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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
"Say ye not, that there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look upon the fields, for they are white already to harvest." Behold, He again by familiar words leadeth them up to the consideration of greater matters; for when He spoke of "meat," He signified nothing else than the salvation of the men who should come to Him; and again, the "field" and the "harvest" signify the very same thing, the multitude of souls prepared for the reception of the preaching; and the "eyes" of …
Cyril of Alexandria
Behold I say unto you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest. That is, raising up the eye of your understanding a little from the affairs of the earth, consider ye the spiritual sowing, that it hath progressed already and whitened unto the floor, and at length calls for the reaper's sickle unto itself. But from the similarity to things in actual life, you will see what is meant. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
The Lord now begins to reveal more clearly to the disciples what He had previously said in a veiled manner. He says: "You say, that is, you think, that in four months the harvest will come, that is, the physical harvest; but I say to you that the spiritual harvest has already arrived." He said this about the Samaritans, who were already coming to Him. …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
"Say ye not, that there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest?" He was aglow for the work, and was arranging to send forth laborers. You count four months to the harvest; I show you another harvest, white and ready. Behold, I say unto you, "Lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are already white for the harvest." Therefore He is going to send forth the reapers. "For in this is the saying true, that one reapeth, another soweth: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. …
Thomas Aquinas
Then when he says, Do you not have a saying: There are still four months, and it will be harvest time? he makes use of a simile. Note that when Christ asked the Samaritan woman for a drink, "Give me a drink," he made use of a simile concerning water. But here, the disciples are urging the Lord to eat, and now he makes use of a simile concerning spiritual food. There are some persons whom God asks for a drink, as this Samaritan woman; and there are some who offer a drink to God. …
Bernard of Clairvaux
But hear her preparer himself, as it were pointing her out with his finger to the watchmen, but under another figure. "Lift up your eyes," he says, "and see the fields, that they are white already," that is, prepared, "for harvest" (Jn 4:35). From this the householder invites laborers to the work, when he has now perceived that all things are so prepared that without much labor of their own they can glory and say, "we are God's co-workers" (1 Cor 3:9). For what are they going to do? …
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