Matthew 13:19 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

When any one heareth, &c.— From this interpretation of the parable by our Saviour, we learn, that the seed signifies the doctrines of true religion; and the various kinds of ground, the various kinds of hearers: the comparison between God and the sower is frequent among the Jewish writers, and seed is among almost all nations used for doctrine or instruction. The ground by the highway side, which is apt to be beaten by men's treading upon it, is an image of those who have their hearts so hardened with impiety, that though they hear the Gospel preached, it makes no impression at all upon them; because they either hear it inattentively, or, if they attend, quickly forget it. This insensibility and inattention are strongly represented by the beaten ground along the highway, into which the seed never entering, it is bruised by the feet of men, or picked up by birds. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, or gospel, and understandeth, or considereth it not, (for the original word συνιεναι signifies both,) then cometh the wicked one, &c. The devil is said to come and catch the word from this sort of hearers, not because he has power to rob men of their knowledge, or religious impressions, by any immediate act; but because they expose themselves, through carelessness, to the whole force of the temptations which he lays in their way, and particularly to those which arise whether from the commerce of men, (a circumstance observed by St. Luke, who tells us that the seedwas trodden down,) or from their own head-strong lusts, which, like so many hungry fowls, fly to and quickly eat up the word out of their mind. The perturbation occasioned by the passions of this kind of hearers, and by the temptations to which they are exposed, renders them altogether inattentive in hearing; or if they attend, it hardens them against the impression of the word, and effaces the remembrance of it in an instant; insomuch, that the pernicious influence of evil passions and bad company cannot truly be represented by any lower figure, than that the word is taken away by the devil, whose agents such persons and lusts most certainly are. See Macknight. Dr. Campbell reads the last clause, This explaineth what fell by the way-side.