Mark 4:26
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;
American King James Version (AKJV)
And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;
American Standard Version (ASV)
And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth;
Basic English Translation (BBE)
And he said, Such is the kingdom of God, as if a man put seed in the earth,
Webster's Revision
And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;
World English Bible
He said, "The Kingdom of God is as if a man should cast seed on the earth,
English Revised Version (ERV)
And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth;
Definitions for Mark 4:26
Clarke's Mark 4:26 Bible Commentary
So is the kingdom of God - This parable is mentioned only by Mark, a proof that Mark did not abridge Matthew. Whitby supposes it to refer to the good ground spoken of before, and paraphrases is thus: - "What I have said of the seed sown upon good ground, may be illustrated by this parable. The doctrine of the kingdom, received in a good and honest heart, is like seed sown by a man in his ground, properly prepared to receive it; for when he hath sown it, he sleeps and wakes day after day, and, looking on it, he sees it spring and grow up through the virtue of the earth in which it is sown, though he knows not how it doth so; and when he finds it ripe, he reaps it, and so receives the benefit of the sown seed. So is it here: the seed sown in the good and honest heart brings forth fruit with patience; and this fruit daily increaseth, though we know not how the Word and Spirit work that increase; and then Christ the husbandman, at the time of the harvest, gathers in this good seed into the kingdom of heaven." I see no necessity of inquiring how Christ may be said to sleep and rise night and day; Christ being like to this husbandman only in sowing and reaping the seed.
Barnes's Mark 4:26 Bible Commentary
So is the kingdom of God - The gospel, or religion in the soul, may be compared to this. See the notes at Matthew 3:2. This parable is recorded only by Mark.
Wesley's Mark 4:26 Bible Commentary
4:26 So is the kingdom of God - The inward kingdom is like seed which a man casts into the ground - This a preacher of the Gospel casts into the heart. And he sleeps and rises night and day - That is, he has it continually in his thoughts. Meantime it springs and grows up he knows not how - Even he that sowed it cannot explain how it grows. For as the earth by a curious kind of mechanism, which the greatest philosophers cannot comprehend, does as it were spontaneously bring forth first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear: so the soul, in an inexplicable manner, brings forth, first weak graces, then stronger, then full holiness: and all this of itself, as a machine, whose spring of motion is within itself. Yet observe the amazing exactness of the comparison. The earth brings forth no corn (as the soul no holiness) without both the care and toil of man, and the benign influence of heaven.
