Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
I sent you, etc.—The I is emphatic—I, the Lord of the whole harvest: "sent you," points to their past appointment to the apostleship, though it has reference only to their future discharge of it, for they had nothing to do with the present ingathering of the Sycharites.
ye bestowed no labour—meaning that much of their future success would arise from the preparation already made for them. (See on John 4:42).
others laboured—Referring to the Old Testament laborers, the Baptist, and by implication Himself, though He studiously keeps this in the background, that the line of distinction between Himself and all His servants might not be lost sight of. "Christ represents Himself as the Husbandman [rather the Lord of the laborers], who has the direction both of the sowing and of the harvest, who commissions all the agents—those of the Old Testament as well as of the New—and therefore does not stand on a level with either the sowers or the reapers" [OLSHAUSEN].
meantime—that is, while the woman was away.
Master, eat—Fatigue and thirst we saw He felt; here is revealed another of our common infirmities to which the Lord was subject—hunger.
Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing John 4:38:
Acts 8:6-8
Acts 8:40
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