ipened grain when the harvest has come? Apart from this
parable two distinct significations may be attributed to the analogy,
both alike true in fact, and both alike adopted in the Scriptures. In
some cases the harvest and the reaping point to the end of the world and
the awards of the judgment; expressly in the Lord's own interpretation
of the parable of the tares, it is said, "The harvest is the end of the
world, and the reapers are the angels" (Matt. xiii. 39). But in other
cases the reaping of the ripened grain is employed to represent that
success in the winning of souls which human ministers of the word may
obtain and enjoy. Such is its meaning in Ps. cxxvi. 6, "He that goeth
forth and reapeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again
with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." In the same sense it is
employed by the Lord (John iv. 35, 36), "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; for they are white already unto harvest.
And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life
eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice
together." The same idea is expressed in terms, if possible, still more
articulate, in Matt. ix. 37, 38. "The harvest truly is plenteous, but
the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that
he will send forth labourers unto his harvest."[56]

[56] Bengel's suggestion is ingenious and interesting, but
contributes nothing towards the solution. "Sermo concisus. Mittet
falce preditos, nam [Greek: apostellesthai] est viventis cujuspiam."
He would understand the phrase "he putteth in the sickle" as a curt
form of expression, intended to intimate that he sends out reapers
with sickles to reap the grain; fortifying his opinion by the remark
that the term "putteth in," ([Greek: apostellei], "sends out,")
refers to a living person, and not an inanimate instrument.
Countenance for this view might be found in Matt. ix. 37 where
[Greek: ekbalein] equivalent to [Greek: apostellesthai] is employed
to indicate the sending forth of reapers. On the other hand,
however, the passage, Rev. xiv. 15, 16, goes decidedly against it;
for there both [Greek: pemmtein] and [Greek: ballein], "thrust in"
(the sickle) are certainly applied to the instrument itself, and not
to the men who wield it.

But while the symbol taken from the reaping of