Then says he to his disciples, “The harvest indeed is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth labourers into his harvest.” '
Jesus saw the people who came to hear Him, or who wished to come to hear Him, as a harvest to be gathered in (compare John 4:35-36). In His view many of them were there just waiting for someone to come and harvest them in, and it was for that that He was training His disciples. And that was the vision that He wanted to give to them. In Matthew, as we have already seen, the harvest points to the gathering in of the good wheat to God's barn (Matthew 3:12). The Pharisees may have seen the people as chaff to be burned, but Jesus saw them as wheat to be harvested (see Matthew 3:12 where both are depicted as the Coming One's task). But whereas John had depicted this as an ‘end time' event because he held the same mistaken views as the disciples and everyone else in Judaism who were waiting for the ‘consolation of Israel', Jesus makes clear that it is a process that is to begin now and is to continue as more and more labourers are sent out into the harvest fields. The ‘last days' were here, but they were to be a continuing process as more and more harvest is gathered in. Nevertheless, as He will make clear later, that harvest time will in the end also result in judgment on the unrighteous, on those whose lives are more like weeds (Matthew 13:30; Matthew 13:39-42). The ‘Lord of the harvest' here is clearly God as representing the owner of the fields being harvested. It is His ‘field' that is being harvested. Jesus is the Harvester, and the disciples are to assist Him in the harvesting.
These actual words appear to reflect a standard procedure followed by Jesus when He was commissioning His disciples for ministry (compare Luke 10:2 before He sends out the seventy which is almost the same). It is apparent that these words were spoken to all the disciples indicating that they were to gather to pray, and then when they had done so, those appointed would be sent out. But all would as a result feel that they had a part in the mission. Compare how He also uses similar words prior to sending out the seventy, once the number of trained disciples has grown (Luke 10:2; see also Acts 13:2).
By this time of prayer He joins all His disciples with Him in what is happening, and brings home to all of them the greatness of the waiting harvest (compare John 4:35-36), and the fewness of those who genuinely labour to gather it in. So all the disciples are made to be involved in the sending out of their fellow-workers, although it is very much with a view to themselves also one day being a part of it.
And as those who are sent go out they also must carry a burden on their hearts that others might join them in the task. So that even as they go they too are to pray that God will send out even more into the harvest field. Here we have a clear reminder that Jesus is building up to the future. He is preparing all His disciples for what lies ahead, and seeking to establish a multiplying effect. But He knows that as yet not all are ready to go, and He will initially therefore commence with a small band of twelve. The number indicates His intention. They are to go out to the ‘twelve tribes of Israel' (Matthew 19:28), that is, initially to the Jews. Of course, the ‘twelve tribes of Israel' was even then just a picturesque conception. Apart from a few who clung to their identity with them, many of the tribes had almost disappeared. Not many traced their ancestry to the Northern tribes. What being a member of ‘the twelve tribes' really signified was a claim to be the seed promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as defined in Old Testament terms. But what that meant in reality was all who had entered within the covenant, whether by birth or choice, for the idea that all were descended from Abraham was but a myth. Few could prove that descent (Jesus was One Who could - Matthew 1:1-17). They were descended not from Abraham, but from members of Abraham's family tribe; from the mixed multitude (Exodus 12:38) who had become a part of Israel at Sinai; and from those who had later attached themselves to Israel in accordance with Exodus 12:48-49. They were really a conglomerate nation. But all saw themselves as the seed of Abraham.
And now the same ‘twelve tribes' (the future seed of Abraham) are to come under the authority of the Apostles (Matthew 19:28). And only those who enter under the Kingly Rule of Heaven will thus be members of the new ‘twelve tribes'. They will be the new nation which replaces the old (Matthew 21:43). Those who reject Him will be cast off (see e.g. John 15:1-6; Romans 9-11). Their dust will be shaken off the feet of the disciples (Matthew 10:14). And from the old will arise a purified nation. It is only later that the disciples will discover that God's notion of the twelve tribes, while seeming smaller, is in fact larger than theirs (James 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1), and that the seed of Abraham will be increased by Gentiles becoming His seed by faith (Galatians 3:29), although even that is still founded on this idea. But at this stage the disciples would have seen it as signifying mainly that the Jews who responded to Jesus, along with a few proselytes, would form the ‘twelve tribes of Israel', the true seed o Abraham.
So here for the first time through this exhortation to pray that we find in Matthew 9:37-38 He brings the many into cooperating in the sending out of the few. They had already been taught to pray, ‘May Your Name be hallowed, may your Kingly Rule come, may your will be done', now they were to pray for the sending forth of labourers in order to accomplish that very purpose. So He is already building up the sense of community and fellowship among His disciples. This is no longer simply a matter of teaching and stirring men and women so as to send them back to their farms and their occupations to carry on with their lives as usual and await the Coming One, as John had done. It is the implanting of a new vision. It is the commencement of a great new mission. For as He has demonstrated, now that the Coming One is here, things can never be the same again.
At first in Acts this vision of going out into the harvest field will be partly lost sight of. It will soon be apparent there that the Apostles were quite ready to settle in Jerusalem and enjoy their great success, thinking that they were doing what He had asked, (like us they were ever foolish and slow to act). But then God would step in and thrust them out from there and make them go elsewhere, we know not where. (But He knew). For the last we know of them is in Acts 15, and in a few letters. But it would be a mistake to think that they just disappeared. They went out effectively sowing the seed of the word of God. And under that sowing grew up a healthy young church, the new Israel. And we know that Papias (early second century AD) knew many who had known the Apostles, and demonstrated that their words were still revered. Indeed for the first fifty years after the death of Jesus they were the living prime sources of His words. But because all the attention was rightly on Christ (the hugeness of the idea of His coming blacked out everything else) and not on them, their doings were not seen as important except in so far as it indicated His pre-eminence. And had it not been for Acts, which demonstrated how the Kingly Rule of God reached Rome, and Paul's letters, we would have known almost nothing about these intervening years, and the huge work that the Apostles accomplished. But that is something that is rather revealed by its product, the early church. However, quite rightly, in their eyes Jesus had to increase, and they decrease.
Jesus also wisely knew that by teaching the Apostles to pray like this He would ensure the continual renewing of their own impetus. For once their initial enthusiasm had died down, or once the numbers who had to be reached began to get on top of them, this would be the incentive that would keep them going, and the prayer to which they could turn in order to deal with their concerns. We too are to have the same burden. And as we pray we will similarly find ourselves thrust out to play our part in the harvest field. This picture of the harvest will soon play a great part in His parables (chapter 13).