the Book, p. 402; Tristram's Land of Israel, p. 431.

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