Text:

Instead of eis autous ‘in them’ in v. 15 read by Nestle, Westcott and Hort, Souter, Taylor, and Kilpatrick, Textus Receptus has en tais kardiais autōn ‘in their hearts’; Tischendorf, Soden, Vogels, Merk, and Lagrange have en autois ‘in them.’

Exegesis:

houtoi … hoi para tēn hodon ‘these … (are) the ones along the path’: it is to be noticed that in the explanation of the parable (vv. 15-20) the demonstratives, prepositional phrases and participles are all masculine, not neuter. The explanation of the parable has in view men (not seeds), i.e. the listeners, those who in one way or another receive the word (proclaimed to them).

hoi para tēn hodon ‘the ones along the path’: it is not said of these (as it is of the others, vv. 16, 18, 20) ‘sown on the path’ since they were not properly sown at all – they fell on the path without penetrating the soil.

In the explanation, by a change of figure, the various kinds of soil become various kinds of men who (literally) are sown therein. Properly what is sown is the (same) Word, and the soils represent the different classes of hearers: in the explanation, however, the various classes of hearers are sown. Though there is inconsistency in figures between the parable and its explanation, the meaning is clear throughout, and a straightforward translation will reproduce the meaning accurately.

ho logos ‘the Word,’ ‘the (Christian) Message’ (cf. 2.2).

eis autous ‘in them’ (not, ‘among’).

airei (some 20 times in Mark) ‘carry away,’ ‘take off.’

Translation:

In some languages a metaphor such as ‘the sower sows the word’ is meaningless, but a simile is completely understandable, and in fact is the closest natural equivalent, e.g. ‘the sower, as it were, sows the word.’ This little element ‘as it were’ (whether a complete phrase, a particle, or even a suffix on the verb) gives the clue to the reader that this is not to be understood literally, but in a figurative sense. Such shifts from strict metaphors to similes are frequently required for proper sense.

The word is in this context ‘the message,’ ‘the pronouncement,’ or even ‘the good news,’ for this is the technical use of Greek logos to represent the Christian message.

There is a certain difficulty in the words used to introduce the series of four types of persons. In the Revised Standard Version the words used are these (verse 15), these (verse 16), others (verse 18) and those (verse 20). In other languages one may need to adapt this series somewhat in order to produce an intelligible sequence, e.g. ‘some … others … still others … finally those.’

These are the ones along the path … is a metaphorical expression which may be shifted into the form of a simile by some verb such as ‘represent,’ ‘stand for,’ or ‘mean,’ e.g. ‘some represent the people along the path….’

Sown in them must in many languages be ‘sown in their hearts.’

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .