Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 9:37

"Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest indeed is plenteous, but the laborers are few." — Matthew 9:37 (ASV)

Then he said to his disciples — Nowhere in the whole Gospel record is there a more vivid or touching instance of the reality of our Lord’s human emotions. It was not enough for Him to feel compassion Himself; He longed for the sympathy of His companions and disciples and even needed their fellowship in prayer. A great need lay before Him, and He saw that they were the right agents to meet it, if only they would pray to be equipped for the task. To put the case more clearly, they needed to pray that the work may be done, whether or not they themselves were the ones to do it.

The harvest is truly plentiful — This is the first time this image appears in the record of the first three Gospels. It would later be expanded in the two parables of the Sower and the Tares and reappear in the visions of the Apocalypse (Revelation 14:14–19). We find, however, from the Gospel of John—which here, as so often elsewhere, supplies missing links and the germs of thoughts that were later developed—that this was not a new metaphor in our Lord’s teaching. Once before, among the foreign Samaritans, He had seen the fields as white for the spiritual harvest of human souls and had spoken of the one who sows and the one who reaps (John 4:35–36).