Mark 4:26

Mark 4:26 . So is the kingdom of God — The gospel dispensation, whereby God overthrows the kingdom of Satan, collects subjects to himself, and erects and establishes his own kingdom. The grace of God in the soul is also included, erecting that kingdom which is within men, and is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, Romans 14:17 . As if a man should cast seed into the ground — The seed of God’s word a preacher of the gospel casts into the field of the world, and into the hearts of the penitent and believing. And sleeps and rises night and day — That is, he has it continually in his thoughts. Meantime, it springs and grows up, he knows not how — Even he that sowed it cannot explain how it grows. Here we are taught, “that as the husbandman does not by any efficacy of his own, cause the seed to grow, but leaves it to be nourished by the soil and the sun; so Jesus and his apostles, having taught men the doctrines of true religion, were not by any miraculous force to constrain their wills; far less were they, by the terrors of fire and sword, to interpose visibly for the furthering thereof, but would suffer it to spread by the secret influences of the Spirit, till at length it should obtain its full effect.

Moreover, as the husbandman cannot, by the most diligent observation, perceive the corn in his field extending its dimensions as it grows, so the ministers of Christ cannot see the operation of the gospel, [and of divine grace,] upon the minds of men; the effects, however, of its operation, when these are produced, they can discern, just as the husbandman can discern when his corn is fully grown and fit for reaping. In the mean time, the design of the parable is not to lead the ministers of Christ to imagine that religion will flourish without due pains taken about it. It was formed to teach the Jews in particular, that neither the Messiah nor his servants would subdue men by the force of arms, as they supposed he would have done; and also, to prevent the apostles from being dispirited when they did not see immediate success following their labours.” — Macknight. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself — Greek, αυτοματη , spontaneously.

Mark 4:26-29 . Jesus now continues, as is proved by Mark 4:33 f. (in opposition to Baur, Markusevang. p. 28), His parabolic discourses to the people ; hence ἔλεγεν is here used without αὐτοῖς ( Mark 4:21 ; Mark 4:24 ), and Mark 4:10-25 are to be regarded as an inserted episode (in opposition to de Wette, Einl. § 94 b , who holds ὅτε δὲ ἐγένετο καταμόνας as absurd). Mark alone has the following parable, but in a form so thoughtful and so characteristically different from Matthew 13:24 f., that it is without sufficient ground regarded (by Ewald, Hilgenfeld, Köstlin) as founded on, or remodelled[85] from, Matt. l.c. , and therefore as not originally belonging to this place,—a view with which Weiss agrees, but traces the parable of Mark to the primitive form in the collection of Logia, and holds the enemy that sowed the tares, Matthew 13, to have been brought into it by the first evangelist; while Strauss (in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr. 1863, p. 209) has recourse to the neutral character of Mark, in accordance with which he is held to have removed the ἐχθρὸς ἄνθρωπος (by which Paul is meant!). See, on the other hand, Klöpper in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1864, p. 141 ff., who, with Weizsäcker, discovers the point aimed at in the parable to be that of antagonism to the vehement expectations of a speedy commencement of the kingdom,—which, however, must have been directly indicated, and is not even implied in Matthew 13 (see Mark 4:37 ff.).

Without foundation, Weizsäcker (p. 118) finds in the parable a proof that our Gospel of Mark was not written till after the destruction of Jerusalem, when the delaying of the Parousia had become evident. Here the establishment of the kingdom is not at all depicted under the specific form of the Parousia , and there is nothing said of a delaying of it. ἡ βασιλεία τ . Θεοῦ ] The Messianic kingdom , conceived of as preparing for its proximate appearance, and then ( Mark 4:29 ) appearing at its time. τὸν σπόρον ] the seed concerned. Observe the aorist βάλῃ , and then the presents which follow: has cast, and then sleeps and arises , etc. νύκτα κ . ἡμέραν ] With another form of conception the genitives might also be used here. See on the distinction, Kühner, II. p. 219. The prefixing of ΝΎΚΤΑ is here occasioned by the order of ΚΑΘΕΎΔῌ ΚΑῚ ἘΓΕΊΡ. See, further, on Luke 2:37 . Erasmus erroneously refers ἘΓΕΊΡ. to the seed , which is only introduced as subject with βλαστ . μηκύνηται ] is extended , in so far, namely, as the shoot of the seed comes forth and mounts upwards ( increscat , Vulgate). Comp. LXX. Isaiah 44:14 . In the shoot the seed extends itself . ὡς οὐκ οἶδεν αὐτός ] in a way unknown to himself (the sower); he himself knows not how it comes about. See the sequel. αὐτομάτη ] of itself , without man’s assistance.[86] Comp.

Should cast (βάλῃ) Lit., should have cast, the aorist tense, followed by the presents sleep and rise (καθεύδῃ and ἐγείρηται). The whole, literally, "As if a man should have cast seed into the ground, and should be sleeping and rising night and day." The aorist tense indicates the single act of casting; the presents the repeated, continued sleeping and rising while the seed is growing. Seed (τὸν σπόρον) The seed; that particular seed which he had to sow. Such is the force of the article.

(26) As if a man should cast seed into the ground. —What follows has the special interest of being the only parable peculiar to St. Mark, one therefore which had escaped the manifest eagerness of St. Matthew and St. Luke to gather up all that they could find of this form of our Lord’s teaching. It runs to some extent parallel with the parable of the Sower, as though it had been given as another and easier lesson in the art of understanding parables; and if we assume a connection between St. Mark and St. Peter, it may be regarded as having in this way made a special impression on the mind of the Apostle. Like many other parables, it finds an interpretation in the analogous phenomena of the growth of the Kingdom (1) in the world at large, (2) in the heart of each individual. Speaking roughly, the Sower is, as before, either the Son of Man or the preacher of His word, and the ground falls under one or other of the heads just defined in the previous parable, with, perhaps, a special reference to the good ground.