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Joh_4:35. The approaching townspeople now showed how greatly already the ἵνα ποιῶ was in process of accomplishment. They were coming through the corn-field, now tinged with green; and thus they make the fields, which for four months would not yield the harvest, in a higher sense already white harvest-fields. Jesus directs the attention of His disciples to this; and with the beautiful picture thus presented in nature, He connects further appropriate instructions, onwards to Joh_4:38.
οὐχ ὑμεῖς λέγετε ] that is, at the present season of the year ( ἔπι ). The ὑμεῖς stands contrasted with what Jesus was about to say, though the antithesis is not expressed in what follows by ἐγώ , because the antithesis of the time stands in the foreground.[194] The supposition that the disciples had, during their walk, made an observation of this kind to each other (and this in a theological sense with reference to hoping and waiting), as Hengstenberg suggests, is neither hinted at, nor is in harmony with the Praesens λέγετε .
ὅτι ἔτι … ἔρχεται ] Harvest began in the middle of Nisan (Lightfoot, v. 101), i.e. in April. Consequently the words must have been spoken in December, when Jesus, as the seed-time fell in Marchesvan (the beginning of November), might be surrounded by sown fields already showing tints of green, the harvest of which, however, could not be expected for four months to come. We render therefore: there are still four months (to wait, until) the harvest comes. As to the paratactic expression with καὶ instead of a particle of time, see Stallbaum, ad Plat. Symp. p. 220 C; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. 881. Concerning the bearing of the passage upon the chronology, see Wieseler, Synopse, p. 214 ff. The taking of the words as proverbial (Lightfoot, Grotius, Tittmann, etc., even Lücke, Tholuck, de Wette, Krafft, Chronol. p. 73), as if the saying were a general one: “from seed-time to harvest is four months” (seed-time would thus be made to extend into December; comp. Bava Mezia, f. 106, 2), is forbidden, not only by the fact that such a proverb occurs nowhere else, but by the fact that seed-time is not here mentioned, so that ἔτι (comp. the following ἬΔΗ ) does not refer to a point of time to be understood, but to the time then present, and by the fact, likewise, that the emphasized ὙΜΕῖς would be inexplicable and strange in an ordinary proverb (comp. rather Mat_16:2).[195] It is worth while to notice how long Jesus had been in Judaea (since April).
τετράμηνος ] sc. χρόνος ; see Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 549.
τὰς χώρας ] regiones. They had just been sown, and the young seed was now springing up, and yet in another sense they were white for being reaped; for, by the spectacle of the townspeople who were now coming out to Christ across these fields, it appeared in concrete manifestation before the eyes of the disciples (hence ἐπάρατε τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς , κ . τ . λ .), that now for men the time of conversion (of ripeness) was come in the near establishment of the Messiah’s kingdom, into which, like the harvest produce, they might be gathered (comp. Mat_3:12). Jesus, therefore, here gives a prophetic view, not only of the near conversion of the Samaritans (Act_8:5 ff.); but, rising above the concrete fact now before them, consequently from the people of Sychar who were flocking through the fields of springing green, His prophetic eye takes in all mankind, whose conversion, begun by Him, would be fully accomplished by His disciples. See especially Joh_4:38. Godet wrongly denies this wider prophetic reference, and confines the words to the immediate occurrence, as an improvised harvest feast. Such an explanation does not suffice for what follows, Joh_4:36-38, which was suggested, indeed, by the phenomenon before them, but embraces the whole range of service on the part of Christ’s disciples in their relation to their Lord. If we do not allow this wider reference, Joh_4:38 especially will be of very strange import.
ὅτι ] not for, but according to common attraction (Winer, p. 581 [E. T. p. 781 f.]), that they are, etc.
ἤδη ] even now, at this moment, and not after four months; put at the end for emphasis (Stallbaum, ad Plat. Phaedr. p. 256 E; ad Menex. p. 235 A). Comp. 1Jn_4:3; Kühner, ad Xen. Anab. i. 8. 16. Not, therefore, to be joined with what follows (A. C.* D. E. L. à . Codd. It. al., Schulz, Tisch., Ewald, Ebrard, Godet), which would make the correlation with ἜΤΙ inappropriate. For the rest, comp. Ovid, Fast. v. 357: “maturis albescit messis aristis.”
[194] The versatility of thought often in Greek changes the things contrasted as the sentence proceeds. See Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. 163; Schaef. ad Timocr. p. 763, 13.
[195] This also is in answer to Hilgenfeld, who takes ἔτι with reference to the present, and not the future, and interprets it: four months are not yet gone, and yet the harvest is already here. This strange rendering derives no support whatever from Joh_11:39.