Matthew 13:8
But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
But others fell into good ground,.... Not beaten and trodden by the feet of men, nor stony, nor thorny, but well broke up, manured, and tilled; which designs good, honest hearted hearers who become so by the Spirit and grace of God; who with a spiritual understanding, experience, savour, and relish, what they hear; see
and brought forth fruit, some an hundred fold, some sixty fold, some thirty fold: some seeds produced an hundred, others sixty, and others thirty. The first of these especially was a large increase, but what was sometimes had, and which Isaac received in Gerar, in the land of the Philistines, Genesis 26:12 and is what Pliny says {g} of Byzacium, a country of the Lybiphoenicians, that it yielded an hundred fold to its husbandmen; and of such fruitfulness was the land of Israel, of which the Jewish doctors say some things incredible: they tell us a story {h} of
"one that sowed a measure of vetches, or pease, Nyao twam
vlv hvew, "and it produced three hundred measures"; they say unto him, the Lord hath begun to bless thee, &c.''
Here, in the parable, these various increases intend the different degrees of fruitfulness in gracious souls; for though the fruits of grace, in believers, are of the same quality, yet not of the same quantity. Some believers are grown to a greater maturity than others; some are but little children, some are young men, some are fathers.
{g} Nat. Hist. 1. 5. c. 4.
{h} T. Hieros. Peah, fol. 20. 2.