The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 339

juet whBt we might expect. He who requires UR to u8e hel\lth anrl etrength in rl0ing the will of God, firet of all so used health and strength himself. And how we bencGt by the result or all this I There was much work to be done; Jesus was capable of much work, nnd so h3 did it. There wns no wasted effort and energy; all hi~ conversations nud dealings with men were directed to a certain aim. Where should we lrnve been, if he had not bent every energy and thought of life to the finishing of his Father's work? All things had to be mnde subordinate to the mission. Jesus was speaking fresh from the gladness and encouragement he had got, because of his talk with the Samaritan woman. He who pointed his disciples to the fields white to harvest had done some reaping by that very talk; and he wants his disciples to aim at reaping also. We must have the bread that perisheth, and it will not come like the suushine and the rnin-we must work to get it. But always beyond the bread aml the pleasure of eating, and the strength to which the eating ministers, there mnst be the service of God. Even in a matter of routine and habit, like eating and drinking, let us aim to do the will of him who made us and saved us, and get strength for doing such work as may be useful in his kingdom.-Y. Vers. 35--38.-The two harvests. I. A SEARCHING LOOK INTO THE PAST. There can be little doubt that, when Jesus said the fields were white already to harvest, he meant his disciples to consider the company of Samaritans eagerly coming out of the city towards them. Why were they coming? Jesus knew that the coming was not sufficiently explained by saying that the woman's report had stirred up the curiosity of the people in the city. Jesus rejoiced in the fresh proof he had got of how people everywhere were waiting for the Messiah. Even the Samaritan was waiting, and, if the Samaritan, how much more the Jew I People were ready to run in any direction where they might find one to answer their expectations. And Jesus looked upon this expectant state of mind as the harvest of what had been sown long ago. He did not forget his Father's faithful messengers in ages past, with their testimonies, messnges, and predictions, And so we may be sure Jesus would ever have us consider how the present is the result of tbe past. The valuable and gladdening things we have to-day did not spring up all in a night.. This faith in a coming Messi:i.h had been growing for generations. At first the faith of only o few, it had come to be the faith of more, and then the faith of all. II. 'l'HE PECULIAR WORK OF TIIE DISCIPLES. They had to be in readiness for a people who, more or less, were ready for them. When harvest-time comes, how the reapers are on the look out! Reaping is not like some sorts of work, it cannot be spread over a long term. And these disciples were to be just as reapers, co-reapers with Jesus himself. If the farmer has a large extent of ground under corn, he cannot reap it all with his own bands; he must have helpers proportioned to the ground that has to be covered. While Jesus was in the body of his humiliation, he worked with bodily restrictions upon him. Hence the need of colleagues who could do what he was not able to do himself, going forth each one of them, specially authorized and endowed to communicate the blessings of the Christ to needy and cager Israel. We must ever be on the look out for harvest-work. III. A PATHETIC ELEMENT IN AGRICULTURE. Of all who go out to sow in the sowing-time, not all survive to the harvest-time. This must happen every year, and so no proverb is more likely to start into utterance than that which speaks of the sower being one, and the reaper another. But when Jesus comes to dilate on the higher harvest, he speaks of o state of things where nearly always the ~ower is one, and the reaper another. The necessity of the case makes it so. Superstitions and traditions have to be overthrown. But when the sower for God well understands that he cannot also reap, then all is right. He does his work with his own joy in the doing of it; ho does the work into which God hns put him; ho is sure of the equity, nay more, of the love, of his Master; nnd thus he is sure also that the due reward will duly come. The sower and the reaper will rejoice together; and what a new, unimaginable expe- rience that will be! Here sowers have a measure of rejoicing together, and reapers ll Dlensure of rejoicing together; but the sowers and reapers must be all together, lookiug upon the work before they cnn see it in nil its wisdom and fulness. The earliest prophet of th!' old covcnnnt must clasp hands with the latest servant of the new.-Y.  EXPOSITION. CHAPTER V, pnmholi~nl nn,1 tho other literRl, and that tho disciple• might be nnticipnting II spiri- Here commences the soeond division of tual hnrwst nfter four months, and Jesus the ~spel (eh. v.-xi.) drew from the physioally ripening corn-fields his compnrisou. This seems to we entirely II. THE CONFLlCT WITH THE CHOSEN con(rnry to our Lord's ordinary method; PEOPLE IN JE!lUSALEM, GALILEE, .L"'ID and that the disciples were in too oamal o. JERCSALEM, TO THE DEATH-SENTENCE mood to be credited with an anticipation of RECOIIDI::D BY THE 8ANHEDRBI. spiritual results in Snmario. o.t nil. Those who think that eh. iv. 35 does give o. hint ·vcrs. 1-47.-1. Christ pror,ed., by signs of four months preceding harvest, pface the and tronders and witimonies, to be Source journey between the middle of December nnd of l(fe. the middle of Je.nuary. To my mind there Vers. 1-9.-(1) A sign on a paralyzed is consequently no difficulty in imagining body and an unsmceptibl,e soul. that when those four months should have ·ver. 1.-The journey to Jernsalcm is been spent, o.nd before the regular calling uid to have taken place at the time of "a nnd appointment of the twelve apostles, our feast." or " the feast of the Jews." 1 After Lord should he.ve gone up to the feast-one these things (µ.,Ta. TczuTa). Suggesting a of the feasts which did summon the adult number of e'>ents, not necessarily connected men to the metropolis. This is the view of with each other. (For tl,e latter idea of a Irenreus, Luther, Grotius, Lampe, Neander, period expressed by µ£Ta. .-oirro, see eh. ii. Hengstenherg, Conder, and many others. 12 nnd xi. 7, 11 ; for µ.era. .,.,.;;.,..., see eh. vi. Wieseler, Hug, Meyer, Lange, Godet, I and :i:xi. 1. etc.) There was the feut of Weiss, Farrar, Watkins, think that the the Jews. Now, " the fenst" of the Jews Feast of Purim, celebrated on the 15th of could hardly be any other than the second Adar (or March) (2 Mace. xv. 36), in com- Passover, while eh. vi. 4 wonld indicate a memoration of the deliverance of the people third. " The feast" referred to in eh. iv. from the evil intention of He.man (Esth. ix. 4.1 undoubte,lly means the first Pa,sover. 21, etc.), was that national fast o.nd feast "A feast " would leave the question open, which Jesus thus honoured. Purim was not though by no means excluding positirely one of the divinely Appointed festivals, hut the second Passover. as the anarthronsness it is also stated thn t the Lord undoul;>tedly of 1he word might be chosen with a view attended one of the nationo.l e.nd recently to call special attention to it. However, appointed feslivals, that of Dedication the indefinite ioprl, has been identified ( eh. x. 22). The more serious objection is bv commental.ora with everv feast in the that it could, if desired, have been cele- calendar, BO there (lll,n be no final settlement brated quite e.s well in Galilee ae in Jeru- of the problem. If the feast be the Pass- salem, and that the method of celebration over, then our Lord's ministry lasted e. little seemed contrary to the whole spirit of the more than three yea.rs. If not, it must be Master, and the whole tone of the dis- one or other of the feasts that elapsed be- course which followed. It is said that tween the Passovers of eh. ii. and eh. vi. part of the ritual of the feast was the free Edersheim, with many others, refuses to and frequent gifts made spontaneously accept any ehronological hint in eh. iv. 35, by one to another. Westcott prefers. the and therefore throws the journey from Je- autumn Feast of Trnmpets as more suit- rusalem to Galilee a few weeks after the able on several grounds than the Passover, first Passover, in the early summer, e.nd (1) because of the absence of the article,- supposes tbJl.t J eBllB returned to the unnamed thie, however, is very problematical (see feast in the autumn. Several critics say of TiBchendorf, 8th edit.); (2) because when eh. iv. 35, one part of the sentence must be at the Feast of 'fa.berna.cles ( eh. vii. 2) the incident described in eh. v. is still in lively 1 'H lop.-71 stands in Tischendorf (8th recollection; (3) because the gree.t events edit.), with 1/t, C, E, F, etc., and fifty cursives, of the Feast of Trumpets, the commemora• Coptic,Sahidic. Bnt R.T., Tregelles,Alford, tion of the Creation and the Lo.w-giving, place the 71 in the margin, and follow in text correspond with the theme of the Lord's A, B, D, G, K, etc., e.nd Origeu's express great discourse. The fnctthat this pe.rticular mention of the e.narthrous form and the miracle on the sabbath shou1'1 be referred difficulties involved in it. On the other to a few months later in Jerusalem, on hand, Ireniens discusses the point, and Christ's third nppearaneo there, is not im- regards ihe feut Lero mentioned as the probable, if we bear in mind that Judme.n Passover. emiBearies in Galilee he.d been bitterly ne- Cl!T, V. 1--47.) THE GOSPEL .ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN. 205