Stony ground is one of the four soils in the Parable of the Sower, and it pictures the shallow response of the physical nation to the gospel of the Kingdom. Seed that falls on stony places has little earth, so it springs up immediately but has no depth. When the sun rises it is scorched, and because it has no root it withers away (Matthew 13:5-6). Jesus spoke this parable to the great multitudes, the remnant citizenry of the earthly Kingdom of God, as a rebuke of the nation. John the Baptist, Jesus, and the apostles found some interest and even some willingness to repent after a fashion and be baptized, but little depth, because the people's hearts were far from their King. Stony ground is one of three scenarios in four in which the ground produced nothing of value. Only the good soil, which hears the word and understands it, bears fruit. All the soils receive the Word, but God prepares the soil of only some. The masses lacked ears to hear, though they claimed Abraham as their father. They wanted a messiah who would improve their political condition and leave their religious system and moral state unchallenged. They fulfilled Isaiah 6:9-10 and could not receive the truth. The disciples, by contrast, were the good soil that God had prepared.