John 4:34

Jesus answers their question though not put to Him: Ἐμὸν βρῶμα … τὸ ἔργον. Westcott thinks the telic use of ἵνα can be discerned here; “the exact form of the expression emphasises the end and not the process, not the doing and finishing, but that I may do and finish”. Lücke acknowledges that it is not always easy to distinguish between the construction of αὕτη or τοῦτο with ἵνα and with ὅτι, but that here it is possible to discriminate; and translates “Meine Speise besteht in dem Bestreben,” etc. It is much better to take it as the Greek commentators and Holtzmann and Weiss take it, as equivalent to τὸ ποιῆσαι. See especially 3 John 1:4. [“Sometimes, beyond doubt, ἵνα is used where the final element in the sense is very much weakened sometimes where it is hard to deny that it has altogether vanished.” Simcox, Grammar, 177.] The idea that mental or spiritual excitement acts as a physical stimulant is common. Cf. Plato's λόγων ἑστίασις, Tim., 27 B; Thucydides, i. 70, represents the Corinthian ambassadors as saying of the Athenians μήτε ἑορτὴν ἄλλο τι ἡγεῖσθαι ἢ τὸ τὰ δέοντα πρᾶξαι. See also Soph., Electra, 363, and the quotations in Wetstein; also Browning's Fra Lippo Lippi, “to find its [the world's] meaning is my meat and drink”. Jesus does not say that His meat is to bring living water to parched souls, but “to do the will of Him that sent me, and to accomplish His work”. First, because throughout it is His aim to make Himself a transparency through which the Father may be seen; and second, because the will of God is the ultimate stability by fellowship with which all human charity and active compassion are continually renewed.