John Chapter 4 verse 34 Holy Bible
Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to accomplish his work.
read chapter 4 in ASV
Jesus said, My food is to do the pleasure of him who sent me and to make his work complete.
read chapter 4 in BBE
Jesus says to them, My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work.
read chapter 4 in DARBY
Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
read chapter 4 in KJV
read chapter 4 in WBT
Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.
read chapter 4 in WEB
Jesus saith to them, `My food is, that I may do the will of Him who sent me, and may finish His work;
read chapter 4 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 34. - Jesus said to them, My food - that which satisfies my strongest desire, and quenches all other desire - is that I may do continuously the will of him that sent me on my mission to this people and to this world. "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God," was the motto and burden of his life. "Not my will, but thine," was the sacrificial cry which redeemed the world. To teach man to do the will of the Father is the motive which sustained him, and the prayer he put upon human lips was, "Thy will be done." Meyer here rightly says that ἵνα is not equal to ὅτι. Some expression is given by it as to the end and purpose of the mysterious life of which we have these sacred illustrations. The doing of the will of God is a perpetual and sublime activity, a continuing, ceaseless purpose; while the completion of the work will be one consummating act, towards which all the daily doing of the will is a preparation, and of which, in some sense, every day we discern a prelibation and forthshadowing. In John 17:4 he says, τελειώσας, "having completed the work thou," etc. This passage points on to that (cf. also John 5:30, 6:38; 7:18; 8:50; 9:4; 12:49, 50; 14:31, etc.).
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(34) My meat.--Better, My food, as before (John 4:8).To do the will. . . . to finish.--Better, that I may do the will, . . . that I may finish. These verbs point out the end which He ever kept in view. In some of the best MSS., and in the received text, the tenses are different. That. I may be constantly doing the will of Him that sent Me, and may then at last complete His work. (Comp. John 17:4.)This work He speaks of here, and in John 4:32, as actual food, as the supply of the truest needs, and the satisfaction of the truest desires of His nature. (Comp. Note on Matthew 4:4.) Analogies to this are within the limits of every man's experience, and, faint as they are, help us to learn something of what this spiritual sustenance was. The command of duty, the cheering power of hope, the stimulus of success, are forces that supply to weak and weary nerves and muscles, the vigour of a new life. Under them the soldier can forget his wounds, the martyr smile at the lion or the flame, the worn-out traveller still plod onward at the thought of home. We cannot analyse this power, but it exists. They have food to eat that those without know not of.
