The Fallible Study Bible

The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible

Mark4:26–29

The Seed Growing Secretly

✦ Public-domain source — quoted & attributed⚙ AI synthesis — generated, verify

Mark 4:26–29 — The Seed Growing Secretly. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

26

Jesus also said, “The kingdom of God is like a man who scatters seed on the ground.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Kai elegen hē basileia tou Theou estin Houtōs hōs anthrōpos balē ton sporon epi tēs gēs

Word by word16 · parsed
ΚαὶKaivvvG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἔλεγενelegen[Jesus] also saidG2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbImperfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ἔπω: to speak, to say (imperfect) The imperfect keeps the scene open rather than closing it. Gill places this parable at the same sitting as the Sower, between it and the mustard seed, which is why the unit reads as a second lesson in the same lecture rather than a fresh occasion.
ἡhēTheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Feminine Singular
βασιλείαbasileiakingdomG932
√ βασιλεία — properly, royalty, iNounNominative Feminine Singular
βασιλεία: royalty, kingship, kingdom Strong's begins with “properly, royalty,” that is, the reign rather than the realm. What the parable then describes is not territory but a mode of operation: an authority whose working is hidden from the very people who serve it. Benson takes it of the gospel dispensation and also of “the grace of God in the soul,” citing Romans 14:17; Barnes reads it the same double way.
τοῦtouG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Masculine Singular
ΘεοῦTheouof GodG2316
√ θεός — figuratively, a magistrateNounGenitive Masculine Singular
ἐστὶνestinisG1510
√ εἰμί — I exist (used only when emphatic)VerbPresent Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ΟὕτωςHoutōslikeG3779
√ οὕτω — in this way (referring to what precedes or follows)Adverb
οὕτω: in this way, thus The forward pointing “thus” announces a manner, not a size: the comparison is about process, not extent.
ὡςhōs. . .G5613
√ ὡς — which how, iAdverb
ἄνθρωποςanthrōposa manG444
√ ἄνθρωπος — from G3700 (ὀπτάνομαι))NounNominative Masculine Singular
βάλῃbalēwho scattersG906
√ βάλλω — to throw (in various applications, more or less violent or intense)VerbAorist Subjunctive Active3rd Person Singular
βάλλω: to throw, to cast The one aorist in the parable's chain of presents. Everything else the man does is continuous (sleeping, rising) or is done to him; this alone is a single completed act. Poole draws the pastoral consequence from the grammar: having done his part, the sower “is no more solicitous about it.”
τὸνtonG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Masculine Singular
σπόρονsporonseedG4703
√ σπόρος — a scattering (of seed), iNounAccusative Masculine Singular
σπόρος: a scattering of seed A rare noun (five verses). Luke twice uses it in the Sower and its interpretation, where Jesus himself says the σπόρος is the word of God; 2 Corinthians 9:10 uses it of what God multiplies for the giver. Gill, Poole, Benson, Barnes and the Pulpit all identify the seed here as the word of the gospel rather than as persons: Gill rules out both persons and the grace of God in favour of the word, and the Pulpit says the seed represents the doctrine of the gospel. That is where this parable parts company with the tares, whose good seed Jesus identifies as the sons of the kingdom.
ἐπὶepionG1909
√ ἐπί — properly, meaning superimposition (of time, place, order, etcPreposition
τῆςtēstheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Feminine Singular
γῆςgēsgroundG1093
√ γῆ — soilNounGenitive Feminine Singular
γῆ: soil, earth, land The same noun returns in v28 as the subject that bears fruit. Here it is only the object thrown upon; there it is the actor. That reversal is the parable's hinge.
27

Night and day he sleeps and wakes, and the seed sprouts and grows, though he knows not how.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

kai nykta kai hēmeran katheudē kai egeirētai kai ho sporos blasta kai mēkynētai autos oiden ouk hōs

Word by word17 · parsed
καὶkaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
νύκταnyktaNightG3571
√ νύξ — "night" (literally or figuratively)NounAccusative Feminine Singular
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἡμέρανhēmerandayG2250
√ ἡμέρα — day, iNounAccusative Feminine Singular
καθεύδῃkatheudēhe sleepsG2518
√ καθεύδω — to lie down to rest, iVerbPresent Subjunctive Active3rd Person Singular
καθεύδω: to lie down to rest, to sleep The commentators split over what the sleep means, and the split is worth keeping. JFB and the Pulpit read it as ordinary life going on; Benson takes the sleeping and rising together as meaning the sower “has it continually in his thoughts”; Gill floats natural sleep, the sleep of death, and a settled confidence, and rejects spiritual sloth. The Greek itself says only that the man is off duty.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ἐγείρηταιegeirētaiwakesG1453
√ ἐγείρω — to waken (transitively or intransitively), iVerbPresent Subjunctive Middle or Passive3rd Person Singular
ἐγείρω: to waken, to raise up Middle or passive, and set against καθεύδῃ. The same verb carries the whole weight of resurrection language elsewhere in the New Testament, which is why the ordinary human rhythm here (lying down, being raised) reads in canonical context as a small unremarked figure of the larger one.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ὁhotheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
σπόροςsporosseedG4703
√ σπόρος — a scattering (of seed), iNounNominative Masculine Singular
βλαστᾷblastasproutsG985
√ βλαστάνω — to germinateVerbPresent Subjunctive Active3rd Person Singular
βλαστάνω: to germinate, to sprout A rare verb, standing in only four verses: here, Matthew 13:26 in the tares, James 5:18 of the earth after Elijah's prayer, and Hebrews 9:4 of Aaron's rod that budded. In every case the sprouting is something no human hand performed.
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
μηκύνηταιmēkynētaigrowsG3373
√ μηκύνω — to lengthen, iVerbPresent Subjunctive Middle or Passive3rd Person Singular
μηκύνω: to lengthen The verb of the invisible increment. Benson and Barnes both make the same observation from the natural side: no watcher, however diligent, can see the corn extending its dimensions while it does so. Cambridge locates the cause in the seed itself, “the secret energy of its own”; Barnes and Gill locate it in God working unseen. The Greek middle or passive form will bear either.
αὐτόςautos[though] heG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounNominative Masculine 3rd Person Singular
οἶδενoidenknowsG1492
√ εἴδω — used only in certain past tenses, the others being borrowed from the equivalent G3700 (ὀπτάνομαι) and G3708 (ὁράω)VerbPerfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
εἴδω: to see, hence to know A perfect of the verb whose root is seeing. The man's not knowing is precisely a not seeing: the process he depends on never becomes visible to him. Barnes presses this as still true of the natural science of his own day, and turns it into the rule for the soul's own growth, comparing John 3:8.
οὐκouknotG3756
√ οὐ — the absolute negative (compare G3361 (μή)) adverbAdverb
ὡςhōshowG5613
√ ὡς — which how, iAdverb
ὡς: how, as The same adverb that opened the comparison in v26 now closes the man out of it: he does not know the how.
28

All by itself the earth produces a crop—first the stalk, then the head, then grain that ripens within.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

automatē hē gē karpophorei prōton chorton eita stachyn eita siton plērēs en tō stachui

Word by word14 · parsed
αὐτομάτηautomatēAll by itselfG844
√ αὐτόματος — self-moved ("automatic"), iAdjectiveNominative Feminine Singular
αὐτόματος: self-moved, of its own accord The rarest word in the unit (two verses) and the one the whole parable turns on. Its only other New Testament use, Acts 12:10, is not agricultural at all: a locked gate swings open with no hand on it while Peter walks out. Both texts use it of an outcome that arrives without the responsible human doing anything, and in both the reader is expected to know who actually opened it.
ἡhētheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Feminine Singular
γῆgēearthG1093
√ γῆ — soilNounNominative Feminine Singular
καρποφορεῖkarpophoreiproduces a cropG2592
√ καρποφορέω — to be fertile (literally or figuratively)VerbPresent Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
καρποφορέω: to be fertile, to bear fruit The move from subjunctive to indicative here is the verse's quiet claim: whatever is hypothetical about the farmer, the earth's fruiting is not in doubt. Gill spends his whole note guarding against the misreading that a hearer produces grace in himself, and he is guarding a real ambiguity in the Greek subject.
πρῶτονprōtonfirstG4412
√ πρῶτον — firstly (in time, place, order, or importance)AdverbSuperlative
χόρτονchorton[the] stalkG5528
√ χόρτος — a "court" or "garden", iNounAccusative Masculine Singular
χόρτος: herbage, grass, the green blade The same noun the Scriptures elsewhere use for grass that withers. Here it is not a figure of frailty but the first honest sign of life, and the parable refuses to despise it.
εἶταeitathenG1534
√ εἶτα — a particle of succession (in time or logical enumeration), then, moreoverAdverb
στάχυνstachyn[the] headG4719
√ στάχυς — a head of grain (as standing out from the stalk)NounAccusative Masculine Singular
στάχυς: a head of grain standing out from the stalk A rare noun (four verses). Its three other occurrences are the same scene from three angles: the disciples plucking heads of grain on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1, Mark 2:23, Luke 6:1). Mark's readers meet the word again only where Jesus defends the hungry taking of ripened grain, and the parable here is about waiting until it is ripe.
εἶταeitathenG1534
√ εἶτα — a particle of succession (in time or logical enumeration), then, moreoverAdverb
σῖτονsitongrainG4621
√ σῖτος — grain, especially wheatNounAccusative Masculine Singular
σῖτος: grain, especially wheat Strong's gives “grain, especially wheat”: the crop is named by species, not by value. In Matthew 13:30 the same noun is what is gathered into the barn while the tares are bound for burning, so the word already belongs to the language of a sorted harvest. Here nothing is sorted, because the only thing sown was good seed.
πλήρηςplērēs[that] ripensG4134
√ πλήρης — replete, or covered overAdjectiveAccusative Masculine Singular
πλήρης: replete, covered over Fullness, not ripening. The three stage sequence (blade, head, full head) is read by JFB as “similar stages, though not definitely marked periods,” by Cambridge as a law of orderly development, and by Ellicott twice over, of the Church in the world and of the single soul.
ἐνenwithinG1722
√ ἐν — "in," at, (up-)on, by, etcPreposition
τῷtō. . .G3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Masculine Singular
στάχυϊstachui. . .G4719
√ στάχυς — a head of grain (as standing out from the stalk)NounDative Masculine Singular
στάχυς: a head of grain (dative) The word repeats within one clause: full grain in the head. The grain does not appear beside the plant but inside the part that was already there, which is why Cambridge prefers “then (there is) full corn in the ear.”
29

And as soon as the grain is ripe, he swings the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

de euthys hotan ho karpos paradoi apostellei to drepanon hoti ho therismos parestēken

Word by word13 · parsed
δὲdeAndG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
εὐθὺςeuthysas soon asG2112
√ εὐθέως — directly, iAdverb
εὐθέως: directly, immediately The adverb that drives Mark's narrative everywhere else now governs the harvest: no delay is permitted between ripeness and the sickle.
ὅτανhotan. . .G3752
√ ὅταν — whenever (implying hypothesis or more or less uncertainty)Conjunction
ὁhotheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
καρπόςkarposgrainG2590
√ καρπός — fruit (as plucked), literally or figurativelyNounNominative Masculine Singular
καρπός: fruit as plucked Strong's notes the sense of fruit “as plucked,” so the noun already anticipates the sickle. Where v28 named the wheat (σῖτος), v29 names it fruit, the word Scripture uses for what a life yields.
παραδοῖparadoiis ripeG3860
√ παραδίδωμι — to surrender, iVerbAorist Subjunctive Active3rd Person Singular
παραδίδωμι: to surrender, to hand over The weightiest verb in the unit. Elsewhere in Mark it is the verb for persons handed over: John handed over, the Son of Man handed over into the hands of men. Here, in the active and with a ripened crop as its subject, the fruit hands itself over to the blade. Cambridge flags the usage as unique in this sense, and honesty requires saying that the resonance with Mark's passion vocabulary is the tool's observation, not a claim of the sources.
ἀποστέλλειapostelleihe swingsG649
√ ἀποστέλλω — set apart, iVerbPresent Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
ἀποστέλλω: to send forth on commission A sickle that is commissioned rather than wielded. The sources divide the commission: Ellicott gives it to Christ coming to judge, or to the Angel of Death at a single life's end; Gill offers Christ himself, or the angel reapers, or the ministers returning with their sheaves; Barnes warns against pressing the detail at all.
τὸtotheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Neuter Singular
δρέπανονdrepanonsickleG1407
√ δρέπανον — a gathering hook (especially for harvesting)NounAccusative Neuter Singular
δρέπανον: a gathering hook, a sickle A rare noun (seven verses). Every other occurrence is in Revelation 14, where one like the Son of Man holds a sharp sickle over a ripe earth; Cambridge points this out, and Ellicott cites the same passage.
ὅτιhotibecauseG3754
√ ὅτι — demonstrative, that (sometimes redundant)Conjunction
ὁhotheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Masculine Singular
θερισμόςtherismosharvestG2326
√ θερισμός — reaping, iNounNominative Masculine Singular
θερισμός: reaping, harvest A rare noun (eight verses). Poole carefully separates the two canonical senses: the harvest that is the end of the age with angels as reapers (Matthew 13:39), and the harvest that is a people ready to receive the gospel (Matthew 9:37, John 4:35). The parable's own ending supports the first without excluding the second.
παρέστηκενparestēkenhas comeG3936
√ παρίστημι — to stand beside, iVerbPerfect Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
παρίστημι: to stand beside, to be present A perfect: the harvest is already standing there. JFB reads the whole verse as the passage from the earthly to the heavenly state of the Christian and of the Church; the tense supports his sense that the transition is not a distant prospect but a state now reached.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. One throw, and then nothing — 4:26

⚙ The parable begins with a doubled comparison, Οὕτως ... ὡς, so the first thing said about the kingdom is a manner rather than a magnitude. The man's whole activity is one aorist, βάλῃ, from a verb Strong's defines as throwing “more or less violent or intense”; and what he throws is σπόρον, the rare noun (five verses) that names the scattering itself, used by Luke in the Sower for the word of God. Poole reads the grammar as we do: once the seed is in the ground the husbandman “is no more solicitous about it.” Cambridge records that this is the only parable peculiar to Mark and guesses it fills the slot Matthew gives to the Leaven, which is Cambridge's conjecture, not the text's. The sources divide at once over the sower's identity: Gill flatly denies it is Christ, since Christ does not sleep and does know how the seed grows, while Cambridge says the Sower “primarily... refers to the Lord Himself” and then advises us not to inquire too minutely. Benson, Poole, Gill, the Pulpit and Barnes all agree on the seed: it is the word, not persons, which is precisely how this parable differs from the tares.

ii. Night and day, and a growth nobody watches — 4:27

⚙ Every verb in this verse except one is still inside the hypothesis opened by ὡς: he should sleep, should be raised, the seed should sprout, should be lengthened. The exception is the indicative perfect οὐκ οἶδεν, from a root that means seeing, so the man's settled not knowing is a settled not seeing. μηκύνηται is not a vague “grows” but “is lengthened,” middle or passive, the increment no eye catches. Benson and Barnes make the same natural observation from opposite ends: no watcher can perceive the corn extending its dimensions, and after all the researches of philosophers, as Barnes says, no one has been able to tell the way in which grain grows. Cambridge places the cause in the seed, “the secret energy of its own”; Geneva places it in God and makes the minister's business diligence plus credit given elsewhere. Ellicott generalises it to history: even the sowers of the new faith were hardly conscious of the revolution they were working. JFB keeps it domestic, the man going about his other ordinary occupations. ⚙ Note that the sleeping and the being raised are the ordinary Hebrew rhythm of Psalm 3:5 and Psalm 127:2, where lying down and rising again is itself an act of trust in someone else's wakefulness.

iii. Self-moved earth, and a law of stages — 4:28

⚙ Here the Greek changes mood, and the change is the argument: after the long supposed case, καρποφορεῖ is a plain present indicative. The earth does bear fruit. The first word of the clause is the rarest in the unit, αὐτομάτη, in only two verses of the New Testament; Cambridge supplies the other, Acts 12:10, where a prison gate opens of its own accord and no reader imagines it opened itself. Geneva glosses the word “By a certain power which moves itself,” Benson translates it “spontaneously” and then, with his period's machinery, calls the soul a machine whose spring of motion is within itself, while carefully adding that the earth brings forth no corn without both human toil and the influence of heaven. Barnes and Gill both spend their notes denying that the earth or the hearer has any power of its own, which shows how alive the ambiguity was. The stages are read as a law rather than a calendar: JFB calls them similar stages “though not definitely marked periods,” Cambridge calls it orderly development, Ellicott applies the three both to the Church in the world and to thoughts, purposes and acts in one soul, and adds the sharp practical rule that it is not well to be taking up the seeds to see whether they are growing.

iv. The fruit hands itself over — 4:29

⚙ The final verse is built from three loaded words. παραδοῖ is active with the fruit as subject: Cambridge translates “when the fruit yields itself; or offers itself,” and notes the verb occurs nowhere else in this sense, while the Pulpit grants the active force too. ἀποστέλλει is not a swing but a dispatch, the verb behind “apostle.” παρέστηκεν is a perfect: the harvest has taken its stand and is standing. The sickle, δρέπανον, is rare (seven verses) and every other occurrence is Revelation 14, which is why Cambridge and Ellicott both send the reader there. Ellicott offers two readings at once, the end of the world with Christ coming to judge (Matthew 13:39) and the end of one life with the sickle in the hand of the Angel of Death. Gill multiplies the reapers: Christ gathering his lilies, the angels at the close of time, the ministers coming again with joy bringing their sheaves. Poole, more carefully than the rest, separates the harvest of Matthew 13:39 from the harvest of Matthew 9:37 and John 4:35 and lets this parable's ending fall with the first. JFB hears the transition from the earthly to the heavenly condition; the Pulpit turns the immediacy of εὐθὺς into a warning against being eager to leave this world. Barnes alone pulls the brake, insisting that parables carry detail that cannot be pressed, and this unit is better for keeping his objection in it.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested. The parable is not primarily about patience, and not primarily about the harvest; it is about a single grammatical fact. In vv26 to 27 the man is in the subjunctive and he is the subject of everything: he throws, he sleeps, he is raised, he does not know. In v28 the mood turns indicative and the subject changes: αὐτομάτη ἡ γῆ καρποφορεῖ. What is only supposed is the farmer; what is stated as fact is the fruiting. The kingdom of God, then, is the one field in which the worker's ignorance is not a defect to be corrected but a description of how the thing works, because the working never belonged to him. And notice where the parable puts its most violent words: the seed is thrown (G906), the ripe fruit hands itself over (G3860, the verb Mark uses for the handing over of John and of the Son of Man), and the sickle is sent on commission (G649). A kingdom that begins with a throw and ends with a self surrender, with a long silent unwatched middle, is describing more than agriculture. Gill is right that the sleeping man cannot straightforwardly be Christ; ⚙ but he may be every servant of the word who has ever buried a labour and seen nothing, and whose not seeing is exactly the evidence that the growth was never in his hands. Barnes' caution stands over all of this: the sleeping, the rising and the harvest are parts of one picture, and a reading that has to press each detail separately has probably stopped listening to the picture.

The kingdom of God is the one field where the worker's ignorance is not a defect but the description.

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

A gate that opens of its own accord verbal / quotation: confirmed

The adjective αὐτομάτη (G844) stands in only two verses of the Greek New Testament. Its one companion is Acts 12:10, where the iron gate of Peter's prison opens of its own accord while he walks out of it. Cambridge makes exactly this cross reference at Mark 4:28, and the Verifier confirms the shared lexeme. ⚙ The two contexts agree in structure as well as in vocabulary: in both, a human being is doing nothing, the outcome arrives with no visible cause, and the reader is expected to know who actually did it. In Acts the answer is stated (an angel of the Lord); in Mark the parable deliberately withholds it, and the absence is the lesson.

Acts 12:10

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G844 αὐτόματος (in 2 vv, so this is its only other New Testament occurrence), plus G2112 εὐθέως (in 86 vv, common and not load bearing). Both refs are Greek New Testament, so the shared Strong's number is a real verbal link. No quotation is claimed: the tier rests on the rarity of the word, and Cambridge independently records the same link.

σπόρος: the rare noun Luke says is the word of God verbal / quotation: confirmed

σπόρον (G4703) is not σπέρμα but the scattering itself, and it stands in only five verses. Two of them are Luke's Sower and Luke's own interpretation of it, where the σπόρος is identified as the word of God; the third is 2 Corinthians 9:10, where God is said to supply and multiply the giver's seed. ⚙ The lexical link is what licenses the reading every commentator in this unit assumes without argument: Gill, Poole, Benson, Barnes and the Pulpit all take the seed here as the word rather than as persons, in deliberate contrast with the tares, where Jesus himself says the good seed is the sons of the kingdom.

Luke 8:5 · Luke 8:11 · 2 Corinthians 9:10

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G4703 σπόρος (in 5 vv) at Luke 8:5, Luke 8:11 and 2 Corinthians 9:10. All refs are Greek New Testament, so shared Strong's numbers are a valid verbal basis; the word is rare enough that the link is not accidental. No citation of one text by another is claimed.

The same field, sown twice: this parable and the tares structural / thematic: confirmed

Matthew 13 shares this parable's whole vocabulary of growth and reaping: βλαστάνω (G985, four verses) at Matthew 13:26, and σῖτος with θερισμός at Matthew 13:30. Poole reaches for the tares explicitly, using our Lord's own exposition there (Matthew 13:39, the harvest is the end of the world and the reapers are the angels) to interpret Mark 4:29, and Barnes points to the same chapter. ⚙ The contrast is as instructive as the overlap: in the tares the seed is people and the danger is a rival sower, while here the seed is the word and there is no enemy in the story at all, only an absent farmer and a growing earth.

Matthew 13:26 · Matthew 13:30

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G985 βλαστάνω (in 4 vv) at Matthew 13:26, with G4621 σῖτος (in 15 vv) and G2326 θερισμός (in 8 vv) at Matthew 13:30. All refs are Greek New Testament and the shared Strong's numbers are computed and real, and βλαστάνω is rare enough that a verbal tier could be argued. We under-claim deliberately: the shared words are the ordinary vocabulary any grain parable requires, neither text quotes the other, and what actually links them is a shared field and harvest pattern. Note also that Poole's use of Matthew 13:39 to read Mark 4:29 is his interpretive move, not a citation in the text.

The sickle in Revelation 14 verbal / quotation: confirmed

δρέπανον (G1407) occurs in only seven verses, and apart from Mark 4:29 every one of them is in Revelation 14, where one like the Son of Man sits on a white cloud with a sharp sickle and is told to reap because the harvest of the earth is ripe. θερισμός (G2326, eight verses) is shared with Revelation 14:15 as well. Cambridge notes that the sickle is mentioned only here and in Revelation 14:14 to 15, and Ellicott cites Revelation 14:14 to 18 for the same image. ⚙ Revelation supplies the agent Mark's sentence leaves unnamed: the one who sends the sickle when the harvest has taken its stand.

Revelation 14:14 · Revelation 14:15 · Revelation 14:16

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G1407 δρέπανον (in 7 vv) at Revelation 14:14 and 14:18, and G2326 θερισμός (in 8 vv) at Revelation 14:15. All refs are Greek New Testament, so the shared Strong's numbers stand as a verbal basis; Cambridge and Ellicott both record the same link. Revelation does not quote Mark, so no quotation is claimed.

Joel's sickle behind both Mark and Revelation structural / thematic: confirmed

Mark 4:29 stands very close to Joel 3:13, “put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe”: the same instrument, the same trigger, the same sense. Revelation 14:15 reads Joel the same way when it calls for the sickle because the harvest of the earth is ripe. ⚙ But Mark carries no citation formula, no “as it is written,” and gives no indication that a text is being quoted; the wording is close and the dependence is likely, and that is as far as the evidence goes. The badge is therefore deliberately not verbal: Mark is Greek and Joel is Hebrew, so no shared Strong's number can exist to be checked, and the Verifier's candidate list for this unit contains no Old Testament entry at all.

Joel 3:13 · Revelation 14:15

basis: Cross Testament: Mark 4:29 is Greek and Joel 3:13 is Hebrew, so shared Strong's lexemes are impossible by construction and a verbal tier is not available. The recorded basis is the shared sickle and harvest pattern (Joel's sickle put in because the harvest is ripe; Mark's sickle sent because the harvest has taken its stand), reinforced by Revelation 14:15, which the Verifier does link to Mark 4:29 by G2326 θερισμός (in 8 vv). No quotation formula appears in Mark, so the link is stated as structural and no stronger.

Seed that fruits after its kind, and a word that does not return empty structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ The earth bearing fruit self moved is not a new idea in Scripture: at Genesis 1:11 to 12 the earth is commanded to bring forth vegetation with seed in itself, and it does, so that a self fruiting earth is a created ordinance rather than an anomaly. Isaiah 55:10 to 11 then runs the same figure toward the word: as rain and snow make the earth bring forth and bud, so the word that goes out shall not return empty but accomplish what it was sent for. None of this unit's commentators cites either passage here, but Benson, Poole and Gill all hold the same double claim in their own terms: the earth fruits of itself, and yet never without the influence of heaven, the sun, the dew and the rain. The pairing with Genesis and Isaiah is the tool's, and rests on pattern alone.

Genesis 1:11 · Genesis 1:12 · Isaiah 55:10 · Isaiah 55:11

basis: Cross Testament (Greek to Hebrew), so shared Strong's numbers are impossible and the verbal tier is unavailable. Basis recorded as a shared pattern rather than shared wording: earth commanded to bear fruit with seed in itself (Genesis 1:11 to 12), and rain making earth bud as the figure for a sent word that accomplishes its errand (Isaiah 55:10 to 11). No quotation is claimed, and the Verifier returned no Old Testament candidates for this unit.

He lies down and rises, and someone else keeps watch typological

⚙ Mark 4:27 uses the plainest Hebrew idiom for a day: καθεύδῃ καὶ ἐγείρηται, he sleeps and is raised. Psalm 3:5 uses the same rhythm as an act of trust, lying down and sleeping and waking because the Lord sustains, and Psalm 127:2 mocks the man who rises early and sits up late, since the Lord gives sleep to his beloved. Benson reads the phrase as continual thought about the seed, and JFB and the Pulpit as ordinary business resumed; ⚙ the psalms suggest a third sense that fits the parable's argument exactly, that the sleeping is itself the posture of a man whose work is finished and whose outcome is in another's keeping.

Psalm 3:5 · Psalm 127:2

basis: Cross Testament (Greek to Hebrew), so no shared Strong's lexeme is possible and no verbal tier is available. This is a figural reading of an ordinary idiom: the sleeping and rising of Mark 4:27 read through the psalms' use of untroubled sleep as trust. Attestation is thin in this unit's sources (no commentator here makes the link), so it is offered as the tool's reading and tiered typological rather than confirmed.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The harvest, the sickle, and the one who sends it ancient/widely-held

The oldest reading of this parable's ending is the reading its own vocabulary invites. Ellicott states it plainly, that from one point of view the harvest is the end of the world (Matthew 13:39) and the putting in of the sickle is the coming of Christ to judge, comparing Revelation 14:14 to 18, and then offers the alternative that the harvest is the end of each man's life. Poole reaches the same conclusion by the same route, our Lord's own exposition of the tares, and takes care to distinguish it from the other canonical harvest of Matthew 9:37 and John 4:35. Gill lets Christ himself come into his garden, or the angel reapers gather the elect from the four winds, or the ministers return bringing their sheaves. JFB hears the transition from the earthly to the heavenly state of the Christian and of the Church. ⚙ The Greek supports the whole family of readings at one point: ἀποστέλλει means to dispatch on commission, so the sickle is sent by someone, and δρέπανον puts that sending in the company of Revelation 14, where the one who holds the sickle is like the Son of Man. Barnes' objection belongs in the record: he warns that parables contain filler detail that cannot be literally interpreted, and names the harvest as a possible instance.

Matthew 13:39 · Revelation 14:14 · Revelation 14:15 · Matthew 9:37

The Sower who casts, departs, and comes back to reap ancient/widely-held

Cambridge holds that the Sower, though we need not inquire too minutely, primarily refers to the Lord himself. Barnes builds the reading out: the seed sown may be the gospel Jesus was preaching, whose beginnings in Judea were small; he would leave it, commit it to his disciples, and return to his Father; the gospel meanwhile would take root and produce an abundant harvest; and in due time he would return, send forth the angels and gather it in. On this reading the parable's structure is the shape of redemptive history itself: one decisive sowing, an ascension, a long interval in which the growth is invisible and the sower absent, and a harvest at his return. Gill objects hard, that the man cannot be Christ because Christ neither sleeps nor is ignorant of how the seed grows, and gives the role to any gospel minister sent forth by Christ. ⚙ Both may stand: the man's not knowing belongs to the minister, and the throwing, the absence and the sent sickle belong to the Lord. Barnes offers his own version tentatively (“Perhaps the whole parable may be differently interpreted”), and that hesitancy should travel with it.

Mark 4:26 · Mark 4:29 · Matthew 13:31

The fruit that hands itself over novel

⚙ This is the tool's own reading and no source in this unit makes it. The verb at Mark 4:29 is παραδοῖ (G3860, “to surrender, to hand over”), active, with the fruit as its subject; Cambridge notes the usage occurs nowhere else in this sense and renders it “when the fruit yields itself; or offers itself.” In Mark's own vocabulary that verb is the word for a handing over to death: John is handed over, and the Son of Man is handed over into the hands of men. ⚙ So the parable's last act, before any sickle moves, is a ripe thing surrendering itself. Set beside it the seed of v26, thrown down into the ground and left, which Gill and Poole both describe as lying under the clods and dying before it is quickened, and the figure John 12:24 makes explicit, of a grain of wheat that must fall into the earth and die to bear much fruit, and Paul's answer in 1 Corinthians 15:36 to 38 to how the dead are raised. The dying and rising grain is an ancient figure of Christ; applying it to this parable's vocabulary is novel here, and it is offered to be tested, not asserted. ⚙ One further observation, offered as an observation only: the one sleeper in Mark 4 who is unmistakably Christ appears eleven verses later, asleep on the cushion in the stern while the disciples are certain everything is being lost (Mark 4:38). Gill is right that Christ does not sleep in the sense of neglect; Mark still chose to put a sleeping sower and a sleeping Lord in the same chapter.

John 12:24 · 1 Corinthians 15:36 · Mark 4:38

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text and sources. The English is BSB (CC0); the Greek, the parsing and the Strong's numbers come from the Berean interlinear as supplied in this unit's brief, and the lexeme frequencies quoted in the notes (“in N verses”) are the Verifier's counts, not our own. Every ✦ excerpt is a verbatim contiguous span from the named public domain commentator; the ⚙ material is this tool's synthesis and is fallible.

What the sources agree on. That this parable is found only in Mark is stated independently by Ellicott, Poole, Barnes, Cambridge and the Pulpit, and Gill places it at the same sitting as the Sower. That it has no attached explanation from Jesus is stated by Poole, and it is the single most important fact about reading it: every application below, ancient or modern, is inference.

What is genuinely disputed. (1) The identity of the sower. Gill denies it can be Christ, on two explicit grounds, while Cambridge says it primarily refers to the Lord himself and Benson and Poole make him the gospel minister; our Christ section keeps both, unreconciled. (2) The meaning of the sleeping. Gill lists natural sleep, the sleep of death and settled confidence, and rejects spiritual sloth; JFB and the Pulpit read ordinary occupation; Benson reads continual thought. The Greek decides none of these. (3) Whether the harvest may be pressed at all: Barnes says no, against Ellicott, JFB, Gill and Poole.

Text critical and grammatical uncertainty. At Mark 4:28 the brief's interlinear gives πλήρης parsed as accusative masculine singular, agreeing with σῖτον, although the form is the nominative shape; readers should know the case assignment here is the interlinear's, and the manuscripts are not uniform in this word's form. At Mark 4:29 the brief's interlinear reads παραδοῖ, while the Pulpit Commentary prints ὅταν δὲ παραδῷ ὁ καρπός; these are variant spellings of the same aorist subjunctive and nothing in the sense turns on it, but we have followed the interlinear and flag the difference rather than hide it. Cambridge's remark that this verb “only occurs here in this sense” is Cambridge's claim and we have not independently verified it.

Limits of the thread work. The Verifier returned no Old Testament candidates for this unit, because the shared Strong's method cannot cross from Greek to Hebrew. Every Old Testament link recorded above (Joel 3:13, Genesis 1:11 to 12, Isaiah 55:10 to 11, Psalm 3:5, Psalm 127:2) therefore rests on pattern and wording rather than on a computed lexeme match, and is tiered structural or typological for that reason, never verbal. Joel 3:13 is the strongest of them and is still not tiered verbal. The Psalms thread is the weakest: no commentator in this unit makes it, and it is marked typological accordingly. The pull quote attached to the sola reading is this tool's own sentence and is not a verse of Scripture.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)