John 4:35

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, that they are white already unto harvest.

Yet four months ... Westcott noted that the "harvest began about the middle of April and lasted until the end of May."[6] This would make the date of this episode to lie somewhere between the middle of December and the last of January; another piece of evidence favoring noon as the time of day in this narrative. In either December or January, it would have been dark shortly after six o'clock.

They are white already unto the harvest ... See under John 4:30, above. The white-clad multitude passing over the green fields between the village and the well had indeed turned them white; and our Lord was looking upon the immediate harvest of souls as contrasted with the grain harvest yet four months in the future. By directing the eyes of the apostles to what was taking place, he restrained their further insistence that he should eat. Dr. Tristram, as quoted by Westcott, "found the wheat and barley near Jerusalem, sown just after Christmas, four inches high on February 2Oth."[7]

The comparison of converted souls to a harvest made a profound impression upon John who made five references to it in as many verses (Revelation 14:14-19). "Send forth thy sickle and reap; for the hour to reap is come; for the harvest of the earth is ripe," etc.

[6] B. F. Westcott, op. cit., p. 75.

[7] Ibid.