Mark 4: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jesus teaches a crowd from a boat beside the sea, using parables. He tells the parable of the sower and explains it privately, along with sayings about a lamp, about hearing, and two more parables about seed and the mustard seed. That evening he and his disciples cross the sea, a windstorm nearly swamps the boat, and Jesus calms the wind and the water while the disciples wonder who he is.

Claim by Claim

1. 4:1
   • Jesus began again to teach beside the sea
   • A very large crowd gathered to him
   • Because of the crowd he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea
   • The whole crowd was on the land facing the sea
2. 4:2
   • He taught them many things in parables
   • He said things to them in the course of his teaching
3. 4:3
   • He told them to listen
   • A sower went out to sow
4. 4:4
   • As he sowed, some seed fell beside the path
   • Birds came and ate that seed up
5. 4:5
   • Other seed fell on rocky ground where it had little soil
   • That seed sprang up immediately because the soil had no depth
6. 4:6
   • When the sun rose, the sprouted seed was scorched
   • It withered because it had no root
7. 4:7
   • Other seed fell among thorns
   • The thorns grew up and choked it
   • That seed yielded no fruit
8. 4:8
   • Other seed fell on good ground
   • It yielded fruit that sprang up and increased
   • It produced thirtyfold in some cases, sixtyfold in some, and a hundredfold in some
9. 4:9
   • He said that whoever has ears to hear should hear
10. 4:10
    • When Jesus was alone, those around him along with the twelve asked him about the parable
11. 4:11
    • He told them that to them it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God
    • He said that to those outside all these things come in parables
12. 4:12
    • He said this is so that seeing they may see and not perceive
    • He said this is so that hearing they may hear and not understand
    • He said this is lest at any time they should turn and be forgiven
13. 4:13
    • He asked them whether they did not understand this parable
    • He asked how then they would understand all the parables
14. 4:14
    • The sower sows the word
15. 4:15
    • Some people are like the seed beside the path where the word is sown
    • When such people have heard, Satan comes immediately
    • Satan takes away the word that was sown in their hearts
16. 4:16
    • Some people are likewise like the seed sown on rocky ground
    • When they hear the word they immediately receive it with gladness
17. 4:17
    • Such people have no root in themselves
    • Such people endure only for a time
    • When affliction or persecution arises because of the word, they are immediately caused to stumble
18. 4:18
    • Others are like the seed sown among thorns
    • These are people who hear the word
19. 4:19
    • The cares of this age enter in
    • The deceitfulness of riches enters in
    • The desires for other things enter in
    • These things choke the word
    • The word becomes unfruitful
20. 4:20
    • Others are like the seed sown on good ground
    • These are people who hear the word
    • They accept the word
    • They bear fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold
21. 4:21
    • He asked them whether a lamp is brought in to be put under a measuring basket or under a bed
    • He asked whether it is not brought to be set on a lampstand
22. 4:22
    • Nothing is hidden except to be made manifest
    • Nothing was kept secret except that it should come to light
23. 4:23
    • If anyone has ears to hear, he should hear
24. 4:24
    • He told them to take heed what they hear
    • He said the measure they use to measure will be measured to them
    • He said that more will be given to them who hear
25. 4:25
    • Whoever has will be given more
    • Whoever does not have will have even what he has taken away from him
26. 4:26
    • He said the kingdom of God is like a man casting seed on the ground
27. 4:27
    • The man sleeps and rises night and day
    • The seed sprouts and grows
    • The man does not know how the seed grows
28. 4:28
    • The earth bears fruit by itself
    • First comes the blade
    • Then comes the ear
    • After that comes the full grain in the ear
29. 4:29
    • When the fruit is ready, he immediately puts in the sickle
    • He does so because the harvest has come
30. 4:30
    • He asked to what they should liken the kingdom of God
    • He asked with what parable they should present it
31. 4:31
    • The kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed
    • When the mustard seed is sown in the earth it is smaller than all the seeds on the earth
32. 4:32
    • When it is sown it grows up
    • It becomes greater than all the garden plants
    • It puts out large branches
    • The birds of the air are able to lodge under its shade
33. 4:33
    • With many such parables he spoke the word to them
    • He spoke as they were able to hear it
34. 4:34
    • He did not speak to them without a parable
    • Privately he explained everything to his own disciples
35. 4:35
    • On that same day, when evening had come, he said to them
    • He said to cross over to the other side
36. 4:36
    • They sent away the crowd
    • They took him with them just as he was in the boat
    • Other boats were with him
37. 4:37
    • A great windstorm arose
    • The waves beat into the boat
    • The boat was already being filled
38. 4:38
    • Jesus was in the stern asleep on the cushion
    • They woke him
    • They called him Teacher
    • They asked whether he did not care that they were perishing
39. 4:39
    • He got up and rebuked the wind
    • He told the sea to be silent and be still
    • The wind ceased
    • There was a great calm
40. 4:40
    • He asked them why they were so fearful
    • He asked how it was that they had no faith
41. 4:41
    • They feared exceedingly
    • They said to one another asking who this is
    • They said that even the wind and the sea obey him

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

4:1

The sea here is the Sea of Galilee, a freshwater lake about thirteen miles long in northern Israel, ringed with towns and worked by fishing crews. The King James "a ship" translates a word for a small open fishing boat, not a large vessel. Sitting was the normal posture of a teacher addressing a crowd; standing up was for reading aloud.

4:2

A parable is a short comparison drawn from ordinary life, a picture or story set beside a subject to throw light on it. The King James "doctrine" here means simply his teaching, what he taught and the act of teaching it, without the later sense of a fixed body of dogma.

4:3

"Hearken" is older English for listen. Sowing was done by walking the field and flinging handfuls of seed broadcast across it, sometimes before the ground was plowed, which is why in this story seed lands in so many places the farmer did not intend.

4:4

The "way side" is a footpath beaten hard by feet, running along the edge of a field or straight across it. "Fowls of the air" is simply birds.

4:5

Stony ground is not soil with loose stones in it but a thin skin of earth lying over a shelf of limestone bedrock. It warms fast and holds no water, so seed shoots up early and has nowhere for roots to go.

4:7

The thorns are the wild thorny scrub of uncultivated ground. Its roots survive in the soil after clearing and shoot up again alongside the crop.

4:8

Grain yields in ancient Galilee are usually reckoned at something like five to ten times the amount of seed sown. Thirty, sixty and a hundredfold describe a harvest far beyond even a good year.

4:9

"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear" is a set formula for flagging a saying that has to be worked at. It is not a remark about physical hearing.

4:10

"The twelve" is Mark's shorthand for the twelve men Jesus had singled out from his followers, named in chapter 3. Others traveled with him too, which is why this verse distinguishes the twelve from "they that were about him."

4:11

The King James "mystery" translates a Greek word meaning a secret that has now been let out: something once hidden, now disclosed to a particular group. It does not mean a puzzle or something unknowable in principle. "Them that are without" means those outside that circle, outsiders.

4:12

These words quote Isaiah 6:9-10, where a prophet is told in advance that his preaching will leave his hearers unmoved. The Greek word joining this verse to the last can carry the sense of purpose, "in order that," or of result, "with the result that," and "lest at any time" is open the same way. The grammar does not settle which is meant, and both readings are ancient. "Converted" in 1611 English means turned around or turned back, not what the word suggests to a modern ear.

4:14

"The word" here does not mean a single word. Throughout this chapter it means God's whole message, the thing Jesus has been teaching.

4:15

Satan is a name taken from the Hebrew word for accuser or adversary, the figure Mark presents as the enemy behind opposition to Jesus.

4:17

"Offended" in the King James does not mean insulted or affronted. The Greek verb means to be tripped up or made to stumble, so the picture is of people who trip over the trouble and fall away.

4:19

"The deceitfulness of riches" means the way wealth makes promises it does not keep. "The lusts of other things" means strong cravings for other things generally, without the narrowly sexual sense the English word has since taken on.

4:21

A "candle" in 1611 English is an oil lamp: a small clay bowl of oil with a wick in the lip. The "bushel" is not an abstract measure but the household container used for measuring out dry grain, holding roughly two gallons and big enough to smother a lamp. A "candlestick" is the stand the lamp was set on to throw light across a room.

4:22

"Come abroad" in 1611 English means come out into the open, be made public.

4:24

"With what measure ye mete" pictures grain being scooped into a measuring container in a market: the size of the container you use on others is the one that will be used on you. "Mete" means to measure out.

4:28

"Corn" in the King James means grain of any kind, here wheat or barley. It does not mean maize, which was unknown in England when the translation was made. "The blade" is the young green shoot, "the ear" the head at the top where the kernels form.

4:29

"Putteth in the sickle" means he sets to work with the sickle, a short curved blade used to cut standing grain by hand. The wording echoes Joel 3:13, where harvest stands for a decisive act of God.

4:31

Among Jewish teachers the mustard seed was proverbial for the smallest thing the eye could see, and that proverb is what the comparison trades on rather than a claim about botany. The plant itself is an annual that can reach eight or ten feet in one season, large for a garden plant though not a tree.

4:32

Birds sheltering in the branches of a great tree was a stock image in the Hebrew scriptures for an empire or kingdom giving shelter to the nations under it, as in Ezekiel 17 and Daniel 4.

4:33

"As they were able to hear it" means as much of it as they could take in, not how loudly he spoke.

4:34

The people who traveled with Jesus were called disciples. The word means learners. He explained the stories to them when the crowd was gone.

4:35

"The other side" is the eastern shore of the lake, largely non-Jewish territory. The crossing is several miles of open water, and setting out at evening was ordinary for fishing crews.

4:36

"Even as he was" appears to mean they pushed off with him still in the boat he had been teaching from, without his going ashore first. "Little ships" again means small open fishing boats.

4:37

The Sea of Galilee sits about 700 feet below sea level in a bowl of hills, and cold air funneling down the ravines onto warm water can raise violent squalls with almost no warning. An open fishing boat could be swamped in minutes.

4:38

"The hinder part" is the stern, the back of the boat. The King James "a pillow" renders a phrase that has the definite article in Greek, "the cushion," probably the helmsman's seat cushion, a standing piece of the boat's equipment. "Master" here translates the ordinary word for a teacher, not an owner or a lord.

4:39

"Rebuked" and the command "Peace, be still" use the same vocabulary Mark uses in chapter 1 when Jesus silences an unclean spirit. The verb behind "be still" means to be muzzled or gagged.

4:40

Faith means trusting someone to take care of you. Jesus is asking why they did not trust him. The King James "fearful" here means full of fright.

4:41

"They feared exceedingly" renders a Hebrew-flavored construction, literally "they feared a great fear." "What manner of man is this" is more literally "Who then is this?", a question about who he is rather than about what sort of person he is.