Mark 4:26-34
4:26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,
4:27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.
4:28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.
4:29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
4:30 He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?
4:31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;
4:32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
4:33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it;
4:34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
[26]Καὶ ἔλεγεν· οὕτως ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ, ὡς ἂν ἄνθρωπος βάλῃ τὸν σπόρον ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς,
[27]καὶ καθεύδῃ καὶ ἐγείρηται νύκτα καὶ ἡμέραν, καὶ ὁ σπόρος βλαστάνῃ καὶ μηκύνηται ὡς οὐκ οἶδεν αὐτός.
[28]αὐτομάτη γὰρ ἡ γῆ καρποφορεῖ, πρῶτον χόρτον, εἶτα στάχυν, εἶτα πλήρη σῖτον ἐν τῷ στάχυϊ.
[29]ὅταν δὲ παραδῷ ὁ καρπός, εὐθέως ἀποστέλλει τὸ δρέπανον, ὅτι παρέστηκεν ὁ θερισμός.
[30]Καὶ ἔλεγε· πῶς ὁμοιώσωμεν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ Θεοῦ; ἢ ἐν τίνι παραβολῇ παραβάλωμεν αὐτήν;
[31]ὡς κόκκον σινάπεως, ὃς ὅταν σπαρῇ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, μικρότερος πάντων τῶν σπερμάτων ἐστὶ τῶν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς·
[32]καὶ ὅταν σπαρῇ, ἀναβαίνει καὶ γίνεται μείζων πάντων τῶν λαχάνων, καὶ ποιεῖ κλάδους μεγάλους, ὥστε δύνασθαι ὑπὸ τὴν σκιὰν αὐτοῦ τὰ πετεινὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ κατασκηνοῦν.
[33]Καὶ τοιαύταις παραβολαῖς πολλαῖς ἐλάλει αὐτοῖς τὸν λόγον, καθὼς ἠδύναντο ἀκούειν,
[34]χωρὶς δὲ παραβολῆς οὐκ ἐλάλει αὐτοῖς τὸν λόγον· κατ᾿ ἰδίαν δὲ τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ ἐπέλυε πάντα.
Comments
The lection centres on the imagery of sprouting and fruition. Verse 28 fetches to mind the ancient Greek farmer’s dream of spontaneous, bountiful cereal crops.
[26] τὸν σπόρον: σπόρος, ‘seed’ (already in cl. Gk: LSJ s.v. II); from σπείρω, ‘I sow’, which occurs twice in the passage in the pass. vc. (vv. 31, 32). Σπόρος is etym. related to, and a synonym of, σπέρμα (v. 31), ‘seed of plants’ (already in archaic poetry: LSJ I); also ‘semen, sperm’ (cl. Gk: LSJ s.v.II). Cf. Engl. sperm.
[28] αὐτομάτη: ‘spontaneous’here used of the earth (γῆ). Cf. Engl. automatic. In cl. Greek the resonances of the adj. are far from mechanical and banal. Plato, in describing a paradisal condition of mankind under Cronus in the Statesman, uses the adj. three times in proximity (271d, 271e, 272 a): agricultural life (βίος) is blissfully spontaneous (αὐτόματος), for the earth (γῆ) spontaneously furnishes its fruits under ‘god’ (not God), who shepherds humankind. Mark’s ‘automatic earth’ is good, and brings us quite near to a golden age (or so it would seem to readers/ hearers versed in pre-Christian literature).
πρῶτον χόρτον, εἶτα στάχυν, εἶτα πλήρη σῖτον ἐν τῷ στάχυϊ: this triad of asyndetic ( i.e. unconnected) clauses (οr cola) imitates the progressive maturation from a ‘green crop’ (χόρτον, acc., χόρτος, ὁ) to an ‘ear of wheat (or barley) (στάχυν)’ to ‘full-grown wheat (or barley) on a stalk’ (πλήρη σῖτον, acc., σῖτος, ὁ). The clauses—the first two of which contain four syllables, the third having six– re-enact a climax (κλιμακωτόν), and make up a ‘tricolon crescendo’ (so called by the classicist E. Fraenkel). The last clause is the longest as if corresponding to a bushy stalk.
[29] ὅταν δὲ παραδῷ ὁ καρπός: παραδῷ, 3rd pers., sg., aor. subj., παραδίδωμι, ‘permit’ (apparently a NT usage: EDNT, p. 19, s.v. 4a).
ὁ καρπός, a collective sing., ‘fruit’ (sometimes used in Homer & always in Hesiod of barley or wheat: see LSJ s.v.1). Cf. καρποφορεῖ (v. 28 above), lit. ‘bears fruit’.
[30] ἐν τίνι παραβολῇ παραβάλωμεν αὐτήν: ‘through which juxtaposition/ comparison should we juxtapose/ compare it (sc. the Kingdom of God)?’ A cognate construction in which the vb and noun are etym. related.
[34] ἐπέλυε πάντα: ἐπιλύω, lit., ‘Ι loose, untie’; here, fig. ‘solve, explain, interpret’ (cf. LSJ s.v. 2). It is interesting that the mid. vc can mean ‘I break the seal of a letter to read it’.
Insights into Biblical Greek Grammar and Syntax 