Yet with Divine patience He bore with them: My meat is, that I may do the Will of Him that sent Me, and that I may accomplish (bring to a perfect end) His work.' To the disciples that work appeared still in the far future. To them it seemed as yet little more than seed-time; the green blade was only sprouting; the harvest of such a Messianic Kingdom as they expected was still months distant. To correct their mistake, the Divine Teacher, as so often, and as best adapted to His hearers, chose His illustration from what was visible around. To show their meaning more clearly, we venture to reverse the order of the sentences which Jesus spoke: Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look [observantly] at the fields, that they are white to the harvest. [But] do ye not say (viz. in your hearts [2006] ) that there are yet four months, and the harvest cometh?' The words will appear the more striking, if (with Professor Westcott) we bear in mind that, perhaps at that very moment, the Samaritans, coming to Him from Sychar, were appearing in sight.
But we also regard it as marking the time, when this conversation took place. Generally the words, yet four months, and then cometh the harvest,' are regarded either as a proverbial expression, or as indicating, that the Lord spake at the Well of Jacob four months before the harvest-time - that is, about the month of January, if the barley-harvest, or in February, if the wheat-harvest, was meant. The suggestion that it was a proverb may be dismissed, first, because there is not a trace of such a proverb, and then because, to give it even the scantiest meaning, it is necessary to supply: Between seed-time and harvest there are four months,' which is not true, since in Palestine about six months intervene between them. On the other hand, for reasons explained in another place, [2007] we conclude, that it could not have been January or February. when Jesus was in Sychar. But why not reverse the common theory, and see in the second clause, introduced by the words, Behold! lift up your eyes and observe,' a mark of the time and circumstances; while the expression, Do ye not say, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest,' would be understood as parabolically spoken? Admittedly, one of the two clauses is a literal mark of time, and the other is spoken parabolically. But there is no reason why the second clause may not mark the time, while on independent grounds we must conclude, [2008] that Christ returned from Judæa to Galilee in the early summer.
Passing from this point, we notice how the Lord further unfolded His own lesson of present harvesting, and their inversion of what was sowing, and what reaping time. Already' [2009] he that reaped received wages, and gathered fruit unto eternal life (which is the real reward of the Great Reaper, the seeing of the travail of His soul), so that in this instance the sower rejoiced equally [2010] as the reaper. And, in this respect, the otherwise cynical proverb, that one was the sower, another the reaper of his sowing, found a true application. It was indeed so, that the servants of Christ were sent to reap what others had sown, and to enter into their labour. One had sowed, another would reap. And yet, as in this instance of the Samaritans, the sower would rejoice as well as the reaper; nay, both would rejoice together, in the gathered fruit unto eternal life. And so the sowing in tears is on the spiritual field often mingled with the harvest of gladness, and to the spiritual view both are really one. Four months' do not intervene between them; so that, although one may sow and another reap, yet the sower seeth that harvest for which the harvester gets wages, and rejoices with him in the fruit which is gathered into the eternal storehouse.