John 4:35-38 Say not you, There are yet four months, and then comes harvest? behold, I say to you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields… According to the unwritten law of hospitality in the East, the stranger who enters your house or your tent, and touches any part of your property in claim of protection, is entitled to protection as your guest for three days and a part of the fourth day, sufficient to permit him to get safely off your territory. If a Bed'wy enters a strange camp, and touches the tent-ropes, he becomes by that act a protected guest, for the same period, of the Arab whose tent-ropes he has touched. This unwritten law of hospitality is honourably observed. Our Lord, as the protected guest of the Samaritans, could have remained in the house of His host, according to custom, for three days. If He hod desired to stay longer among the Samaritans, He could then have changed His lodging to the next house, where He would have been entitled to stay for three days longer; and He could have gone on changing from house to house, until He wished to go away. The three days' limit, however, does not bind the host not to give more than three days' hospitality. On the contrary, a host may press a guest to stay for weeks and months; and if the guest is too polite to leave without the host's permission, he can generally get that permission by calling for things which he knows the host does not possess. Parallel Verses KJV: 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 to harvest. |
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