John Lightfoot on John 4:35

[There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest.] The beginning of the harvest [that is, the barley-harvest] was about the middle of the month Nisan. Consult Leviticus 23:10, &c., Deuteronomy 16:9.

"Half Tisri, all Marchesvan, and half Chisleu, is the seed time. Half Chisleu, whole Tebeth, and half Shebat, is the winter. Half Shebat, whole Adar, and half Nisan, is the winter solstice. Half Nisan, all Iyar, and half Sivan is the harvest. Half Sivan, all Tammuz, and half Ab, is the summer. Half Ab, all Elul, and half Tisri, is the great heat."

They sowed the wheat and spelt in the month Tisri, and Marchesvan, and so onward. Targum upon Ecclesiastes 11:2; "Give a good portion of thy seed to thy field in the month Tisri, and withhold thou not from sowing also in Chisleu."

They sowed barley in the months Shebat and Adar.

The lateward seed, or that which is hid and lieth long in the earth; "The wheat and the spelt which do not soon ripen, are sown in Marchesvan; the early seed, the barley, which soon ripens, is sown in Shebat and Adar."

"They sow seventy days before the Passover."

The barley, therefore, the hope of a harvest to come after four months, was not yet committed to the ground; and yet our Saviour saith, "Behold the fields are already white unto the harvest." Which thing being a little observed, will help to illustrate the words and design of our Lord. "Lift up your eyes (saith he) and look upon the fields," &c. pointing without doubt towards that numerous crowd of people, that at that time flocked towards him out of the city; q.d. "Behold, what a harvest of souls is here, where there had been no sowing beforehand."

Now let us but reckon the four months backward from the beginning of the barley-harvest, or the middle of the month Nisan, and we shall go back to the middle of the month Chisleu; which will fall in with the beginning of our December, or thereabout: whence it will be easy to conjecture what feast that was of which mention is made, chapter 5:1.