And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.
The foregoing chapter began with Christ's entering into the synagogue (Mar 4:1); this chapter begins with Christ's teaching again by the sea side. Thus he changed his method, that if possible all might be reached and wrought upon. To gratify the nice and more genteel sort of people that had seats, chief seats, in the synagogue, and did not care for hearing a sermon any...
Commenting on Mark 4:1-20
And some fell on stony ground,.... The word was preached to some persons who had hearts of stone, and which remained so: where it had not much earth; and so could be received only in a notional and superficial way, but could take no place, so as to produce any good effect: and immediately it sprung up; a sudden and hasty profession of the word...
The fowls - Του ουρανου, of the air, is the common reading; but it should be omitted, on the authority of nine uncial MSS., upwards of one hundred others, and almost all the versions. Bengel and Griesbach have left it out of the text. It seems to have been inserted in Mark, from Luk 8:5.