'Sow' in the Bible
Then Joseph said to the people, “Behold, I have today bought you and your land for Pharaoh; now, here is seed for you, and you may sow the land.
“You shall sow your land for six years and gather in its yield,
Also you shall observe the Feast of the Harvest of the first fruits of your labors from what you sow in the field; also the Feast of the Ingathering at the end of the year when you gather in the fruit of your labors from the field.
‘You are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.
Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop,
but during the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard.
You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines.
But if you say, “What are we going to eat on the seventh year if we do not sow or gather in our crops?”
I, in turn, will do this to you: I will appoint over you a sudden terror, consumption and fever that will waste away the eyes and cause the soul to pine away; also, you will sow your seed uselessly, for your enemies will eat it up.
For the land, into which you are entering to possess it, is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, where you used to sow your seed and water it with your foot like a vegetable garden.
“You shall surely tithe all the produce from what you sow, which comes out of the field every year.
“You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, or all the produce of the seed which you have sown and the increase of the vineyard will become defiled.
‘Then this shall be the sign for you: you will eat this year what grows of itself, in the second year what springs from the same, and in the third year sow, reap, plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.
“According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquityAnd those who sow trouble harvest it.
And sow fields and plant vineyards,And gather a fruitful harvest.
Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting.
Does he not level its surfaceAnd sow dill and scatter cumminAnd plant wheat in rows,Barley in its place and rye within its area?
Then He will give you rain for the seed which you will sow in the ground, and bread from the yield of the ground, and it will be rich and plenteous; on that day your livestock will graze in a roomy pasture.
How blessed will you be, you who sow beside all waters,Who let out freely the ox and the donkey.
“Then this shall be the sign for you: you will eat this year what grows of itself, in the second year what springs from the same, and in the third year sow, reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem,“Break up your fallow ground,And do not sow among thorns.
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast.
You shall not build a house, and you shall not sow seed and you shall not plant a vineyard or own one; but in tents you shall dwell all your days, that you may live many days in the land where you sojourn.’
“I will sow her for Myself in the land.I will also have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion,And I will say to those who were not My people,‘You are My people!’And they will say, ‘You are my God!’”
For they sow the windAnd they reap the whirlwind.The standing grain has no heads;It yields no grain.Should it yield, strangers would swallow it up.
Sow with a view to righteousness,Reap in accordance with kindness;Break up your fallow ground,For it is time to seek the LordUntil He comes to rain righteousness on you.
“You will sow but you will not reap.You will tread the olive but will not anoint yourself with oil;And the grapes, but you will not drink wine.
Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
And He spoke many things to them in parables, saying, “Behold, the sower went out to sow;
The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’
“And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed.
“But his master answered and said to him, ‘You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed.
“The sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell beside the road, and it was trampled under foot and the birds of the air ate it up.
Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds!
for I was afraid of you, because you are an exacting man; you take up what you did not lay down and reap what you did not sow.’
He *said to him, ‘By your own words I will judge you, you worthless slave. Did you know that I am an exacting man, taking up what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow?
You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies;
and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else.
It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”