Jesus tells a parable about a farmer scattering seed on the ground. The seed grows although the farmer does not know how. First a stalk appears, then a head with full grain. When the grain is ripe, the farmer harvests it with a sickle.

1. Mark 4.26-29Parable of the Growing Seed

3. Jesus also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground...Ploughing, sowing, and reaping. Tombs of the Kings—Thebes J. Gardner Wilkinson, A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians, Volume 2 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), 40.

4. ... and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.

5. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.http://visual.merriam-webster.com/images/plants-gardening/plants/cereals/wheat.jpg

6. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

8. http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/giorgio.vasari/giusto/giusto76.jpgSicklean instrument with a simple or compound blade set as a small curve and rigged with a handle to allow short horizontal strokes for cutting grass, weeds, or grains. Early models recovered are compound blades of serrated flint segments fastened in a wooden frame with bitumen. Later models include metal blades, but the use of flint continued long into the Bronze and Iron ages. A quick sweeping arc at the stems held by the other hand would be an efficient use of the tool. Biblical references to its use in harvest are numerous (Deut. 16:9; 23:25; Jer. 50:16; Joel 3:13; Mark 4:29) and it appears metaphorically as a tool of the harvest of human life at the Last Judgment (Rev. 14:14-20).R.S.B. R.S.B. R.S.B. Roger S. Boraas, Ph.D.; Professor of Religion; Upsala College; East Orange, New Jersey Paul J. Achtemeier et al., Harper's Bible Dictionary (1st ed.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 949.