Mar 4:3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:
Alternative: Hear this. You see, one who sowed went out to sow.

This is the first line to one of the few analogies in which Christ explains his use of symbols. As such, it is one of the beginning "key to the kingdom" because it illustrates a lot about how Christ uses symbolic language to express certain ideas.

It starts by calling attention to two senses: sound and sight. Hearing symbolizes mental knowledge (including the use of symbols), which only people have because it takes intelligence and awareness to comprehend. Hearing can communicate ideas that cannot be physically seen, but what you hear is not always true. Sight refers to physical understanding, which only requires eyes, that is, the physical equipment involved. It cannot communicate deeper truths that are hidden, but physical evidence is harder to fake. When Christ wants to verify the truth of something, he tells people to report both what they have heard and seen (Mat 11:4).

Christ uses the specific word used here for hearing (akouô ) to refer to what men learn from teaching. When he refers to what people learn from scripture, he uses this word (Mat 5:21-Mat 5:43). Christ, however, realizes that not everyone can understand what is said because hearing is a more challenging type of knowledge. "He that has ears to hear, let him hear. (Mat 11:15).

The word used for "seeing" here is idou , which appears frequently in the Gospels, but much more rarely does Christ use it. When he does, it is either to physically illustrate a point as he does here, to call up a mental image (Mat 23:38), or, more frequently, putting the term in the mouth of people in his parables (Mat 25:6). Christ virtually never uses it to call attention to his own works for which he uses a different term, blepō, which is an even more tangible and physical word for seeing things.

"Seeds" are Christ's symbol for information in general and spiritual information, that is, the good news, specifically. "Going out," means going out into the world.

"Hearken" is from akouô (akouo), which means "hear of," "hear tell of," "what one actually hears," "know by hearsay," "listen to," "give ear to," "hear and understand," and "understand."

"Behold" is from idou (idou), which means "to behold," "to see," and "to perceive." It is a form of the verb eido, which means "to see."

"Went forth" is from exerchomai, which means "to come or go out of " or "to come out."

"Sower" and "Sow" are from speirô (speiro), which means "to sow a seed," "to beget offspring," "to scatter like a seed," and "to sow a field."