Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.
Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? That this was intended to express the actual interval between the time when our Lord was speaking and the harvest-time that year, we cannot doubt. The arguments against it, by Alford and others, as if this were a proverbial speech without any definite reference to the actual tame of its utterance-which to us is scarcely intelligible-seem feeble, and the best critics and harmonists regard it here as a note of the actual season of the year at which our Lord spoke-late in December, but more probably January, and, as Stanley affirms, from his own observation, even so late as February; though the year he refers to was perhaps an exceptional one, and the month of February seems too late.
Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.
'It wants four months to harvest, ye would say at this season of the natural harvest: but lift up your eyes and look upon those fields in the light of another husbandry, for, lo! in that sense, it wants not four months nor four days, for they are even now white to harvest, ready for the sickle.' The simple beauty of this language is only surpassed by the glow of holy emotion in the Redeemer's own soul which it expresses. It refers to the ripeness of these Sycharites for accession to Him, and the joy of this great Lord of the reapers over the anticipated ingathering. O could we but so "lift up our eyes and look" upon many fields abroad and at home, which to dull sense appear unpromising, as He beheld those of Samaria, what movements, now scarce in embryo, and accessions to Christ, seemingly far distant, might we not discern as quite near at hand, and thus, amidst difficulties and discouragements too much for nature to sustain, be cheered-as our Lord Himself was in circumstances far more overwhelming-with "songs in the night"! [It is surprising that Tischendorf should adhere to the punctuation of some certainly ancient manuscripts and versions here, in connecting the word "already" - eedee (G2235) - with the following verse; no doubt, because the usual place of that adverb is before, not after, kai (G2532). But as this would utterly destroy the sense of our Lord's statements in the two verses, so in the matter of mere punctuation the manuscripts and versions are of no authority; and we are as good judges as the ancient transcribers and translators where the punctuation in every case ought to be. Both Lachmann and Tregelles follow here the punctuation of the received text.]