Note that as in verse 22, As for puts the focus on the seed. Therefore another way the sentence can be rendered is “As for the seed that was scattered on the good soil, that is like what happens when a person hears the word and understands it….”

What was sown on good soil pertains to the seeds of verse 8 (Good News Translation “the seeds sown in the good soil”). For good soil, see Matthew 13.8.

This is, an equational marker indicating a metaphor, is altered to a simile by Good News Translation through the rendering “stand for” (see also verse 19). Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “with others it eventually ends up like the seed which was sown on good ground.” Barclay translates “The picture of the seed which was sown on the good ground represents the man who hears the word and understands it.” Barclay also structures the last sentence of this verse in such a manner as to retain “the man” as the subject and at the same time to indicate clearly that a hundredfold … sixty … thirty are references to the original amount of seed placed on the soil: “He indeed bears a crop which produces sometimes a hundred times, sometimes sixty times, sometimes thirty times as much as he received.”

The idea of a person bearing fruit can be difficult for many readers. Translators generally find that using similes is very helpful, as in “he will do many good things, just like the seeds that produced plants with one hundred or sixty or thirty grains” (see Matthew 13.8 for the appropriate plant language) or “his life will become like the seeds that produced plants that had one hundred or sixty or thirty seeds each.” But see also the Barclay example cited above.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .