John 4:33-34

“ The disciples therefore said one to another: Has any one brought him anything to eat? 34. Jesus says unto them: My meat is to do the will of my Father and to accomplish his work. ”

Μήτις introduces a negative question: “No one indeed has brought Him...?” Jesus explains the profound meaning of His answer. Here He uses βρῶμα, in connection with the gross interpretation of the disciples. We need not see in the conjunction ἵνα, as Weiss would have us, a mere periphrasis for the infinitive. That which sustains Him is His proposing to Himself continually to do...to accomplish...The present ποιῶ this is the reading of the T. R. refers to the permanent accomplishment of the divine will at each moment, and the conjunctive aorist τελειώσω (to accomplish, to finish), refers to the end of the labor, to the perfect consummation of the task which will, of course, depend on the obedience of every moment (John 17:4). The reading (ποιήσω), of the Vatican MS., Origen, and the Greco-Latin authorities spoils this beautiful relation; it is rejected by Tischendorf and Meyer. This ποιήσω arose from an assimilation to τελειώσω.

The relation between the two substantives θέλημα (will), and ἔργον (work), corresponds with that of the two verbs. In order that the work of God may be accomplished at the last moment, His will must have been executed at every moment. Hereby Jesus makes His disciples see that, in their absence He has been laboring in the Father's work, and that it is this labor which has revived Him. This is the idea which He is about to develop, by means of an image which is furnished Him by the present situation.