Sending the Twelve: “The Harvest Is Plentiful” and “A Flock Among Wolves”

Yeshua told his twelve emissaries: “There’s a huge harvest, but a shortage of harvesters. So send word to the owner of the field to hire more workers to help them finish the job. “Go! But beware, I’m sending you out like a defenseless flock into a pack of ravenous wolves.”

Matt. 9:37-38; 10:16a; Luke 10:2-3

(Huck 58, 139; Aland 98-99, 177; Crook 102, 197-198)^[1]

Revised: 2 November 2021

וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם הַקָּצִיר מְרֻבֶּה וְהַפֹּעֲלִים מְמֻעָטִים בַּקְּשׁוּ מִבַּעַל הַקָּצִיר שֶׁיּוֹצִיא פֹּעֲלִים לִקְצִירוֹ לְכוּ הֲרֵינִי שׁוֹלֵחַ אֶתְכֶם כַּצֹּאן לְתוֹךְ זְאֵבִים

Yeshua told his twelve emissaries: “There’s a huge harvest, but a shortage of harvesters. So send word to the owner of the field to hire more workers to help them finish the job.

“Go! But beware, I’m sending you out like a defenseless flock into a pack of ravenous wolves.^[2]

Table of Contents

1. Reconstruction

2. Story Placement

3. Conjectured Stages of Transmission

4. Crucial Issues

5. Comment

6. Redaction Analysis

7. Results of This Research

8. Conclusion

Reconstruction

To view the reconstructed text of Sending the Twelve: “The Harvest Is Plentiful” and “A Flock Among Wolves” click on the link below:

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Illustration by Marjorie Cooper.

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^[1] For abbreviations and bibliographical references, see “Introduction to ‘The Life of Yeshua: A Suggested Reconstruction.’” ↩
^[2] This translation is a dynamic rendition of our reconstruction of the conjectured Hebrew source that stands behind the Greek of the Synoptic Gospels. It is not a translation of the Greek text of a canonical source. ↩