You have a saying is in Greek a question expecting an affirmative answer. Have a saying translates the same verb used in Matthew 16.2 (literally “you say”), where also a popular saying or proverb is introduced. That Jesus is quoting a proverb is indicated both by the form and by the brevity of the Greek expression. Jerusalem Bible translates “Have you not got a saying?” and New American Bible “Do you not have a saying?”
When the language has an equivalent word for saying or adage, this word can be employed. If such a term is not available, the saying can be introduced by such an expression as “people often say” or “you often hear people say” or “the following words are often heard.”
This saying may be taken from the viewpoint of Jesus’ own time, and so indicate that there were four months from then until harvest time, or it may reflect popular reckoning, which thought of a four-month period between sowing and harvest. Both the famous Gezer agriculture calendar (10th century B.C.) and certain later rabbinic sayings speak of a four-month period between the time of sowing and the time of harvest.
In translating Four more months and then the harvest, it is appropriate to employ the same kind of succinct structure. However, in many languages two such phrases cannot be put together so as to make sense. It may be necessary to translate “In four more months we will harvest” or “After four months people gather in the harvest” or “From planting to harvest is four months.”
Take a good look at is literally “lift up your eyes, and see,” which Phillips translates “open your eyes and look.” Jerusalem Bible has “Look around you, look…” and New American Bible “Open your eyes and see!”
The reference to the fields must indicate fields which have a cultivated crop, that is, “planted fields.” The most specific reference would probably be to “fields of barley” or “fields of wheat.”
The crops to which Jesus refers in this verse are clearly the people who are coming out from the city to see him. Nonetheless, the term for crops must be appropriate to harvested grain. It may be necessary in some languages to say “The grain is now ripe and ready to be harvested.” The term ripe as applied to grain may mean literally “hard” or “yellow,” or “dry.” It is important to use the correct designation to avoid any inconsistency in referring to fields of grain. Similarly, a receptor language term for harvested may mean literally “cut” or “brought in” or even “beat out,” a specific reference to threshing, but with the more general meaning of harvesting.
The last word of the Greek text in verse 35 is now or “already.” Translators are divided as to whether this word should go with the last part of verse 35 (New English Bible, Zürcher Bibel) or with the first part of verse 36 (Moffatt, La Sainte Bible: Nouvelle version Segond révisée, Goodspeed, Luther, New American Bible with a note indicating the alternative possibility). Phillips and Jerusalem Bible apparently take it with both verses (Jerusalem Bible “already they are white, ready for harvest! Already the reaper is being paid his wages….”). Good News Translation takes this adverb with verse 35 (now … ready). The observation that both verses refer to present events may justify the translations of Phillips and Jerusalem Bible. That is, both verses are in the present tense (are ripe … being paid … gathers), and the fact that “already” occurs at the juncture of the two verses may be a way of tying together the aspects of the present tense in the two verses and giving emphasis to both.
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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