Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 4:32
But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of.
32. I have meat, &c.] The pronouns ‘I’ and ‘ye’ are emphatically opposed. His joy at the woman’s conversion prompts Him to refuse food: not of course that His human frame could do without it, but that in His delight He feels for the moment no want of food.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
I have meat to eat – See Joh 4:34.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 32. I have meat to eat that ye know not of.] Our blessed Lord seizes every opportunity to raise the minds of his apostles to heavenly things, through the medium of earthly matters. Nor does he force these things into such service. Properly understood, earthly substances are the types, representatives, and shadows of heavenly things.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
But our blessed Lord was more intent upon gospelizing the Samaritans, than satisfying his hunger: what this meat was, he opens himself, (see Joh 4:34).
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
32. meat ye know not ofWhatspirituality of mind! “I have been eating all the while,and such food as ye dream not of.” What can that be? they askeach other; have any supplies been brought Him in our absence? Heknows what they are saying though He hears it not.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But he said unto them,…. That is, “Jesus”, as the Persic, or the Lord Jesus, as the Ethiopic versions express it:
I have meat to eat that ye know not of: meaning the conversion of the Samaritan woman, and of other Samaritans, who were flocking in great numbers to him, which he knew, though his disciples did not; and the harvest of souls he had a prospect of, see Joh 4:35, was as meat unto him, delightful and refreshing; and his mind and thoughts were so taken up with these things, that he had no inclination to any corporeal food.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Meat (). Originally the act of eating (Ro 14:17) from , but soon and commonly as that which is eaten like once in John (verse 34). So here and John 6:27; John 6:55. Cf. vernacular English “good eating,” “good eats.”
I … ye ( … ). Emphatic contrast. Spiritual food Jesus had.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Meat (brwsin). Originally the act of eating (Col 2:16), but often of that which is eaten. A parallel is found in the vulgar phrase, a thing is good or poor eating. The word is always used by Paul in its original sense.
Know not of [ ] . Incorrect. Rev., rightly, ye know not; i e., you do not know its virtue.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “But he said unto them,” (ho de eipen autois) “Then he responded directly to them,” to their concerned, repeated appeals.
2) “I have meat to eat,” (ego brosin echo phagein) “I possess food to eat, continually,” Divine food and drink, sacred satisfaction, such as received in His fast of 40 days in the mount of temptation, so that He might resist the Devil, Mat 4:1-11.
3) “That ye know not of.” (hen humeis ouk oidate) “Which you all do not know or realize,” Joh 6:38. The woman forgot her natural thirst and waterpot, and Jesus forgot His hunger, while enraptured with His rescue-mission of the Samaritan woman, 1Co 9:19-22.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
32. I have food to eat which you know not. It is wonderful that, when he is fatigued and hungry, he refuses to eat; for if it be said that he does this for the purpose of instructing us, by his example, to endure hunger, why then did he not do so always? But he had another object than to say that we ought simply to refuse food; for we must attend to this circumstance, that his anxiety about the present business urges him so strongly, and absorbs his whole mind, so that it gives him no uneasiness to despise food. And yet he does not say that he is so eager to obey the commands of his Father, that he neither eats nor drinks. He only points out what he must do first, and what must be done afterwards; and thus he shows, by his example, that the kingdom of God ought to be preferred to all the comforts of the body. God allows us, indeed, to eat and drink, provided that we are not withdrawn from what is of the highest importance; that is, that every man attend to his own calling.
It will perhaps be said, that eating and drinking cannot but be avocations which withdraw some portion of our time that might be better employed. This I acknowledge to be true, but as the Lord kindly permits us to take care of our body, so far as necessity requires, he who endeavors to nourish his body with sobriety and moderation does not fail to give that preference which he ought to give to obedience to God. But we must also take care not to adhere so firmly to our fixed hours, as not to be prepared to deprive ourselves of food, when God holds out to us any opportunity, and, as it were, fixes the present hour. Christ, having now in his hands such an opportunity which might pass away, embraces it with open arms, and holds it fast. When the present duty enjoined on him by the Father presses him so hard that he finds it necessary to lay aside every thing else, he does not scruple to delay taking food; and, indeed, it would have been unreasonable that, when the woman left her pitcher and ran to call the people, Christ should display less zeal. In short, if we propose it as our object not to lose the causes of life on account of life itself, it; will not be difficult to preserve the proper medium; for he who shall place it before him as the end of life to serve the Lord, from which we are not at liberty to turn aside even for the immediate danger of death, will certainly reckon it to be of more value than eating and drinking. The metaphor of eating and drinking is so much the more graceful on this occasion, that it was drawn seasonably from the present discourse.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(32) I have meat to eat that ye know not of.The emphasis is on the pronouns, which are opposed to each other. Meat is better rendered food (see Note on Joh. 4:8). The Greek word here is the same as in Joh. 6:27; Joh. 6:55.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
32. Meat to eat that ye know not The spirit was so well fed that the body was sustained.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
32 But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of.
Ver. 32. I have meat to eat, &c. ] Abraham’s servant would not eat till he had despatched, his errand, Gen 24:33 . When we are to woo for Christ, we should forget our own interests and occasions. Quaerite primum, &c. Seek first the kingdom of God.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
John
THE WEARIED CHRIST
Joh 4:6
Two pictures result from these two verses, each striking in itself, and gaining additional emphasis by the contrast. It was during a long hot day’s march that the tired band of pedestrians turned into the fertile valley. There, whilst the disciples went into the little hill-village to purchase, if they could, some food from the despised inhabitants, Jesus, apparently too exhausted to accompany them, ‘sat thus on the well.’ That little word thus seems to have a force difficult to reproduce in English. It is apparently intended to enhance the idea of utter weariness, either because the word ‘wearied’ is in thought to be supplied, ‘sat, being thus wearied, on the well’; or because it conveys the notion which might be expressed by our ‘just as He was’; as a tired man flings Himself down anywhere and anyhow, without any kind of preparation beforehand, and not much caring where it is that he rests.
Thus, utterly worn out, Jesus Christ sits on the well, whilst the western sun lengthens out the shadows on the plain. The disciples come back, and what a change they find. Hunger gone, exhaustion ended, fresh vigour in their wearied Master. What had made the difference? The woman’s repentance and joy. And He unveils the secret of His reinvigoration when He says, ‘I have meat to eat that ye know not of’-the hidden manna. ‘My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.’
Now, I think if we take just three points of view, we shall gain the lessons of this remarkable contrast. Note, then, the wearied Christ; the devoted Christ; the reinvigorated Christ.
I. The wearied Christ.
Not only does this pathetic incident teach us for our firmer faith, and more sympathetic and closer apprehension, the reality of the Manhood of Jesus Christ, but it supplies likewise some imperfect measure of His love, and reveals to us one condition of His power. Ah! if He had not Himself known weariness He never could have said, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ It was because Himself ‘took our infirmities,’ and amongst these the weakness of tired muscles and exhausted frame, that ‘He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.’ The Creator must have no share in the infirmities of the creature. It must be His unwearied power that calls them all by their names; and because He is great in might ‘not one’ of the creatures of His hand can ‘fail.’ But the Redeemer must participate in that from which He redeems; and the condition of His strength being ‘made perfect in our weakness’ is that our weakness shall have cast a shadow upon the glory of His strength. The measure of His love is seen in that, long before Calvary, He entered into the humiliation and sufferings and sorrows of humanity; a condition of His power is seen in that, forasmuch as the ‘children were partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same,’ not only that ‘through death He might deliver’ from death, but that in life He might redeem from the ills and sorrows of life.
Nor does that exhausted Figure, reclining on Jacob’s Well, preach to us only what He was. It proclaims to us likewise what we should be. For if His work was carried on to the edge of His capacity, and if He shrank not from service because it involved toil, what about the professing followers of Jesus Christ, who think that they are exempted from any form of service because they can plead that it will weary them? What about those who say that they tread in His footsteps, and have never known what it was to yield up one comfort, one moment of leisure, one thrill of enjoyment, or to encounter one sacrifice, one act of self-denial, one aching of weariness for the sake of the Lord who bore all for them? The wearied Christ proclaims His manhood, proclaims His divinity and His love, and rebukes us who consent to ‘walk in the way of His commandments’ only on condition that it can be done without dust or heat; and who are ready to run the race that is set before us, only if we can come to the goal without perspiration or turning a hair. ‘Jesus, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well.’
II. Still further, notice here the devoted Christ.
Now, it is no mere piece of grammatical pedantry when I ask you to notice that the language of the original is so constructed as to give prominence to the idea that the aim of Christ’s life was the doing of the Father’s will; and that it is the aim rather than the actual performance and realisation of the aim which is pointed at by our Lord. The words would be literally rendered ‘My meat is that I may do the will of Him that sent Me and finish His work’-that is to say, the very nourishment and refreshment of Christ was found in making the accomplishment of the Father’s commandment His ever-impelling motive, His ever-pursued goal. The expression carries us into the inmost heart of Jesus, dealing, as it does, with the one all-pervading motive rather than with the resulting actions, fair and holy as these were.
Brethren, the secret of our lives, if they are at all to be worthy and noble, must be the same-the recognition, not only as they say now, that we have a mission, but that there is a Sender; which is a wholly different view of our position, and that He who sends is the loving Father, who has spoken to us in that dear Son, who Himself made it His aim thus to obey, in order that it might be possible for us to re-echo His voice, and to repeat His aim. The recognition of the Sender, the absolute submission of our wills to His, must run through all the life. You may do your daily work, whatever it be, with this for its motto, ‘the will of the Lord be done’; and they who thus can look at their trade, or profession, and see the trivialities and monotonies of their daily occupations, in the transfiguring light of that great thought, will never need to complain that life is small, ignoble, wearisome, insignificant. As with pebbles in some clear brook with the sunshine on it, the water in which they are sunk glorifies and magnifies them. If you lift them out, they are but bits of dull stone; lying beneath the sunlit ripples they are jewels. Plunge the prose of your life, and all its trivialities, into that great stream, and it will magnify and glorify the smallest and the homeliest. Absolute submission to the divine will, and the ever-present thrilling consciousness of doing it, were the secret of Christ’s life, and ought to be the secret of ours.
Note the distinction between doing the will and perfecting the work. That implies that Jesus Christ, like us, reached forward, in each successive act of obedience to the successive manifestations of the Father’s will, to something still undone. The work will never be perfected or finished except on condition of continual fulfilment, moment by moment, of the separate behests of that divine will. For the Lord, as for His servants, this was the manner of obedience, that He ‘pressed towards the mark,’ and by individual acts of conformity secured that at last the whole ‘work’ should have been so completely accomplished that He might be able to say upon the Cross, ‘It is finished.’ If we have any right to call ourselves His, we too have thus to live.
III. Lastly, notice the reinvigorated Christ.
Notice, however, that Christ here sets forth the lofty aim at conformity to the divine will and fulfilment of the divine Work as being the meat of the soul. It is the true food for us all. The spirit which feeds upon such food will grow and be nourished. And the soul which feeds upon its own will and fancies, and not upon the plain brown bread of obedience, which is wholesome, though it be often bitter, will feed upon ashes, which will grate upon the teeth and hurt the palate. Such a soul will be like those wretched infants that are discovered sometimes at ‘baby-farms,’ starved and stunted, and not grown to half their right size. If you would have your spirits strong, robust, well nourished, live by obedience, and let the will of God be the food of your souls, and all will be well.
Souls thus fed can do without a good deal that others need. Why, enthusiasm for anything lifts a man above physical necessities and lower desires, even in its poorest forms. A regiment of soldiers making a forced march, or an athlete trying to break the record, will tramp, tramp on, not needing food, or rest, or sleep, until they have achieved their purpose, poor and ignoble though it may be. In all regions of life, enthusiasm and lofty aims make the soul lord of the body and of the world.
And in the Christian life we shall be thus lords, exactly in proportion to the depth and earnestness of our desires to do the will of God. They who thus are fed can afford ‘to scorn delights and live laborious days.’ They who thus are fed can afford to do with plain living, if there be high impulses as well as high thinking. And sure I am that nothing is more certain to stamp out the enthusiasm of obedience which ought to mark the Christian life than the luxurious fashion of living which is getting so common to-day amongst professing Christians.
It is not in vain that we read the old story about the Jewish boys whose faces were radiant and whose flesh was firmer when they were fed on pulse and water than on all the wine and dainties of the Babylonish court. ‘Set a knife to thy throat if thou be a man given to appetite,’ and let us remember that the less we use, and the less we feel that we need, of outward goods, the nearer do we approach to the condition in which holy desires and lofty aims will visit our spirits.
I commend to you, brethren, the story of our text, in its most literal application, as well as in the loftier spiritual lessons that may be drawn from it. To be near Christ, and to desire to live for Him, delivers us from dependence upon earthly things; and in those who thus do live the old word shall be fulfilled, ‘Better is a little that a righteous man hath, than the abundance of many wicked.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
meat. Greek. brosis = eating. Not the same word as in Joh 4:34.
of. Omit “of”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Joh 4:32. , but He) He therefore dispensed with dinner, His spiritual ardour taking away hunger.- , ye know not of) This tended to increase their wonder and eagerness to learn. A most sweet enigma!
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 4:32
Joh 4:32
But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not.-[Man shall not live by bread alone. He had been lifted above hunger by the eagerness of his success.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
I have: Joh 4:34, Job 23:12, Psa 63:5, Psa 119:103, Pro 18:20, Isa 53:11, Jer 15:16, Act 20:35
that: Psa 25:14, Pro 14:10, Rev 2:17
Reciprocal: 2Ti 4:2 – in
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
2
Doubtless, the arrival of the people from the city, presented another opportunity before Jesus to en gage in something more important than partaking of temporal food. That is what He meant by the indirect or figurative remark about his having food of which they had no information.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joh 4:32. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not. Literally, I have an eating to eat. The word for meat is in Joh 4:34 is different from that used here, which rather denotes the meal, the partaking of the food, than the food itself. This eating the disciples knew not. The common rendering entirely obscures the meaning: our Lord does not say know not of, but know not,ye have no experience of it. As yet, they had not learned the power of such work as His (the complete fulfilment of His Fathers will, Joh 4:34) to satisfy every want.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
4:32 {4} But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of.
(4) We may have care of our bodies, but in such a way that we prefer willingly and freely the occasion which is offered us to enlarge the kingdom of God before all necessities of this life, whatever else they may be.