The Harvest
2.) Moreover, he went on to say to them (the imperfect as in 7:3): The harvest great , but the workers few. Beg, therefore, of the Lord of the harvest that he throw out workers into his harvest.
Jesus made the same statement in Matt. 9:37, but the occasion is now different. He first states the two great facts: “the harvest great – the workers few.” The beautiful balance of ‘men’ and ‘de’ cannot be reproduced in English; “truly” and “but” in the A.V. is too coarse. Jesus does not say, “The field is large,” i.e., to tell and to sow. His vision regards only the harvest. We should keep to the ‘tertium comparationis’ and not wander off into sowing, cultivating, and producing the harvest. The harvest has already been produced – Jesus sees it. Strange how “the harvest” is misunderstood. Some think that it refers to all the multitudes that Jesus saw coming to him; but many of these people would not be gathered into the heavenly garner. The great missionary authority G. Warneck sees the harvest through synergistic eyes as do other modern German scholars: the seekers after God, and they think that even among the heathen there is a “better” class of men. Yet all are equally lost, and by nature none seek after God. He is found by them that sought him not, Isa. 65:1; Rom. 10:20; compare John 6:44. Others think of the gathering of the new congregation from the scattered old congregation, namely its receptive members. But the harvest is the sheep whom the Lord knows, including also “the other sheep,” John 10:14, etc. “The Lord knoweth them that are his.” II Tim. 2:19. By the harvest Jesus means all those in whom the work of God’s grace succeeds. And this harvest is ‘polus,’ “much” or abundant. The number of those that will be saved is large. Like a great ripe field of grain they stand before the eyes of Jesus and need only to be gathered in. That is why he speaks of “the workers.” Thus far Jesus alone had been working at bringing in the harvest, the Twelve had been sent out only for a short time (9:1,2), and now the Seventy were going out only in a brief preparatory tour. How small this number considering Palestine alone! The remarkable thing is the asking of the Seventy to be concerned about this paucity of workers, and that in a significant way: “beg the Lord of the harvest to throw out workers into his harvest.” God is “the Lord of the harvest,” its ‘Kurios,’ not only the owner but the one who also controls the entire management of the harvest, God has put this harvest and its ingathering into Jesus’ hands. It is his great mission to bring in this harvest. That explains all that he has already done and all he will yet do, including his atoning death and resurrection. Without him the harvest could not be brought in at all. That is why he recently sent out the Twelve and is now sending out the Seventy, and they are not only themselves to work but to see the need of more workers and to pray for them… The matter lies much deeper than rationalizing thoughts are able to penetrate. Jesus does not tell the Seventy to go out and to get workers. This mistake has often been made, and workers are brought in that God never called. the harvest is God’s, and he must provide the workers, ‘ekballein eis,’ “throw them out into the harvest,” i.e., hurry them out. All that we are to do is “to beg” this of God, and we know that this is his will, and he will hear our request. He is the one who will in his own way find and send out the workers. The wonder will always be that God, the primal cause, uses us and our prayers, the secondary causes, and does not discard them. The secret of this conjunction lies in the infinite grace of the divine will which unites him and us through Jesus. When one note is struck, the other responds, keyed, as they are, to one tone. What a blessed relation between the workers in the harvest and the Lord of the harvest!
Via R.C.H. Lenski’s Interpretation of Luke
