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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "//www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="//www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0;"/><title>John 7 Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</title><link rel="canonical" href="https://biblehub.com/commentaries/expositors/john/7.htm" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/5001com.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 4800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 4800px)" href="/4801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1550px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1550px)" href="/1551.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1250px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1250px)" href="/1251.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1050px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1050px)" href="/1051.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 900px), only screen and (max-device-width: 900px)" href="/901.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 800px)" href="/801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 575px), only screen and (max-device-width: 575px)" href="/501.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-height: 450px), only screen and (max-device-height: 450px)" href="/h451.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /><script type="application/javascript" src="https://scripts.webcontentassessor.com/scripts/8a2459b64f9cac8122fc7f2eac4409c8555fac9383016db59c4c26e3d5b8b157"></script><script src='https://qd.admetricspro.com/js/biblehub/biblehub-layout-loader-revcatch.js'></script><script id='HyDgbd_1s' src='https://prebidads.revcatch.com/ads.js' type='text/javascript' async></script><script>(function(w,d,b,s,i){var cts=d.createElement(s);cts.async=true;cts.id='catchscript'; 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and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take him.">John 7:32-39</a>).<p>(<span class= "greekheb"><span class= "ital">γ</span></span>)The effect of the teaching. Division among the multitude, and in the Sanhedrin (<a href="/context/john/7-40.htm" title="Many of the people therefore, when they heard this saying, said, Of a truth this is the Prophet.">John 7:40-52</a>).]<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-1.htm">John 7:1</a></div><div class="verse">After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.</div>(1) <span class= "bld">After these things . . .</span>—Denoting not immediate sequence, but covering the interval included in this verse—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> the Galilean ministry of Matthew 15-18. (Comp. Note on <a href="/john/21-1.htm" title="After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise showed he himself.">John 21:1</a>.) It would have been natural for Him to have gone up to the Passover of that year (<a href="/john/6-4.htm" title="And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was near.">John 6:4</a>), but He did not do so on account of the open hostility of the Jews. He continued his sojourn in Galilee.<p><span class= "bld">Jewry</span> was frequent in the older English translations, but has been preserved in the Authorised version of the New Testament only here and in <a href="/luke/23-5.htm" title="And they were the more fierce, saying, He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.">Luke 23:5</a>. (See Note there, and comp. <a href="/daniel/5-13.htm" title="Then was Daniel brought in before the king. And the king spoke and said to Daniel, Are you that Daniel, which are of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king my father brought out of Jewry?">Daniel 5:13</a> and the Prayer Book version of <a href="/psalms/76-1.htm" title="In Judah is God known: his name is great in Israel.">Psalm 76:1</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-2.htm">John 7:2</a></div><div class="verse">Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand.</div>(2) <span class= "bld">The Jews’ feast of tabernacles.</span>—This began on “the fifteenth day of the seventh month” (<a href="/leviticus/23-34.htm" title="Speak to the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days to the LORD.">Leviticus 23:34</a>), <span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> the 15th of Tishri, which answers to our September. The interval, then, from Passover to Tabernacles is one of about five months. The feast continued for seven days, during which all true Israelites dwelt in booths, in remembrance of their dwelling in tabernacles when they came out of the land of Egypt. Like the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover) and the Feast of Harvest (Pentecost), this Feast of In-gathering was one of the “three times in the year” when every male Jew was required to appear before the Lord God (<a href="/exodus/23-14.htm" title="Three times you shall keep a feast to me in the year.">Exodus 23:14</a>). Josephus speaks of it as the holiest and greatest of the feasts. It was at once a thankful memorial of the national deliverance, and a yearly rejoicing at the close of each succeeding harvest (<a href="/context/deuteronomy/16-13.htm" title="You shall observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that you have gathered in your corn and your wine:">Deuteronomy 16:13-16</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-3.htm">John 7:3</a></div><div class="verse">His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest.</div>(3) <span class= "bld">His brethren . . .</span>—Comp. Note on <a href="/matthew/13-55.htm" title="Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brothers, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?">Matthew 13:55</a>. They are excluded here by their own words from the band of disciples, as they are by St. John’s from the believers (<a href="/john/7-5.htm" title="For neither did his brothers believe in him.">John 7:5</a>), and inferentially (<a href="/john/7-7.htm" title="The world cannot hate you; but me it hates, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.">John 7:7</a>) by the words of Christ Himself from the Twelve. (Comp. <a href="/john/15-18.htm" title="If the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.">John 15:18</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">That thy disciples also may see . . .</span>—The last time the word “disciples” was used, it was to mark the departure of many from Him (<a href="/john/6-60.htm" title="Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?">John 6:60</a>; <a href="/john/6-66.htm" title="From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.">John 6:66</a>)<span class= "ital">.</span> The months which have passed since have been a time of comparative retirement. He did not go to the Passover, where many would have expected to see Him (<a href="/john/7-11.htm" title="Then the Jews sought him at the feast, and said, Where is he?">John 7:11</a>), but within the narrowed circle continued His works and words. The prophet hath not honour in His own home, and His brethren, who have seen these works and do not believe, challenge Him to an open demonstration of them. There is another great feast at hand, and His disciples from all parts will be at Jerusalem, where the rulers will test His claims. If He is the Messiah, no conspiracy to kill Him can prevail; and if these works are really divine, let the great body of disciples see them, and amid the joyous feast, and in the royal city, proclaim Him king.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-4.htm">John 7:4</a></div><div class="verse">For <i>there is</i> no man <i>that</i> doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world.</div>(4) <span class= "bld">For there is no man.</span>—His course of action seems to them to contradict His personal claim. It is opposed, they think, to the common-sense conduct of mankind.<p><span class= "bld">If thou do these things.</span>—The emphasis is on <span class= "ital">these things.</span> There is no doubt that He does them; but if the acts themselves are such as they seem to be, and establish the claim which He bases on them, they should be done in Jerusalem, not in the villages of Galilee. They are for the world, and not for the retirement of home.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-5.htm">John 7:5</a></div><div class="verse">For neither did his brethren believe in him.</div>(5) <span class= "bld">For neither did his brethren believe.</span>—Comp. Note on <a href="/john/7-3.htm" title="His brothers therefore said to him, Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that your disciples also may see the works that you do.">John 7:3</a>. The words do not admit of any other meaning than the obvious one that even His brethren did not at this time believe Him to be the Messiah. That they are found in the very first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles joining with the Apostles, and the women, and Mary, with one accord in prayer (<a href="/john/7-14.htm" title="Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught.">John 7:14</a>), is one of the striking instances of the hardened ground of human hearts passing into the fruitful ground receptive of the seed, as the case of Judas at the close of the last chapter is an instance of the opposite. For the immediate cause of the decisive change, see <a href="/1_corinthians/15-7.htm" title="After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.">1Corinthians 15:7</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-6.htm">John 7:6</a></div><div class="verse">Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is alway ready.</div>(6) <span class= "bld">My time is not yet come.</span>—Comp. Note on <a href="/john/2-4.htm" title="Jesus said to her, Woman, what have I to do with you? my hour is not yet come.">John 2:4</a>. Here, as there, He regards the events of life as marked out by divinely-ordered seasons. There is for Him a time for solemnly entering Jerusalem with a throng of pilgrims going up to a feast, and in a few months it will have come; but it has not come yet. It is at the feast of the Paschal Lamb, already set apart, and not with the joyous shouts of harvest-tide.<p><span class= "bld">Your time is alway ready.</span>—They may go now as then. Of the nation, their thoughts and feelings are in sympathy with the national feasts. They can join in the festive throng keeping holiday, and take their part in the Temple service. For Him present events have another meaning. Desertion of disciples, threatenings of Jews, unbelief of brethren—all this means that the end is approaching, and that His time is at hand.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-7.htm">John 7:7</a></div><div class="verse">The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.</div>(7) <span class= "bld">The world cannot hate you.</span>—Because they were of the world. To have hated them, would have been to have hated itself. (Comp. <a href="/context/john/3-19.htm" title="And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.">John 3:19-20</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">But me it hateth, because I testify . . .</span>—He had placed Himself in a position of antagonism to it, and must necessarily do so. His words and acts must be a witness against the evil of its deeds. This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. But men who love darkness must also hate light. Its very presence makes the darkness visible; and nothing cuts to the very quick, like that which makes the heart condemn itself.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-8.htm">John 7:8</a></div><div class="verse">Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come.</div>(8) <span class= "bld">Go ye up unto this feast.</span>—This should be, rather, <span class= "ital">Go ye up unto the feast,</span> with the stress on the pronoun “ye,” and the article instead of the demonstrative “this.”<p><span class= "bld">I go not up yet unto this feast.</span>—The “yet” is of doubtful authority, though it is found in some early MSS. and versions, and the more so because it removes an apparent difficulty. Without it, the words do not involve a change of purpose, and Porphyry’s often-repeated charge of fickleness has no real ground. He is not going up unto the feast in the sense in which they intended—openly, with the usual caravan from Galilee. Another going up publicly, as they intended, and with an issue the dark presages of which now crowd upon Him, is present to His mind. “Ye, go ye up to the feast; <span class= "ital">I</span> go not up to <span class= "ital">this</span> feast.” The verb is in the present, and its meaning does not exclude a going up afterwards. (See also Note on <a href="/john/7-10.htm" title="But when his brothers were gone up, then went he also up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.">John 7:10</a>.) They were then going; the caravan was preparing to start. I am not going up (now). The time is coming, but it has not yet fully come. (Comp. Note on <a href="/luke/9-51.htm" title="And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,">Luke 9:51</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-9.htm">John 7:9</a></div><div class="verse">When he had said these words unto them, he abode <i>still</i> in Galilee.</div>(9) <span class= "bld">He abode still in Galilee.</span>—We find Him in Jerusalem between the 16th and 20th of Tishri (<a href="/john/7-14.htm" title="Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught.">John 7:14</a>), and He could not therefore have remained behind them more than three or four days. We have no record of any companion with Him until <a href="/john/9-2.htm" title="And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?">John 9:2</a>; but it is probable that some at least of the Apostolic band remained with Him in Galilee and went with Him to Jerusalem. (Comp. Note on <a href="/luke/9-51.htm" title="And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,">Luke 9:51</a>.) If John returned to Jerusalem after the discourse at Capernaum (comp. <span class= "ital">Introduction</span>)<span class= "ital">,</span> we have an explanation of the brevity with which he treats the period between Passover and Tabernacles.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-10.htm">John 7:10</a></div><div class="verse">But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.</div>(10) <span class= "bld">But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast.</span>—The words “unto the feast” are misplaced in the Received text, upon which our version is based. The right reading is, <span class= "ital">But when His brethren were gone up unto the feast, then went He also up</span>; and the difference is not unimportant. We have seen that, even with the ordinary reading, there is no ground for the frequent objection (<a href="/john/7-8.htm" title="Go you up to this feast: I go not up yet to this feast: for my time is not yet full come.">John 7:8</a>), but it is really nowhere said that He went up to the feast at all. As a matter of fact, the special feast day—the day of Holy Convocation—was on the 15th of Tishri, the 14th being the preparation day. From the 16th to the 20th was what was called “The Lesser Festival,” or “The Middle of the Feast” (<a href="/john/7-14.htm" title="Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught.">John 7:14</a>), and it is at this we find Him present. (Comp. also <a href="/john/7-37.htm" title="In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink.">John 7:37</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">Not openly, but as it were in secret</span>—i.e., not with the usual company. Judging from His practice at another time (<a href="/john/4-4.htm" title="And he must needs go through Samaria.">John 4:4</a>), He would go through Samaria, while the caravan would go on the Eastern side of the Jordan.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-11.htm">John 7:11</a></div><div class="verse">Then the Jews sought him at the feast, and said, Where is he?</div>(11) <span class= "bld">The Jews</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> as before, and as in <a href="/john/7-13.htm" title="However, no man spoke openly of him for fear of the Jews.">John 7:13</a>; <a href="/john/7-15.htm" title="And the Jews marveled, saying, How knows this man letters, having never learned?">John 7:15</a>, the official representatives of the nation. They kept seeking Him at the feast, where they naturally expected that He would be, and kept asking, without naming Him, Where is He? which is almost equivalent to Where is this fellow? Their question points out that their hostility had gone as far as a definite plot against Him, and that the knowledge of this was widely spread.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-12.htm">John 7:12</a></div><div class="verse">And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some said, He is a good man: others said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people.</div>(12) <span class= "bld">And there was much murmuring among the people.</span>—The original word for “people” is here, and here only in St. John, in the plural, and is best rendered by <span class= "ital">multitudes.</span> It refers to the throngs of people assembled during the various parts of the ritual of the feast, and, perhaps, specially on the one hand to the Galilean multitude, some of whom had been present at the last great work recorded in this Gospel, and some of whom had been present at other works, and influenced by other teaching of Jesus and the Apostles; and on the other hand, to the Judæan multitude, who had been prevented from accepting Him in the same degree by the stronger influence of the hierarchy. Among these multitudes there arose, as before among the Jews and among the disciples (<a href="/john/6-41.htm" title="The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.">John 6:41</a>; <a href="/john/6-61.htm" title="When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said to them, Does this offend you?">John 6:61</a>), a murmuring; but the subject of this discussion is not His teaching, but His character. Their practical test-question was, Is He a good man, or a deceiver? (Comp. <a href="/matthew/27-63.htm" title="Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.">Matthew 27:63</a>.) Some would think of deeds and words which established His goodness beyond all doubt; but if He is a good man, then His claim cannot be false. Others would think of deceivers, who had led away the multitude before (comp. Notes on <a href="/context/acts/5-36.htm" title="For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nothing.">Acts 5:36-37</a>), and that He was one of them.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-13.htm">John 7:13</a></div><div class="verse">Howbeit no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews.</div>(13) <span class= "bld">No man</span> cannot fairly be limited, as it generally has been, to the multitude who believed in Him. It discloses to us rather a reign of terror, in which opinion was stifled, and men dared not speak openly on either side until authority had determined what they should say.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-14.htm">John 7:14</a></div><div class="verse">Now about the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught.</div>(14) <span class= "bld">Now about the midst of the feast.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">But now, when it was the middle of the feast.</span> (Comp. <a href="/john/7-8.htm" title="Go you up to this feast: I go not up yet to this feast: for my time is not yet full come.">John 7:8</a>.) This was the technical <span class= "ital">Chōl Mō’ēd</span> or <span class= "ital">Mō’ēd Katōn, “</span>the Middle of the Feast,” or “the Lesser Feast.” He had taken no part in the greater festival itself, and now He appears in the Temple, as far as we know, for the first time as a public teacher, probably (<a href="/john/7-19.htm" title="Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keeps the law? Why go you about to kill me?">John 7:19</a>) as an expounder of some Scripture which had been read.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-15.htm">John 7:15</a></div><div class="verse">And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?</div>(15) <span class= "bld">How knoweth this man letters?</span>—Their spirit is seen in that at which they marvel. It is not the substance of His teaching that excites their attention, but the fact that He who has never been technically trained as a Rabbi is acquainted with the literature of the schools. (See <a href="/acts/26-24.htm" title="And as he thus spoke for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, you are beside yourself; much learning does make you mad.">Acts 26:24</a>, “much learning,” where “learning” represents the word here rendered “letters.”) He is to them as a layman and unlearned (comp. Note on <a href="/acts/4-13.htm" title="Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.">Acts 4:13</a>), not known in the circles of the professional expounders—a demagogue, who deceived the multitude; and they hear Him speaking with a learning and wisdom that excites their wonder, and unlocking mysteries of which they thought that they only possessed the key.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-16.htm">John 7:16</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.</div>(16) <span class= "bld">My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.</span>—The answer carries them once more to the words uttered by Him. (Comp. <a href="/john/5-19.htm" title="Then answered Jesus and said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do: for what things soever he does, these also does the Son likewise.">John 5:19</a>; <a href="/john/5-30.htm" title="I can of my own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father which has sent me.">John 5:30</a>.) Then he had again and again referred to the Father who sent Him (<a href="/john/7-24.htm" title="Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.">John 7:24</a>; <a href="/context/john/7-36.htm" title="What manner of saying is this that he said, You shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither you cannot come?">John 7:36-38</a>), and claimed as His own work the doing of the Father’s will (<a href="/john/7-30.htm" title="Then they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come.">John 7:30</a>). In the Capernaum synagogue, in the hearing of some of these Jews, He had declared that all who were taught of God, and heard and learned the lesson, would come to Him (<a href="/john/6-45.htm" title="It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that has heard, and has learned of the Father, comes to me.">John 6:45</a>). There is, then, no ground for their present wonder. The teaching which is His in relation to them, is not His of original source. He claims to be in His humanity as a messenger, carrying the message of Him that sent Him. He is the Word by whom the mind of God is spoken.<p><span class= "bld">Doctrine</span> represents a word which is frequently used in the Gospels, of our Lord, but only here and in the next verse by Him. It has acquired a definite and concrete meaning not found in the original, which is better rendered by <span class= "ital">teaching</span> (comp., <span class= "ital">e.g.,</span> <a href="/mark/4-2.htm" title="And he taught them many things by parables, and said to them in his doctrine,">Mark 4:2</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-17.htm">John 7:17</a></div><div class="verse">If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or <i>whether</i> I speak of myself.</div>(17) <span class= "bld">If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching.</span> The stress is upon “willeth,” which in our version reads as if it were only the auxiliary verb. It is not deed, which is the outcome of faith; but will, which precedes it, that is here spoken of. This human will to do the divine will is the condition of knowing it. The words are unlimited and far-reaching in their meaning. Those who heard them would naturally understand them, as it was intended they should, of the divine will expressed in the Law and the Prophets (<a href="/john/7-19.htm" title="Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keeps the law? Why go you about to kill me?">John 7:19</a>), but they include the will of God revealed, more or less clearly, to all men and in all times. Our thoughts dwell naturally on representative lives, such as those of Saul the Pharisee, Cornelius the centurion, Justin the philosopher; but the truth holds good for every honest heart in every walk of life. The “any man” of Christ’s own words excludes none from its reach, and the voice of comfort and of hope is spoken alike to all in our ignorance, fears, doubts—that he who in very deed willeth to do God’s will, shall not fail to know, now or in the life to come, of the teaching whether it be of God. (Comp. Notes on <a href="/john/5-44.htm" title="How can you believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that comes from God only?">John 5:44</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.,</span> and <a href="/john/6-29.htm" title="Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he has sent.">John 6:29</a> and <a href="/john/6-45.htm" title="It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that has heard, and has learned of the Father, comes to me.">John 6:45</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-18.htm">John 7:18</a></div><div class="verse">He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh his glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.</div>(18) <span class= "bld">He that speaketh of himself.</span>—Again the words repeat the thoughts of the earlier discourse. (See Notes on <a href="/context/john/5-41.htm" title="I receive not honor from men.">John 5:41-44</a>.) They contrast His position and that of His hearers. Professional teachers, they sought glory one from another, and regarded their teaching as of themselves, the special honour of their caste. In the pride of their own knowledge they willed not the glory of God, and so had not the faculty to know and receive His teaching. He sought the will of Him that sent Him, and therefore was true, in harmony with the eternal will of God. The effect of the submission of His will to the Father’s, and His seeking in word and work the Father’s glory, was that there was no possibility of unrighteousness in Him. This emphasis laid upon truth and righteousness has reference to the charges which they are plotting against Him, and which have already been expressed in the murmuring of the multitude (<a href="/john/7-12.htm" title="And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some said, He is a good man: others said, No; but he deceives the people.">John 7:12</a>). The words are clearly to be explained with special reference to their position and His, but the general form of the expressions, “He that speaketh of himself . . .” “He that seeketh His glory . . .” show that this is not the exclusive reference. They, too, hold good of every man who speaketh of himself, and of every man who seeketh the glory of Him that sent Him.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-19.htm">John 7:19</a></div><div class="verse">Did not Moses give you the law, and <i>yet</i> none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me?</div>(19) <span class= "bld">Did not Moses</span> <span class= "bld">. . .?</span>—The note of interrogation should be placed at the end of the first clause. The verse would then read, <span class= "ital">Did not Moses give you the Law? and none of you doeth the Law. Why seek ye to kill Me?</span> So far from the will to do God’s will, without which they could not know His teaching, they had the Law, which they all professed to accept, and yet no one kept it (<a href="/context/john/5-45.htm" title="Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuses you, even Moses, in whom you trust.">John 5:45-47</a>). This thought follows naturally on <a href="/context/john/7-17.htm" title="If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.">John 7:17-18</a>, and, like the whole of this teaching, grows out of the truths of John 5; but it may be that this reference to Moses and the Law has a special fitness, as suggested by the feast. Moses had commanded that the Law should be read in every Sabbatical year at this very festival (<a href="/deuteronomy/31-10.htm" title="And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles,">Deuteronomy 31:10</a>); and there is good reason for believing that the current year was a Sabbatical year. The first portion of the Law which it was customary to read was <a href="/deuteronomy/1-1.htm" title="These be the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red sea, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab.">Deuteronomy 1:1</a> to <a href="/deuteronomy/6-3.htm" title="Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with you, and that you may increase mightily, as the LORD God of your fathers has promised you, in the land that flows with milk and honey.">Deuteronomy 6:3</a>. Within this section (<a href="/john/5-17.htm" title="But Jesus answered them, My Father works till now, and I work.">John 5:17</a>) came the command, “Thou shalt not kill.” They were, then, in their persecution of Him (<a href="/john/5-18.htm" title="Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.">John 5:18</a>), breaking the Law, of which their presence at the feast was a professed obedience.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-20.htm">John 7:20</a></div><div class="verse">The people answered and said, Thou hast a devil: who goeth about to kill thee?</div>(20) <span class= "bld">The people.</span>—They know that the rulers have sought for Him (<a href="/john/7-11.htm" title="Then the Jews sought him at the feast, and said, Where is he?">John 7:11</a>), but are not aware of their intention to kill Him. When this is referred to, it is “by some of them of Jerusalem” (<a href="/john/7-25.htm" title="Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this he, whom they seek to kill?">John 7:25</a>). These pilgrims know how far from their own thoughts is any such idea, and they think that its presence in His thoughts must be the work of a demon. (Comp. Note on <a href="/matthew/11-18.htm" title="For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He has a devil.">Matthew 11:18</a>.) They utter this, not in hostility, but in wonder that He can think so.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-21.htm">John 7:21</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus answered and said unto them, I have done one work, and ye all marvel.</div>(21) <span class= "bld">I have done one work</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> the one conspicuous work of healing the infirm man on the Sabbath day, which He did at His last visit to Jerusalem. We have already had a reference to other works in <a href="/john/2-23.htm" title="Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did.">John 2:23</a>, and He Himself refers to His many good works in <a href="/john/10-32.htm" title="Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me?">John 10:32</a>.<p><span class= "bld">Ye all marvel.</span>—This answer is addressed to the multitude who said “Thou hast a devil,” when He spoke of the intention to kill Him. This work on the Sabbath day, which provoked the deadly hostility of the hierarchy (<a href="/john/5-16.htm" title="And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.">John 5:16</a>; <a href="/john/5-18.htm" title="Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.">John 5:18</a>), was cause of wonder to them all. They, too, though not in the same degree, were led by it to take a hostile position.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-22.htm">John 7:22</a></div><div class="verse">Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers;) and ye on the sabbath day circumcise a man.</div>(22) <span class= "bld">Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision.</span>—Some MSS., and many editors, place the “therefore,” or, <span class= "ital">on this account,</span> at the close of the last verse, reading, “Ye all marvel on this account,” and then the present verse, “Moses gave unto you circumcision . . .” The reading of our version is, however, better supported, and agrees better with the writer’s style. “On this account hath Moses given you circumcision, not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers.” The argument is, “Ye circumcise on the Sabbath day because circumcision is part of the Mosaic law; but Moses gave you circumcision because he had an anterior and higher authority for it, and in practice you recognise this and make it override the Sabbath. But if circumcision is allowed, why not a deed of mercy? This is the practice and precept of your rulers. But if a patriarchal rite is greater than the Mosaic Sabbath, because the fathers were anterior to Moses, how much more an act of love, which is anterior to all time.”<p><span class= "bld">A man.</span>—Used here, and in the next verse, as equivalent to a male child, as in <a href="/john/16-21.htm" title="A woman when she is in travail has sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.">John 16:21</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-23.htm">John 7:23</a></div><div class="verse">If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day?</div>(23) <span class= "bld">That the law of Moses should not be broken.</span>—The text here is to be preferred to the marginal reading, though the latter has still the support of considerable authority. In the one case, the law which may not be broken is the law directing circumcision on the eighth day. In the other, “without breaking the law of Moses,” refers to the law of the Sabbath. The rule of circumcision on the eighth day (<a href="/genesis/17-12.htm" title="And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of your seed.">Genesis 17:12</a>; <a href="/genesis/21-4.htm" title="And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac being eight days old, as God had commanded him.">Genesis 21:4</a>) was adopted in the Mosaic law (<a href="/leviticus/12-3.htm" title="And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.">Leviticus 12:3</a>), and strictly adhered to—we have examples in the New Testament, in <a href="/luke/1-59.htm" title="And it came to pass, that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; and they called him Zacharias, after the name of his father.">Luke 1:59</a>; <a href="/luke/2-21.htm" title="And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.">Luke 2:21</a>, and <a href="/philippians/3-5.htm" title="Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;">Philippians 3:5</a>—and if the eighth day fell on the Sabbath, then, according to Rabbinic precept, “circumcision vacated the Sabbath.” The school of Hillel the Great—and disciples of this school were at the time of our Lord the chief teachers at Jerusalem (comp. Note on <a href="/john/5-39.htm" title="Search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.">John 5:39</a>)—gave as a reason for this that the “Sabbath Law was one of the Negative and the Circumcision Law one of the Positive Precepts, and that the Positive destroys the Negative.” His appeal, then, is an example of His knowledge of their technical law, at which they wondered in <a href="/john/7-15.htm" title="And the Jews marveled, saying, How knows this man letters, having never learned?">John 7:15</a>. Indeed, the argument itself is an example of Hillel’s first great law of interpretation—“that the Major may be inferred from the Minor.” If circumcision be lawful on the Sabbath, much more is it lawful to restore the whole man. For other instances in which our Lord used this famous Canon of Interpretation, comp. <a href="/matthew/7-11.htm" title="If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?">Matthew 7:11</a>; <a href="/context/matthew/10-29.htm" title="Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.">Matthew 10:29-31</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-24.htm">John 7:24</a></div><div class="verse">Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.</div>(24) <span class= "bld">Judge not according to the appearance.</span>—He has put the case before them in its true light, I and from their own point of view. There was another Positive Precept of Moses which these judges were forgetting, though it, too, formed part of the first section of the Law read at Tabernacles (<a href="/context/deuteronomy/1-16.htm" title="And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brothers, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him.">Deuteronomy 1:16-17</a>). (Comp. Note on <a href="/john/7-19.htm" title="Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keeps the law? Why go you about to kill me?">John 7:19</a>.) Let them who profess to judge Him by the Law obey it, and form a just and honest opinion, and not be biased by the appearance of a mere technicality. Even if His work did fall under the condemnation of what they held to be the letter of the Mosaic law (comp. Note on <a href="/john/5-10.htm" title="The Jews therefore said to him that was cured, It is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for you to carry your bed.">John 5:10</a>), they knew perfectly well—and their own practice as to circumcision proved this—that it did so in appearance only.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-25.htm">John 7:25</a></div><div class="verse">Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this he, whom they seek to kill?</div>(25) <span class= "bld">Then said some of them of Jerusalem.</span>—These Jerusalemites are distinct from the multitude of <a href="/john/7-20.htm" title="The people answered and said, You have a devil: who goes about to kill you?">John 7:20</a>, and are acquainted with the intention which seemed so impossible to the latter.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-26.htm">John 7:26</a></div><div class="verse">But, lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ?</div>(26) But they, too, have reason for wonder. They hear Him speaking openly, and those who sought His death listen to Him without reply. Are they, then, convinced of the truth of His claim?<p><span class= "bld">Do the rulers know indeed</span> <span class= "bld">. . .?</span>—Read, <span class= "ital">Have the rulers come to know indeed that this Man is the Christ?</span> The word “very” is omitted by the best MSS. The word “indeed” shows that the questioners think it impossible that the rulers can have recognised Him.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-27.htm">John 7:27</a></div><div class="verse">Howbeit we know this man whence he is: but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is.</div>(27) <span class= "bld">Howbeit we know this man.</span>—They at once supply a corrective answer to their own question. They know this Man whence He is. He is the carpenter’s son, and His mother, and brethren, and sisters, are well known (<a href="/context/matthew/13-55.htm" title="Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brothers, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?">Matthew 13:55-56</a>). His brothers, indeed, are part of that multitude (<a href="/john/7-10.htm" title="But when his brothers were gone up, then went he also up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.">John 7:10</a>). They know that the Messiah will be of the seed and town of David (<a href="/john/7-42.htm" title="Has not the scripture said, That Christ comes of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?">John 7:42</a>); but they have no knowledge of an earthly home and earthly relations, and all their ideas are of a Being who will not be subject to the ordinary conditions of life, and whose immediate origin no man can know. God’s Anointed living among them as a man, with mother, and brothers, and sisters! This cannot be. What meant the coming in the clouds of heaven of Daniel’s vision (<a href="/daniel/7-13.htm" title="I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.">Daniel 7:13</a>), or the coming suddenly to the Temple of Malachi’s prophecy? (<a href="/malachi/3-1.htm" title="Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the LORD, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom you delight in: behold, he shall come, said the LORD of hosts.">Malachi 3:1</a>.) Why did Isaiah tell of His being “Wonderful, Counsellor, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace?” (<a href="/isaiah/9-6.htm" title="For to us a child is born, to us a son is given: and the government shall be on his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.">Isaiah 9:6</a>.) In such thoughts they fulfilled another prophecy of the same Isaiah, which their own Rabbis interpreted of the Messiah, “He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him” (<a href="/isaiah/53-2.htm" title="For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he has no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.">Isaiah 53:2</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-28.htm">John 7:28</a></div><div class="verse">Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not.</div>(28) <span class= "bld">Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught</span>.—The word rendered “cried,” implies always an elevation of voice answering to the intensity of the speaker’s feeling. (Comp. in this Gospel <a href="/john/1-15.htm" title="John bore witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spoke, He that comes after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.">John 1:15</a>; <a href="/john/7-37.htm" title="In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink.">John 7:37</a>; <a href="/john/12-44.htm" title="Jesus cried and said, He that believes on me, believes not on me, but on him that sent me.">John 12:44</a>.) Here this feeling has been roused by another instance of their misapprehension, because they think of the outward appearance only, and therefore do not grasp the inner truth. They know whence He is; they had been taught that no man should know the Messiah’s origin, and therefore they think He is not the Christ. And this technical reason, the meaning of which they have never fathomed, is enough to stifle every growing conviction, and to annul the force of all His words and all His works! St. John is impressed with the fact that it was in the very Temple itself, in the presence of the priests and rulers, in the act of public teaching, that He uttered these words, and he again notices this, though he has told us so before (<a href="/john/7-14.htm" title="Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught.">John 7:14</a>; <a href="/john/7-26.htm" title="But, see, he speaks boldly, and they say nothing to him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ?">John 7:26</a>).<p><span class= "bld">Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am.</span>—He takes up their objection in order to refute it. There is, indeed, a sense in which it is true. Those features were well known alike to friend and foe. With minds glowing with the fire of love or of hate, they had gazed upon Him as He walked or taught, and His form had fixed itself on the memory. They knew about His earthly home and early life (<a href="/john/7-27.htm" title="However, we know this man from where he is: but when Christ comes, no man knows from where he is.">John 7:27</a>), but all this was far short of the real knowledge of Him. It is but little that the events of the outer life tell of the true life and being even of a brother man. Little does a man know even his bosom friend; how infinitely far were they, with minds which did not even approach the true method of knowledge, from knowing Him whom no mind can fully comprehend!<p><span class= "bld">And I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true.</span>—Once again He asserts that He claims no position of independence. He is the first great Apostle (comp. <a href="/hebrews/3-1.htm" title="Why, holy brothers, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;">Hebrews 3:1</a>), but He is not self-commissioned. Had He not been the Christ, their objection that they knew His origin might have had force. But sent by Him who is the really existent One, and whom they knew not, His origin is unknown to them, and their technical test is fulfilled. In the fullest sense, they neither knew Him nor from whence He came.<p>For the meaning of the word “true,” see Note on <a href="/john/1-9.htm" title="That was the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world.">John 1:9</a>. It is almost impossible to give the sense of the original except in a paraphrase. We must keep, therefore, the ordinary rendering, but bear in mind that it does not mean, “He that sent Me is truthful,” but “He that sent Me is the ideally true One.” “You talk of person, and of origin, of knowing Me, and from whence I came, but all this is knowledge of the senses, and in the region of the phenomenal world. Being is only truly known in relation to the Eternal Being. He that sent Me to manifest His Being in the world is the truly existent One. In Him is My true origin, and Him <span class= "ital">ye</span> know not.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-29.htm">John 7:29</a></div><div class="verse">But I know him: for I am from him, and he hath sent me.</div>(29) <span class= "bld">But I know him.</span>—In contrast with their ignorance is His own full knowledge, which belonged to One only. (See Note on <a href="/john/1-18.htm" title="No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.">John 1:18</a>.) The pronoun “I” here, as “ye” immediately before, is emphatic.<p><span class= "bld">For I am from him, and he hath sent me.</span>—This knowledge is here based upon His oneness of essence, and upon His true mission. He knows God because He is from Him, and in union ever one with Him. He knows God because He is in His human nature the representative of the Divine to mankind.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-30.htm">John 7:30</a></div><div class="verse">Then they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come.</div>(30) <span class= "bld">Then they sought to take him.</span>—The tense is imperfect, marking the continuance of a series of efforts to take Him. The persons who thus sought to take Him are, of course, the members of the Sanhedrin. The people are mentioned in contrast in the next verse. For the present their efforts are confined to plots. No one attempts to use actual force.<p><span class= "bld">His hour was not yet come.</span>—This is the writer’s explanation of the fact that they did not seek to take Him. Jesus had Himself used these words at the first sign at Cana of Galilee (<a href="/john/2-4.htm" title="Jesus said to her, Woman, what have I to do with you? my hour is not yet come.">John 2:4</a>), and again before going up to this very festival (<a href="/john/7-6.htm" title="Then Jesus said to them, My time is not yet come: but your time is always ready.">John 7:6</a>). The beloved disciple has learnt the religious interpretation of history. That the hour was not yet come, was not the immediate cause which influenced those who desired, but dared not, to lay hands upon Him. The next verse points out that there was a division in the multitude (comp. <a href="/context/john/7-43.htm" title="So there was a division among the people because of him.">John 7:43-44</a>), and in the uncertainty of what the consequences may be, no one was bold enough to take the decisive step. But if not the immediate cause, the writer regards it as the primary cause. Looking back on the life of his Lord, from the old age of his own life, so full of eventful issues, he has learnt that every deed of that life, as every deed of every life, had its hour mapped out in the eternal counsels of God.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-31.htm">John 7:31</a></div><div class="verse">And many of the people believed on him, and said, When Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than these which this <i>man</i> hath done?</div>(31) <span class= "bld">And many of the people believed on him.</span>—This verse shows an advance in their faith. In <a href="/john/7-12.htm" title="And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him: for some said, He is a good man: others said, No; but he deceives the people.">John 7:12</a> we found “some” asserting that “He is a good man.” Now “many” accept Him as the Messiah, for this is the force of the words, “believed in Him.” (Comp. <a href="/john/7-5.htm" title="For neither did his brothers believe in him.">John 7:5</a>, and Note there.)<p><span class= "bld">When Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than these which this man hath done</span>?—They believe that the Christ has come, but express the common thought of Messianic miracles in a question which must have a negative answer. The Messiah who is expected is not expected to do greater miracles than these. The Messianic idea is therefore fulfilled, and He who has fulfilled it must be the very Christ.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-32.htm">John 7:32</a></div><div class="verse">The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning him; and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take him.</div>(32) <span class= "bld">The Pharisees heard that the people murmured.</span>—Or, more exactly, <span class= "ital">the Pharisees heard the multitude murmuring.</span> In the second clause of the verse, the Authorised version follows the order of the Received text, but almost all the better MSS. read, “the chief priests and the Pharisees.” We have to think of the Pharisees as taking the first steps. They see that faith in Him is spreading among the multitude, and that there is no time to be lost. They hastily call together the Sanhedrin, and the chief priests, who were for the most part Sadducees, join with them in an official resolve to take Him by force.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-33.htm">John 7:33</a></div><div class="verse">Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and <i>then</i> I go unto him that sent me.</div>(33) <span class= "bld">Then said Jesus unto them.</span>—It should rather be, <span class= "ital">Therefore said Jesus.</span> He said this because they sent to take Him. The better MSS. omit “unto them,” and it is clear, from <a href="/john/7-35.htm" title="Then said the Jews among themselves, Where will he go, that we shall not find him? will he go to the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?">John 7:35</a>, that the words are addressed to the hierarchy generally.<p><span class= "bld">Yet a little while am I with you.</span>—Their action is the first attempt to take Him by force. It brings to His mind the thought that the end is at hand. But a little while more, and the hour will have come. The manifestation of God’s love to man will then be completed in its crowning sacrifice, and when the work of His mission is completed, He will return to Him that sent Him.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-34.htm">John 7:34</a></div><div class="verse">Ye shall seek me, and shall not find <i>me</i>: and where I am, <i>thither</i> ye cannot come.</div>(34) <span class= "bld">Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me.</span>—These words are to be interpreted in connection with <a href="/john/8-21.htm" title="Then said Jesus again to them, I go my way, and you shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: where I go, you cannot come.">John 8:21</a>, where they are repeated, and with <a href="/john/13-33.htm" title="Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You shall seek me: and as I said to the Jews, Where I go, you cannot come; so now I say to you.">John 13:33</a>, where they are quoted and applied to the disciples. This will exclude any special reference, such as to the destruction of Jerusalem and to the seeking Him in the miseries which should follow, which most expositors have found here. The words refer rather to the more general truth now present to His mind, and applicable to all alike, that the time was at hand when He would return to the Father, and His bodily presence would be unapproachable, alike by those who should seek in hatred, or those who should seek in love.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-35.htm">John 7:35</a></div><div class="verse">Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither will he go, that we shall not find him? will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?</div>(35) <span class= "bld">Whither will he go that we shall not find him?</span>—He had said in <a href="/john/7-33.htm" title="Then said Jesus to them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go to him that sent me.">John 7:33</a>, “I go unto Him that sent Me,” and in Joh 7:28. He had declared that they knew not Him that sent Him. There is, then, no contradiction between these verses, and their question, strange as it seems, is but another instance of their total want of power to read any meaning which does not lie upon the surface. He is going away, and they will not be able to find Him, and they can only think of distant lands where other Jews had gone, as of Babylon, or of Egypt, or of Greece. Will He join some distant colony of Jews where they cannot follow Him? They have no thought of His death and return to His Father’s home.<p><span class= "bld">Will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">Will He go unto the dispersion among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?</span> The word for “dispersion” (<span class= "greekheb">διασπορά</span>, <span class= "ital">diaspora</span>) occurs again, in the New Testament, only in the opening verses of the Epistle of St. James and of the First Epistle of St. Peter, and is in both these passages represented by the English word “scattered.” The only other instance of its occurrence in the Bible, is in the Greek version (LXX.) of <a href="/psalms/146-2.htm" title="While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises to my God while I have any being.">Psalm 146:2</a>. (In Authorised version, <a href="/psalms/147-2.htm" title="The LORD does build up Jerusalem: he gathers together the outcasts of Israel.">Psalm 147:2</a>, “He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.”) It is also found in <a href="//apocrypha.org/2_maccabees/1-27.htm" title="Gather those together that are scattered from us, deliver them that serve among the heathen, look upon them that are despised and abhorred, and let the heathen know that thou art our God.">2 Maccabees 1:27</a>, “Gather those together that are scattered from us.” (Comp. Jos. <span class= "ital">Wars,</span> vii. 3, § 3; <span class= "ital">Ant.</span> xii. 1-3; 15:3, § 1.) The abstract word is used like “the circumcision,” <span class= "ital">e.g.,</span> as a comprehensive title for the individuals included in it. These were the Jews who did not dwell within the limits of the Holy Land, but spreading from the three chief centres, Babylonia, Egypt, and Syria, were found in every part of the civilised world. The Babylonian Diaspora owed its origin to the vast number of exiles who preferred to remain in the positions they had acquired for themselves in their new homes, and did not return to Palestine after the Captivity. They were by far the greater part of the nation, and were scattered through the whole extent of the Persian empire. Of the origin of the Egyptian Diaspora, we find traces in the Old Testament, as in <a href="/jeremiah/41-17.htm" title="And they departed, and dwelled in the habitation of Chimham, which is by Bethlehem, to go to enter into Egypt,">Jeremiah 41:17</a>; <a href="/jeremiah/42-18.htm" title="For thus said the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; As my anger and my fury has been poured forth on the inhabitants of Jerusalem; so shall my fury be poured forth on you, when you shall enter into Egypt: and you shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; and you shall see this place no more.">Jeremiah 42:18</a>. Their numbers were greatly increased under Alexander the Great and his successors, so that they extended over the whole country (Jos. <span class= "ital">Ant.</span> xvi. 7, §2). Much less numerous than their brethren of Babylonia, and regarded as less pure in descent, they have, through their contact with Western thought and the Greek language, left a deeper and wider influence on after ages. To them we owe the LXX. translation of the Old Testament Scriptures, and the Alexandrian school of Jewish philosophers, two of the most important influences which first prepared the way for, and afterwards moulded the forms of, Christianity. The Syrian Diaspora is traced by Josephus (<span class= "ital">Ant.</span> vii. 3, § 1) to the conquests of Seleucus Nicator (B.C. 300). Under the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, they spread over a wider area, including the whole of Asia Minor, and thence to the islands and mainland of Greece. It was less numerous than either that of Babylonia or that of Egypt, but the synagogues of this Diaspora formed the connecting links between the older and the newer revelation, and were the first buildings in which Jesus was preached as the Messiah.<p>But though thus scattered abroad, the Jews of the Diaspora regarded Jerusalem as the common religious centre, and maintained a close communion with the spiritual authorities who dwelt there. They sent liberal offerings to the Temple, and were represented by numerous synagogues in the city, and flocked in large numbers to the chief festivals. (Comp. Notes on <a href="/context/acts/2-9.htm" title="Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,">Acts 2:9-11</a>.) The Diaspora, then, was a network of Judaism, spreading to every place of intellectual or commercial importance, and linking it to Jerusalem, and a means by which the teaching of the Old Testament was made familiarly known, even in the cities of the Gentiles. “Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day” (<a href="/acts/15-21.htm" title="For Moses of old time has in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.">Acts 15:21</a>).<p>Such was the dispersion among the Gentiles of which these rulers of the Jews speak. They ask the question in evident scorn. “Will this Rabbi, leaving Jerusalem, the centre of light and learning, go to those who dwell among the heathen, and become a teacher of the very heathen themselves?” We feel that there is some fact which gives point to their question, and is not apparent in the narrative. We shall find this, it may be, if we remember that He Himself had before this crossed the limits of the Holy Land, and had given words to teach and power to save, in the case of the Greek woman who was a Syro-Phœnician by nation. (Comp. Notes on <a href="/context/matthew/15-21.htm" title="Then Jesus went there, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.">Matthew 15:21-28</a>; <a href="/context/mark/7-24.htm" title="And from there he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid.">Mark 7:24-30</a>.) More fully still do the words find their interpretation in the after history. They are, like the words of Caiaphas (<a href="/context/john/11-49.htm" title="And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said to them, You know nothing at all,">John 11:49-51</a>), an unconscious prophecy, and may be taken as summing up in one sentence the method of procedure in the earliest mission-work of the church. The great high-roads of the Diaspora were those which the Apostles followed. Every apostolic church of the Gentiles may be said to have grown out of a synagogue of the Jews. There is a striking instance of the irony of history, in the fact that the very words of these Jews of Palestine are recorded in the Greek language, by a Jew of Palestine, presiding over a Christian church, in a Gentile city.<p>For “Gentiles,” the margin reads “Greeks,” and this is the more exact translation, but the almost constant New Testament use of the word is in distinction from Jews, and our translators felt rightly that this is better conveyed to the reader by the word “Gentiles.” (Comp. Notes on <a href="/mark/7-26.htm" title="The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she sought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.">Mark 7:26</a> and <a href="/acts/11-20.htm" title="And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spoke to the Grecians, preaching the LORD Jesus.">Acts 11:20</a>.) We must be careful to avoid the not unfrequent mistake of rendering the word as though it were “Hellenist,” which means a Græcised Jew. This is to miss the point of their scorn, which is in the idea of His teaching those outside the pale of Judaism.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-36.htm">John 7:36</a></div><div class="verse">What <i>manner of</i> saying is this that he said, Ye shall seek me, and shall not find <i>me</i>: and where I am, <i>thither</i> ye cannot come?</div>(36) <span class= "bld">What manner of saying is this</span> <span class= "bld">. . .?—</span>We get a better sense by omitting the words in italics, and reading, “What saying is this . . .?” Their scorn does not solve their difficulty, and gives place to wonder. They feel His words cannot mean what they have said. “What, then, do they mean? What is the force of His saying?”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-37.htm">John 7:37</a></div><div class="verse">In the last day, that great <i>day</i> of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.</div>(37) <span class= "bld">In the last day, that great day of the feast.</span>—The question whether the seventh or the eighth day of the feast is intended here, is one of antiquarian rather than of practical interest. The words commanding the observance in <a href="/deuteronomy/16-13.htm" title="You shall observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that you have gathered in your corn and your wine:">Deuteronomy 16:13</a>, and <a href="/numbers/29-12.htm" title="And on the fifteenth day of the seventh month you shall have an holy convocation; you shall do no servile work, and you shall keep a feast to the LORD seven days:">Numbers 29:12</a>, mention only seven days; but this latter passage is followed in <a href="/john/7-35.htm" title="Then said the Jews among themselves, Where will he go, that we shall not find him? will he go to the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?">John 7:35</a> by a reference to the solemn assembly on the eighth day. With this agree the words in <a href="/context/leviticus/23-35.htm" title="On the first day shall be an holy convocation: you shall do no servile work therein.">Leviticus 23:35-36</a>; <a href="/leviticus/23-39.htm" title="Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep a feast to the LORD seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.">Leviticus 23:39</a>, and <a href="/nehemiah/8-18.htm" title="Also day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read in the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly, according to the manner.">Nehemiah 8:18</a>. Later the eight days of the festival are certainly spoken of as in the Talmud, in <a href="//apocrypha.org/2_maccabees/10-6.htm" title="And they kept the eight days with gladness, as in the feast of the tabernacles, remembering that not long afore they had held the feast of the tabernacles, when as they wandered in the mountains and dens like beasts.">2 Maccabees 10:6</a>, and Jos. <span class= "ital">Ant. iii.</span> 10, § 4. The best modern authorities are for the most part agreed that it was the eighth day, <span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> the 22nd of Tishri, that is here referred to. It was the “great day” as the octave of the feast, and the day of holy convocation.<p><span class= "bld">Jesus stood and cried.</span>—Comp. Note on <a href="/john/7-28.htm" title="Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying, You both know me, and you know from where I am: and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom you know not.">John 7:28</a>. Here the vivid remembrance of the writer remembers the attitude as well as the voice.<p><span class= "bld">If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.</span>—These words were almost certainly suggested by part of the ritual of the festival, which consisted in a solemn procession with music, and headed by a priest, which went on each morning from the Temple to the pool of Siloam, where the priest filled a golden vase with water and carried it to the Temple amid the joyful cries of the people. He then poured it out on the western side of the altar of burnt-offering; while another priest poured a drink-offering of wine, at the same time, on the eastern side of the altar, and the people during this act chanted the words of “the Hallel,” Psalms 113-118. If we accept the eighth day as that referred to in this verse, then this ceremony was. not repeated; but its very absence may have suggested the fuller declaration of the reality of which it was the representation. The current Rabbinical interpretation of the symbolism connected it with the gift of the latter rain, which was at this season; and also with the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Talmud says expressly, “Therefore is its name called the house of drawing, because from thence is drawn the Holy Spirit,” as it is said, “with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation” (<span class= "ital">Jer. Succa,</span> v. 1). Thoughts like these would be connected with this ritual by the Jews and by Jesus Himself, and the exact form which His own thought takes is marked by the words, “If any man thirst.” He stands there on the great day of the feast, and around Him are men who for seven successive mornings have witnessed acts and uttered words telling, though they know it not, of the true satisfaction of spiritual thirst, and thinking of the descent of showers on the thirsty ground, and in some vague way of the Holy Spirit’s presence. They are as the woman of Samaria was by the side of the true well. For every one who really knew his need, the source of living water was at hand. (Comp. Notes on <a href="/context/john/4-7.htm" title="There comes a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus said to her, Give me to drink.">John 4:7-15</a>.) That very Feast of Tabernacles, with its dwelling in tents, moreover, brought vividly to their minds the wilderness-life; and as in the past chapter the manna has formed the basis of His teaching about the Bread of Life, so here the striking of the rock and the streams gushing forth in the desert would be present to their minds. In the interpretation of one who was himself a Pharisee, and was taught in the schools of Jerusalem, “that rock was Christ” (<a href="/1_corinthians/10-4.htm" title="And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.">1Corinthians 10:4</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-38.htm">John 7:38</a></div><div class="verse">He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.</div>(38) There can be little doubt that our English version rightly gives the meaning of the original here; though representatives of both the earliest and the latest schools of interpretation have tried so to read the verse as to avoid its difficulties. Some would attach the first clause to the preceding verse, reading, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me; and let him that believeth on Me drink.” Others would have us think that the words, “as the Scripture hath said,” belong to the clause before them, and not to that which follows, making the sense, “He that believeth on Me according to the Scriptures, out of his belly (I say) shall flow rivers of living water.” The reader of the English will, it is believed, feel, and the reader of the Greek will feel still more strongly, that these are attempts to avoid what it is hard to explain, and that while they miss the difficulty they also miss the meaning.<p><span class= "bld">He that believeth on me . . .</span>—We have here an advance on the thought, “If any man thirst let him come unto Me and drink.” That represented the satisfaction of the individual mind. This teaches the fuller truth that every one in living communion with Christ becomes himself the centre of spiritual influence. There is in him a power of life which, when quickened by faith, flows forth as a river, carrying life and refreshment to others. No spirit grasps a great truth which satisfies its own yearnings as the waters of the fountain slake physical thirst, without longing to send it forth to others who are seeking what he himself had sought. There is in him a river whose waters no barrier can confine. This is the spirit of the prophet and the evangelist, of the martyr and the missionary. It is the spirit of every great teacher. It is the link which binds men together and makes the life of every Christian approach the life of Christ, for he lives not for himself but for the world.<p>The exact words “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water,” are not found in any part of the Canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament, and yet Christ Himself utters them with the formula of quotation. This will be a difficulty only to those who value letter and syllable above spirit and substance. It may be that the words which our Lord actually uttered in the current language of Jerusalem were nearer to the very words of some passage in the Old Testament than they seem to be in the Greek form in which St. John has preserved them to us. But it is instructive that the thought is that which our Lord Himself, or St. John as representing Him, considers as the essence of the quotation. The thought meets us again and again in the Old Testament. See the following passages: <a href="/exodus/17-6.htm" title="Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.">Exodus 17:6</a>; <a href="/numbers/20-11.htm" title="And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.">Numbers 20:11</a>; <a href="/psalms/114-8.htm" title="Which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters.">Psalm 114:8</a>; <a href="/isaiah/44-3.htm" title="For I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground: I will pour my spirit on your seed, and my blessing on your offspring:">Isaiah 44:3</a>; <a href="/isaiah/55-1.htm" title="Ho, every one that thirsts, come you to the waters, and he that has no money; come you, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.">Isaiah 55:1</a>; <a href="/isaiah/58-11.htm" title="And the LORD shall guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and make fat your bones: and you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.">Isaiah 58:11</a>; <a href="/joel/2-23.htm" title="Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he has given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.">Joel 2:23</a>; <a href="/joel/3-18.htm" title="And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth out of the house of the LORD, and shall water the valley of Shittim.">Joel 3:18</a>; <a href="/ezekiel/47-1.htm" title="Afterward he brought me again to the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar.">Ezekiel 47:1</a>; <a href="/ezekiel/47-12.htm" title="And by the river on the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.">Ezekiel 47:12</a>; <a href="/zechariah/13-1.htm" title="In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.">Zechariah 13:1</a>; <a href="/zechariah/14-8.htm" title="And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.">Zechariah 14:8</a>.<p>This frequent reference to the refreshment and life-giving power of water is the more natural in the East, where drought is a fearful evil ever to be guarded against, and a well of water a blessing always sought for as the first necessity of life.<p>The abundance is suggested by the contrast between the small quantity poured out in the Temple and the streams which flowed from the rock struck in the wilderness. The vessel they carried contained but three logs, or about a quart, of water, brought from the tank of Siloam. This was poured through a perforated silver bowl. In the spiritual interpretation the water shall not be carried to the Temple, for every believer shall be a temple of the Holy Ghost and a source of life; it shall not be a limited quantity in vessels of gold and silver, but shall be as rivers bursting forth in their strength and fulness.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-39.htm">John 7:39</a></div><div class="verse">(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet <i>given</i>; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)</div>(39) The word “given” is omitted in nearly all MSS. except the Vatican. “Holy” before Ghost is also probably an insertion, though it is found in some of the oldest MSS. and versions. These are additions of copyists who were anxious to preserve from all possibility of misinterpretation the doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit. This doctrine is more fully expounded in John 14-16, where see Notes.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-40.htm">John 7:40</a></div><div class="verse">Many of the people therefore, when they heard this saying, said, Of a truth this is the Prophet.</div>(40) <span class= "bld">Many of the people therefore, when they heard this saying . . .</span>—The reading of the best MSS. is, “Some of the people therefore, when they heard these sayings.”<p><span class= "bld">Of a truth this is the prophet</span>—i.e., the Prophet foretold by Moses in <a href="/deuteronomy/18-15.htm" title="The LORD your God will raise up to you a Prophet from the middle of you, of your brothers, like to me; to him you shall listen;">Deuteronomy 18:15</a>. (Comp. Notes on <a href="/john/1-21.htm" title="And they asked him, What then? Are you Elias? And he said, I am not. Are you that prophet? And he answered, No.">John 1:21</a>; <a href="/john/6-14.htm" title="Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.">John 6:14</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-41.htm">John 7:41</a></div><div class="verse">Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee?</div>(41) <span class= "bld">Others said this is the Christ.</span>—The Messiah is distinguished from the Prophet in the words of the multitude there, as in the question of the legates of the Sanhedrin, <a href="/context/john/1-20.htm" title="And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ.">John 1:20-21</a>.<p><span class= "bld">Shall Christ come out of Galilee?</span>—The answer “No” is expected, and the tense is present—<span class= "ital">Surely the Messiah cometh not out of Galilee?</span><p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-42.htm">John 7:42</a></div><div class="verse">Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?</div>(42) <span class= "bld">Hath not the scripture said . . .</span>—Comp. the prophecies in <a href="/micah/5-1.htm" title="Now gather yourself in troops, O daughter of troops: he has laid siege against us: they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek.">Micah 5:1</a>; <a href="/isaiah/11-1.htm" title="And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:">Isaiah 11:1</a>; <a href="/jeremiah/23-5.htm" title="Behold, the days come, said the LORD, that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.">Jeremiah 23:5</a>.<p><span class= "bld">Where David was.</span>—Comp. the history in 1 Samuel 16.<p>It has often been asked, sometimes in the spirit of objection, sometimes in the spirit of inquiry, how the Apostle, if he really knew the history of our Lord’s birth at Bethlehem, could record these questions without a correction. But in these verses he is giving the feelings and opinions of the multitude, and it is a mark of the truthfulness of his narrative that he gives them just as they really occurred. He, remembering the events as they took place, can with perfect historic fitness record the passing thoughts and words, erroneous as they were. A writer of the second century could not possibly have unintentionally made so great a mistake, with the earlier Gospels before him; nor could he have intentionally so thrown himself into the spirit of a Jewish multitude as to invent the question. (Comp. <a href="/john/7-52.htm" title="They answered and said to him, Are you also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee rises no prophet.">John 7:52</a>, and references in Note there.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-43.htm">John 7:43</a></div><div class="verse">So there was a division among the people because of him.</div>(43) <span class= "bld">There was a division among the people.</span>—The word for division is our word “schism.” It is found in the earlier Gospels in one instance only, “the rent is made worse” (<a href="/matthew/9-16.htm" title="No man puts a piece of new cloth to an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up takes from the garment, and the rent is made worse.">Matthew 9:16</a>; <a href="/mark/2-21.htm" title="No man also sews a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up takes away from the old, and the rent is made worse.">Mark 2:21</a>). This is nearer to the older meaning of the word, which is used, for example, of the hoofs of animals, and the leaves of trees. St. John uses it only to mark this rent into two parties of the Jewish multitude, here and in <a href="/john/9-16.htm" title="Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keeps not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.">John 9:16</a>; <a href="/john/10-19.htm" title="There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings.">John 10:19</a>. In St. Paul it is used of the divisions of the Church at Corinth (<a href="/1_corinthians/1-10.htm" title="Now I beseech you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.">1Corinthians 1:10</a>; <a href="/1_corinthians/11-18.htm" title="For first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it.">1Corinthians 11:18</a>; <a href="/1_corinthians/12-25.htm" title="That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.">1Corinthians 12:25</a>). The use of the word in its ethical sense may belong in some special way to Ephesus, for only in writings from this city do we find it in Biblical Greek. Later, both the word and the fact denoted by it passed into the history of the Church.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-44.htm">John 7:44</a></div><div class="verse">And some of them would have taken him; but no man laid hands on him.</div>(44) <span class= "bld">And some of them would have taken him</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> those who asked “Doth the Christ, then, come out of Galilee?” (<a href="/john/7-41.htm" title="Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee?">John 7:41</a>.) The officers of the Sanhedrin were present all this time (<a href="/john/7-32.htm" title="The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning him; and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take him.">John 7:32</a>), and are immediately mentioned as distinct from the “some” of this verse.<p><span class= "bld">No man laid hands on him.</span>—Comp. <a href="/john/7-30.htm" title="Then they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come.">John 7:30</a>. The reason is not here repeated. The fact is in part explained by the existence of a section who received Him as the Prophet and as the Christ, and in part by the power of His presence and words which impressed even the officers sent to take Him. (Comp. <a href="/john/18-6.htm" title="As soon then as he had said to them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground.">John 18:6</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-45.htm">John 7:45</a></div><div class="verse">Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, Why have ye not brought him?</div>(45) <span class= "bld">Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees.</span>—(Comp. Note on <a href="/john/18-3.htm" title="Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, comes thither with lanterns and torches and weapons.">John 18:3</a>.) They had been sent (<a href="/john/7-32.htm" title="The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning him; and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take him.">John 7:32</a>), not with a definite warrant to bring Him by force, but to watch their opportunity, and seize any pretext for doing so which may arise. “The chief priests and Pharisees” are the Sanhedrin who met (<a href="/john/7-32.htm" title="The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning him; and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take him.">John 7:32</a>), and, though it was a festival, seemed to have continued in session, expecting the return of their servants.<p><span class= "bld">Why have ye not brought him</span>?—Their question shows the object of the mission. It is asked in the bitterness of disappointed craft. In the presence of the multitude they dared not proceed by open force, and the influence they feared was every hour gaining ground. If their officers could have brought Him on some technical charge away from the people and into their own chamber, all would then have been in their own hands.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-46.htm">John 7:46</a></div><div class="verse">The officers answered, Never man spake like this man.</div>(46) <span class= "bld">Never man spake like this man.</span>—Some of <span class= "ital">the</span> oldest MSS., including the Vatican, have a shorter text, “Never man spake thus”; but the longer reading is to be preferred. The very officers acknowledged His power, and tell the professed teachers, whose opinions and words were the rule of all Jewish life, that never man spake as He whom they sought to take! It is probable that in the section immediately preceding (<a href="/context/john/7-32.htm" title="The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning him; and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take him.">John 7:32-34</a>), St. John gives us only a <span class= "ital">résumé</span> of what Jesus had said, and that words which have not come down to us were among those which produced so profound an impression on the officers.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-47.htm">John 7:47</a></div><div class="verse">Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived?</div>(47) <span class= "bld">Are ye also deceived</span>?—The emphasis is upon the <span class= "ital">ye.</span> “Ye whose duty it is simply to obey, who were sent to bring Him captive before us—do ye also yield to His power?” It is the Pharisees who ask this, and their spirit is shown in the matter of their question. They make no inquiry as to what He had said, though it must have struck them as a phenomenon demanding explanation that their own officials had been convinced by His teaching. It is at once assumed that they, too, had been <span class= "ital">deceived.</span> It is this sect of the Pharisees who speak of Him as “that <span class= "ital">deceiver”</span> (<a href="/matthew/27-63.htm" title="Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.">Matthew 27:63</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-48.htm">John 7:48</a></div><div class="verse">Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?</div>(48) <span class= "bld">The rulers</span> were the Sanhedrin, among whose official duties it was to prevent the introduction of false doctrines. (Comp. Note on Johnm 1:19.) “The Pharisees” were the orthodox party of the day, and they are the persons who ask the question. The matter was to be decided by authority, and not by truth. In the pride of the certainty that no one in a position of power or authority had believed on Jesus, they ask the scornful question, “Hath any one of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed? “They are stung to the very heart at seeing first the multitude, then their own officials, going after Him. They know not that there is one sitting in their midst, both ruler and Pharisee, who long before had listened to the teaching of the Galilean, and was in heart, if not in name, a disciple (John 3), and that during this very feast many of the chief Jews will believe on Him (<a href="/context/john/8-30.htm" title="As he spoke these words, many believed on him.">John 8:30-31</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-49.htm">John 7:49</a></div><div class="verse">But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.</div>(49) <span class= "bld">But this people who knoweth not the law . . .</span>—The words express “Those people there, among whom you have been, and with whose opinion you have been coinciding, instead of holding the authoritative opinion which we have declared, and which we alone can declare. We are the interpreters of the Law, and have the key of knowledge. That ignorant rabble uninstructed in the Law are cursed.”<p><span class= "bld">Are cursed.</span>—The writings of the Rabbis are full of scorn and contempt for the untutored multitude, whom they called <span class= "ital">‘am hāāretz,</span> “people of the earth,” as opposed to those instructed in the Law, whom they called <span class= "ital">‘ām kōdesh,</span> “holy people.” These words are an expression of this contempt. Some have supposed that they are meant to express the ban of excommunication, which they use as a weapon of compulsion in <a href="/john/9-22.htm" title="These words spoke his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.">John 9:22</a>, but this is quite out of the question as applied here to the multitude.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-50.htm">John 7:50</a></div><div class="verse">Nicodemus saith unto them, (he that came to Jesus by night, being one of them,)</div>(50) On the character of Nicodemus, see Notes on John 3. His position here is that of a friend of Jesus, who still does not dare to declare himself His open follower.<p><span class= "bld">He that came to Jesus by night.</span>—Comp. Note on <a href="/john/3-2.htm" title="The same came to Jesus by night, and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that you do, except God be with him.">John 3:2</a>. The better reading here is, probably, <span class= "ital">he that came to Him before.</span><p><span class= "bld">Being one of them</span> contains the answer to their question, “Hath any one (as above) of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him?” (<a href="/john/7-48.htm" title="Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?">John 7:48</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-51.htm">John 7:51</a></div><div class="verse">Doth our law judge <i>any</i> man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?</div>(51) <span class= "bld">Doth our law judge any man?</span>—He identifies Himself with them. He, like they, is an expounder of the Law. The force of the question is in the word “Law,” which they had used but the moment before in their scorn for the people who knew not the Law. “Well, this Law, which we do know and understand, doth it judge without open investigation?” Did they in their blind zeal forget such passages as <a href="/exodus/23-1.htm" title="You shall not raise a false report: put not your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.">Exodus 23:1</a>; <a href="/context/deuteronomy/1-16.htm" title="And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brothers, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him.">Deuteronomy 1:16-17</a>; <a href="/deuteronomy/19-15.htm" title="One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sins: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.">Deuteronomy 19:15</a>? They had determined a death, and were seeking to carry their sentence into effect in direct contravention of the Law. This holy people, instructed in the Law—they were the Law-breakers.<p><span class= "bld">Before it hear him.</span>—The better reading is, <span class= "ital">unless it hear first from him.</span><p><span class= "bld">And know what he doeth</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> know the deed for which he is tried.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-52.htm">John 7:52</a></div><div class="verse">They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.</div>(52) <span class= "bld">Art thou also of Galilee?</span>—They seek to avoid his question, to which there could have been but one answer, by a counter-question expressing their surprise at the position he is taking: “Surely thou art not also of Galilee?” “Thou art not His countryman, as many of this multitude are?” They imply that Nicodemus could not have asked a question which claimed for Jesus the simple justice of the Law itself, without being, like Him, a Galilean.<p><span class= "bld">Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.</span>—The words mean, “Search the records, examine, scrutinize the authorities.” (Comp. <a href="/john/5-39.htm" title="Search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.">John 5:39</a>.) They seek to pass from the matter of fact immediately before them to the question of authority. Their generalisation includes an historical error which cannot be explained away. Jonah is described in <a href="/2_kings/14-25.htm" title="He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath to the sea of the plain, according to the word of the LORD God of Israel, which he spoke by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gathhepher.">2Kings 14:25</a> as of Gathhepher, which was a town of Zebulun, in Lower Galilee. Possibly Elkosh, the birthplace of Nahum, was also in Galilee, and Hosea was certainly a prophet of the Northern Kingdom, though not necessarily of Galilee. Adverse criticism would lay this error also to the charge of the Evangelist. (Comp. Notes on <a href="/john/7-42.htm" title="Has not the scripture said, That Christ comes of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?">John 7:42</a>, and <a href="/john/1-45.htm" title="Philip finds Nathanael, and said to him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.">John 1:45</a>; <a href="/john/8-33.htm" title="They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how say you, You shall be made free?">John 8:33</a>.) But the obvious explanation is, that the Sanhedrin, in their zeal to press their foregone conclusion that Jesus is not a prophet, are not bound by strict accuracy; and it is not unlikely that, in the general contempt of Judæans for Galilee, this assertion had become a by-word, especially with men with so little of the historical sense as the later Rabbis. As compared with Judæa, it was true that Galilee was not a country of prophets, and by-words of this kind often rest on imperfect generalisations. We have seen that of the great prophets of Christianity all were Galileans. Judas Iscariot alone, of the Twelve Apostles, was probably a Judæan (Note on <a href="/john/6-71.htm" title="He spoke of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve.">John 6:71</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/7-53.htm">John 7:53</a></div><div class="verse">And every man went unto his own house.</div>(53) The section which follows (<a href="/john/7-53.htm" title="And every man went to his own house.">John 7:53</a> to <a href="/john/8-11.htm" title="She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn you: go, and sin no more.">John 8:11</a>) is one of the most striking instances of an undoubted addition to the original text of the Gospel narratives. We shall find reason to believe that it belongs to the Apostolic age, and preserves to us the record of an incident in the life of our Lord, but that it has not come to us from the pen of St. John. (Comp. <span class= "ital">Excursus B: Some Variations in the Text of St. John’s Gospel.</span>) While, therefore, it is printed in the text here, our text being a reprint of the Authorised version, without addition or alteration, the reader will observe that it is an insertion which breaks the order of the discourse, and in working out the line of thought will bear this in mind.<p><span class= "bld">And every man went unto his own house.</span>—This is not to be taken, then, as marking the close of the discussion in the Sanhedrin. It joins the inserted section with something which has preceded, but we have no means of judging what this was.<p><span class= "bld"><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers<br /><br />Text Courtesy of <a href="//biblesupport.com" target="_top">BibleSupport.com</a>. 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