Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Matthew 13:1-23, The sower
From a boat Jesus tells the parable of the sower to the crowd on the shore, explains why he speaks in parables, and interprets the story for his disciples.
Matthew 13:1-23, in every translation this tool compares.
A sower scatters seed that lands on the path, on rocky ground, among thorns and on good soil, which yields thirty, sixty or a hundredfold. The disciples ask why he speaks to the crowds in parables, and he answers with Isaiah's words about people who look but do not see. Then he explains the soils as different ways of hearing the word of the kingdom.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/parables\/","n":"Parables and riddles","s":"Short stories that compared one thing to another. Jewish teachers used them to make a point plain, and without the point stated they worked as riddles.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/sowing-and-harvest\/","n":"Sowing, harvest and threshing","s":"The farming year every hearer lived by: seed scattered on thin and thorny ground, weeds that look like wheat, the harvest rush, and grain winnowed in the wind while the chaff burned.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/kingdom-of-god\/","n":"God's kingdom","s":"Kingdom meant God's reign, God becoming king in fact. It was the good news Isaiah promised, and in Jesus' day it was also a slogan.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-sea\/","n":"The sea","s":"To ancient Israel the sea stood for chaos and danger that only God could command. The Gospel stories on the lake of Galilee lean on that old picture.","r":""}
A boat in a cove near Capernaum would carry the voice to a crowd on the slope (Keener). Blomberg notes that God as sower and his people as soil were standard Jewish images. Wright places the explanation in the Jewish tradition of a symbolic vision followed by its interpretation, as in Daniel 7. The traditional Cove of the Parables, about a mile southwest of Capernaum, is a natural amphitheater whose acoustics have been tested (Wilkins; the Zondervan Atlas). In Jubilees the prince of evil spirits sends crows to eat the seed, a picture close to the birds of 13:19 (Wilkins).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Matthew 13:1-2, 13:1-9, 13:3-4, 13:8 and 13:11-13
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Matthew 13:2, 13:3, 13:4, 13:8 and 13:10
- Craig L. Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables, 7.3 The Sower
- N. T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part One, comment on Matthew 13:18-23
- Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Matthew 13:2 and 13:19
- Carl G. Rasmussen, Zondervan Atlas of the Bible, The Life of Christ
