Texts in Conversation
In Matthew, Jesus describes a large harvest with too few workers and calls for urgent prayer. 4 Ezra uses the same image for the end of the age, when the earth’s harvest is gathered. Both use harvest to express urgency.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Matthew 9:37
New Testament
35 Then Jesus went throughout all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were bewildered and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 38 Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest-ready fields.”
Date: 70–90 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
4 Ezra 4:32
2 Esdras
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
30 For a grain of evil seed was sown in the heart of Adam from the beginning, and how much wickedness it has produced to this time! How much more it will yet produce until the time of threshing comes! 31 Ponder now by yourself, how much fruit of wickedness a grain of evil seed has produced. 32 When the grains which are without number are sown, how great a threshing floor they will fill!” 33 Then I answered and said, “How long? When will these things come to pass? Why are our years few and evil?” 34 He answered me, and said, “Don’t hurry faster than the Most High; for your haste is for your own self, but he who is above hurries on behalf of many.
Date: 70–132 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The image of a harvest for the end of the age appears in other parables. In addition to Matthew 9:37-38 (the fields are plentiful), the parable of the wicked tenants (21:34-41). In Matthew 3:12 John the Baptist said the one who is coming has his winnowing fork in his hand and he will gather the wheat into the barn and put the chaff on an unquenchable fire. The metaphor of a harvest for a final judgment on the day of the Lord appears in the Old Testament. In Joel 3:13, for example, “Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the winepress is full. The vats overflow, for their evil is great.” A similar image is used in Revelation 14:14-20 (compare 4 Ezra 4:28-32; 2 Baruch 70:2) ..."
Phillip J. Long, The Parable of the Weeds – Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43 (Grace Christian University, 2021), 1–4.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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