Mark 4:15 - Exposition

Straightway cometh Satan . St. Matthew ( Matthew 13:19 ) says, "then cometh ( ὁ πονηρὸς ) the evil one ;" the same expression which our Lord uses in the Lord's Prayer, and which helps to justify the English rendering in the Revised Version there. As the seed failing by the wayside is refused by the hard and well-trodden ground, and so is readily picked up by the birds; in like manner, the seed of God's Word, falling upon a heart rendered callous by the custom of sinning, is straightway snatched away by "the evil one," urging the heart again to its accustomed sins. Well may we pray to be delivered from this "evil one."