The Parable of the Four Kinds of Ground (4:3-9).
Jesus now tells a story which contains within it a number of lessons, and is thus a kind of allegory. It is based on a scene well known to His hearers, that of a sower sowing seed. Those who knew their Scriptures well would remember that in Hosea 12:10 and Jeremiah 4:3 the sowing of seed was connected with the idea of a true response to God resulting from their becoming ‘good ground'. In Hosea 12:10 His people were called on to break up their fallow ground, sowing in it in righteousness and reaping in mercy. In Jeremiah 4:3 they were to break up their fallow ground so that the words of their teachers might not be sown among thorns. The same idea of needing to be fruitful ground is found in the parable.
Analysis.
a “Listen” (Mark 4:3 a).
b “Behold a sower went out to sow” (Mark 4:3 b).
c “And it happened that, as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside and the birds came and devoured it” (Mark 4:4).
d “And other fell on rocky ground where it did not have much earth, and it sprang up immediately because it had no depth of earth. And when the sun was risen it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered” (Mark 4:5-6).
c “And other fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it and it yielded no fruit” (Mark 4:7).
b “And others fell into the good ground, and yielded fruit, growing up and increasing. And it produced thirtyfold, sixtyfold and a hundredfold” (Mark 4:8).
a And he said, “whoever has ears to hear, let him hear” (Mark 4:9).
Note that in ‘a' they are called on to listen, and in the parallel they are to be those who have ears to hear. In ‘b' The sower sows, and in the parallel it results in a harvest. In ‘c' the seed is devoured and in the parallel it is choked. Centrally in ‘d' the seed is scorched in the sun because it has no depth of earth.