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Joh 4:35. Τετράμηνος, four months) Very few copies have τετράμηνον.[85] Τετράμηνος is used in the common gender, as δίμηνος, ἓκμηνος, ἑξάμηνος; see Scapula on μήν. Also Glassius in this passage so reads. Μετὰ τὴν τετραήμερον, Arist. 3 polit. ii., p. 214.-ἔτι τετράμηνός ἐστι, καὶ ὁ θερισμὸς ἔρχεται, as yet there are four months, and the harvest cometh) καὶ, and, is equivalent to until: as ch. Joh 7:33, “Yet a little while I am with you, and I go unto Him that sent Me;” Joh 14:19, “Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more;” Gen 40:13, ἔτι τρεῖς ἡμέραι, καὶ μνησθήσεται Φαραώ, etc.; Jon 3:4 “Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” These are the four months, Nisan in its latter part, the whole of Ijar, the whole of Sivan, and Thammuz in its earlier part. [Coresponding to our April, May, June, and July.-V. g.] The wheat harvest, which is called actually the harvest, differs from the barley harvest. The beginning of the one was about the time of Passover: that of the other was considerably subsequent; Exo 9:25; Exo 9:31-32, “The barley was smitten, for the barley was in the ear; but the wheat and the rye were not smitten; for they were not grown up;” to wit, in Palestine, about the time of Pentecost, Exo 34:22, “Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the first fruits of wheat-harvest.” Moreover, the harvest was later in Galilee than in Judea. And so the feast ordained by Jeroboam was later [than that in Judea], 1Ki 12:32, “Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah;” comp. Lev 23:34, “The fifteenth day of the seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles.” And they were generally Galileans, to whom the words were addressed, Do ye not say! Finally, in that year in which these words were spoken, the first day of Thammuz was the 13th of June, which was very speedily [early], for on the following year, the 6th day of June had Pentecost itself in fine [i.e. Pentecost was not till the 6th of June], the time when wheat harvest commences.[86] In fact, therefore, the wheat harvest of the Galileans, in the fourth month after this discourse, began quickly enough [to meet the requirements of the case] in the month Thammuz. Read in addition, Harmon. Evang. § 27.[87])-λέγω ὑμῖν, I say to you) This formula indicates in this passage, that His speech is figurative. The antithesis to the words here is, ὑμεῖς λέγετε, ye say, who look more to external things. So Joh 4:32, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.”-τὰς χώρας, the regions [fields]) The Samaritans are described as ripe for believing, Joh 4:39, “Many of the Samaritans believed on Him, for the saying of the woman,” etc., who were at the time being seen on the plain [sc. coming towards Him]; Joh 4:30, “Then they went out of the city, and came unto Him.” The natural, though in progress, is at a greater distance than the Gospel harvest.
[85] The reading of Rec. Text. But τετράμηνος ABCD Orig.-E. and T.
[86] What Beng. wishes to prove is, that Thammuz, this year, was the month of the Galilean harvest; for the first of Thammuz this year was the 13th of June, which was very soon for Thammuz commencing, inasmuch as, on the following year, even Pentecost itself (seven weeks after Passover, or the 15th of Nisan; i.e. early in Sivan) did not occur till 6th of June: so that Pentecost (early in Sivan) which was the harvest-time, being the 6th of June, Thammuz would be considerably later. But in the year when our Lord speaks, Thammuz comes soon enough for the late harvest of Galilee to have occurred in it.-E. and T.
[87] Whoever desires a further vindication of this view, may be referred to my Beleuchtung der Erinnerungen, etc., § 29, p. 111, etc., and especially p. 116, etc., where there is brought forward from Harm. Ev., Ed. ii., that more recent conjecture of the departed Author, by which he believed, there was intimated in the speech of the Saviour rather that harvest (the barley harvest) which claimed the month Nisan to itself, than that which claimed Thammuz. In which case this is the sense of the words: You disciples, with the rest of men, when sowing time is past, are wont to say, Still there are four months, and harvest cometh: but truly the spiritual harvest, however long delayed, even immediately succeeds the sowing time.-E. B.