《Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures – John (Ch. 4~Ch. 8》(Johann P. Lange) 04 Chapter 4

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See under the previous head.

The quiet walking of Jesus in Galilee a token also of His glory.—A token of His prudence, His foresight, His Wisdom of Solomon, in His spirit of self-sacrifice.—How Jesus by wisdom preserved and spared His official life till the right, decisive moment, though it was forfeited to death from the first.—The most splendid and joyous feast of the Jews no allurement to the Lord, but an object of holy solicitude and dread.—The want of the obedience of faith in the enthusiastic zeal of faith in the brothers of Jesus.—The contrast between Christ’s knowledge of the world and His brothers’ knowledge of it.—Marks of the worldly element in the belief of the Messiah.—The word of Jesus to His brothers: John 7:6-8.—The declaration in John 7:6-7;—the several words of John 7:6-8.—“No guile found in His mouth,” or, Jesus, even in the pure and precise form of His words, hard to understand by the ordinary way of thinking.—The sharp precision of the words of Jesus a reflection of the perfect clearness of His mind.—The lesson of the divine peace in the Lord’s quiet tarrying at home while His brothers go to the brilliant feast.—We also must be able to slay at home.—With what a different eye from that of His brothers did Christ look upon the glories of the world and even of the Jewish people of God (or “church”).

Starke: Hasten not after suffering: it will come soon enough.—Cramer: Let every one look well to himself in his office that he may long serve the church of God.—Christians still celebrate their feast of tabernacles when they heartily praise God for His shelter and defence.—Hedinger: Let no one lord it over the wisdom of God.—Canstein: Follow not the voice which urges thee to seek a great name and become renowned in the world. The sole voice of self-love often leads a minister to leave a place where he may do much good, and move to another where he can do none.—Kindred are most commonly the ones who obstruct the godly.—Bibl. Wirt.: A true Christian heart desires not to distinguish itself; the more secret, the happier.—God does everything exactly at the right time, but men do much out of season.—One hawk does not pick out another’s eyes; he who accommodates himself to the world, will be loved by it.—The friendship of the world, James 4:4.—Canstein: It bespeaks humility and prudence for a man to wait God’s time, keeping himself quiet till it come; this does not conflict with the joyousness of faith, which afterwards goes joyfully forward when it perceives its time.—Gossner: I guide myself by the hour-glass of my Father; ye can go according to your pleasure; ye may say what ye will, ye will never be arraigned for it; but I must walk cautiously, that I may not wantonly encounter my suffering. He who follows his own will, who does everything out of his own head, and never consults the divine moment,—his time is always ready. But he who loves God, lets all his moments depend on the will and indication of God.—Braune: Even though they (the brothers) hastened forward to the feast, they after all remained behind.—They who are forward with outward worship, do not therefore worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. With the boisterous ( Isaiah 5:19) the Redeemer can have no fellowship.—It is trying indeed to be left alone with one’s Christianity in a good cause, but it is better to be alone than to burden one’s self with precarious companions who rather corrupt than improve. (Rieger).—Circumspection and prudence best become the boldest.—Gerlach: Such an appearance as ye demand would draw upon me not splendor and honor, but death and ruin.

Heubner: The world is still challenging: Show thyself, come out, make thyself known to the great rulers, recommend thyself by writings and the like.—Besser: Their time did not coincide with His time. It is the peculiar glory of believers, that in all their actions, God’s time is also theirs.—The more one sees the extraordinary mind develop itself under the common limitations of life, the harder he finds the acknowledgment of it.

Footnotes:

FN#1 - John 7:1.—καί is omitted by א* and אcb C2 D. text. rec. Tisch. (ed. VIII.), inserted by אca (but erased). B. C.* L. X. and other uncial MSS. Lachm. Treg. Alf. Westcott & Hort.—P. S.]

FN#2 - John 7:1.—The μετὰ ταῦτα immediately follows the καί in [א.] B. C. D. G. K, etc. [In the text. rec. it follows after ὁ Ἰησοῦς—P. S.]

FN#3 - John 7:1.—[Jewry is antiquated. The E. V. uses it twice in the N. T. ( Luke 23:5), in all other passages Judæa.—P. S.]

FN#4 - John 7:3.—[On the meaning of ἀδελφοί, see Text. Notes on II:12, p114.—P. S].

FN#5 - John 7:6.—[Οὖν, therefore, is wanting in א.* D. and omitted by Tischend, but retained with א.c B. L. etc., by Lachm. Alf, etc.—P. S.]

FN#6 - John 7:8.—This first ταύτην is wanting in B. D, etc., and is omitted by Lachmann and Tischendorf.

FN#7 - John 7:8.—“Elz, Lachmann: οὕπω, not yet; supported, too, by the preponderance of Codd. (only D. K. M. [א] and three minuscules have οὐκ); but against the weight of versions, most of which, including Vulgata and Itala, read οὐκ. Of the fathers, Epiphanius, Cyril, Chrysostom, and many others, have οὐκ. Porphyry found οὐκ in Jerome, and drew from it the charge of fickleness against Jesus. Just to avoid this offence οὔπω was introduced.” Meyer. [Lange adopts, with Meyer, ούκ, (not, instead of οὔπω, not yet. So also Cod. Sin, Tischend. ed. VIII.) Alf, Treg, while Lachm. and Westcott and Hort retain οὔπω.—P. S.]

FN#8 - John 7:9.—Tischendorf reads αὐτός instead of αὐτο͂ς after some undecisive Codd. [The Cod. Sin. D. Vulg. (ipse) support αὐτός.—P. S.]

FN#9 - On the σκηνοπηγία or ἐοπτὴ τῶν σκηνῶν (from σκηνή and πήγνυμι, lit. a booth-pitching, tent-pitching) comp. Leviticus 23; Deuteronomy 16; Josephus, Antiqu., III:10, 4; IV:8, 12; VIII:4, 1; Ewald, Jewish Archœol., p481 f.; Keil, Arch. I, § 85, and the respective articles in Winer, Smith, Kitto, Fairbairn.—P.S.]

FN#10 - The passage of Papias about the four Marys, published by Grabe and Routh from a Bodleian MS, (No2397), which Mill, Wordsworth, and two writers in Smith’s Dictionary (sub. Brothers and James) have uncritically quoted in favor of the cousin-theory, is not from the Papias of the second century, but from a mediæval namesake of the bishop of Hierapolis and author of a dictionary. Comp. Lightfoot Com. on Galatians, 2 d ed, 1866, p265 f. Lightfoot asserts and proves that the Hieronymian hypothesis is a pure conjecture unsupported by any previous traditional sanction.—P. S.]

FN#11 - This was my conviction nearly thirty years ago when I first carefully examined this vexed question in my German treatise on James the Brother of the Lord. Berlin, 1842.]

FN#12 - For a refutation of the various attempts to weaken the force of οὐκ ἐπίστευον, see my treatise on James, etc. pp 51 ff. In John 6:64, the μαθηταί οί πιστεύουσι are clearly distinguished from the twelve, and they forsook the Lord (66), while the apostles remained (68). In Luke 12:23, the disciples are called “men of little faith,” but this is very different from unbelief. The γενεά ἅπιστος, Matthew 17:17, refers to a particular fact and a single Acts, not to a state of mind or tendency. The question, John 16:31, ἅρτι πιστεύετε (if it be a question), can in no way contradict the πεπιστεύκατε in John 7:27 and the ἐπίστευσαν John 17:8.]

Verses 10-36

THIRD SECTION

Ferment in the Contest between the Elements of Light and Darkness. Formation of Parties, as a Prelude to the full Opposition between the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness

John 7:10 to John 10:21

I

Fermentation And Party Division Among The People In General

(A) Christ, The Teacher And The One Sent From Cod, In Opposition To The Human Rabbinical Office, And In Agreement With Moses. His Earthly Descent In Opposition To Descent From Heaven. His Opponents, Who Wished To Kill Him, In Contradiction With Moses, The Prophet Of God, Intending To Return To God

John 7:10-36

10But when his brethren [brothers] were [had] gone up [to the feast]^[FN13] then went he also [he also went] up unto the feast, not openly [as a festal pilgrim], but as it were in secret [as a private person, a non-participant spectator]. 11Then the Jews [The Jews therefore] sought him at the feast, and said, Where is he [that Prayer of Manasseh, ἐκεῖνος]? 12And there was much murmuring among the people [the multitudes, ἐν τοῖς ὄχλοις] concerning him: for some said, He is a good man: [but]^[FN14] others said, Nay; but Hebrews 13deceiveth the people [the multitude, τὸν ὄχλον]. Howbeit, no man spake [Yet no one spoke] openly of him, for fear of the Jews.

14Now about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught 15 And [Then]^[FN15] the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned [been schooled as a Rabbi].

16Jesus [therefore]^[FN16] answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his thatsent me 17 If any man [one] will do his will [is willing, desirous, anxious to do his will, θέλῃ τὸ θέλημα αὐτοῦ],^[FN17] he shall know of [concerning] the doctrine, whether it be of [is from] God, or whether I [in my doctrine] speak [make words, λαλῶ]of18[from] myself. He that speaketh of [from] himself, seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh his glory [the glory of Him] that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness [i.e. no transgression of the law, see John 7:21] is in him 19 Did not Moses give you the law, [?] and yet none of you keepeth the law? [!]^[FN18] Why go ye about [Why do you seek] to kill me?

20The people [multitude—not the rulers] answered and said, Thou hast a devil [a demon, δαιμόνιον, a spirit of melancholy]: who goeth about [seeketh] to kill thee?

21Jesus answered and said unto them, I have done one work, and ye all marvel22[on account of it].^[FN19] Moses therefore [on this account, for this cause, see note7] gave unto you [the] circumcision (not because [that] it is of [from] Moses, but of23[from] the fathers;) and ye on the Sabbath-day [omit day] circumcise a man. If a man on the Sabbath-day [omit day] receive circumcision that the law of Moses should [may] not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath-day [because I have made sound, or, restored to health a whole Prayer of Manasseh, ὅλον ἄνθρωπον (i.e. the entire body of a Prayer of Manasseh, not only a single member as in circumcision) on a Sabbath]? 24Judge not according to the [omit the] appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

25Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this he whom they seek to kill? 26But [And] lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto him. Do the rulers 27 know indeed^[FN20] that this is the very [omit very, see note8] Christ. Howbeit, we know this man [Still, as to this Prayer of Manasseh, we know], whence he is: but when [the] Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is.

28Then [Therefore] cried Jesus in the temple, as he taught, saying [teaching in the temple and saying], Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I Amos 29not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not. But^[FN21]I know him; for I am from him, and he hath sent me.

30Then [Therefore] they sought to take [seize] him: but [and yet]^[FN22] no man [one] laid hands on him, because his hour was [had] not yet come 31 And many of the people [But of the multitude many]^[FN23] believed on him, and said,^[FN24] When Christ cometh, will he do^[FN25] more miracles [signs] than these^[FN26] which this man hath done? 32The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things [heard the multitude murmuring these things] concerning him: and the Pharisees and the chief priests [the chief priests and the Pharisees]^[FN27] sent officers to take [seize] him.

33Then said Jesus [Jesus therefore said] unto them, Yet a little while am I with 34 you, and then I go unto him that sent me. Ye shall [will] seek me, and shall [will] not find me [me]:^[FN28] and where I [then] Amos, thither [omit thither] ye cannot come.

35Then said the Jews [The Jews therefore said] among themselves, Whither will he [this man] go, that we shall not find him? will he go unto the dispersed [the 36 Diaspora] among the Gentiles [Greeks] and teach the Gentiles [Greeks]? What manner of saying is this [What is this word] that he said, Ye shall [will] seek me, and shall [will] not find me [me]:16 and where I Amos, thither [omit thither] ye cannot come.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

John 7:10. Had gone up.—The ἀνέβησαν is pluperfect.

Ibid. Not openly.—That Isaiah, not in the festal train, not as a festal pilgrim; but not: by another road, De Wette, etc. (On the Docetism which Baur and Hilgenfeld would find in the words, see Meyer)—But as it were in secret.—This expression denotes a solitary journey, a quiet stay near Jerusalem (perhaps in Bethany), and a subsequent appearance at the feast not incognito, and not in the character of a festal pilgrim, but in the capacity of a prophet coming forth out of concealment to the feast, to point out the insufficiency of the festal symbols in contrast with their real fulfilment in His person. And because He did so appear it is said ὡς “as it were in secret.” This was the character in which He went up, not in which He continued. Meyer is incorrect in saying that this was the final departure of Jesus from Galilee. The present departure of Jesus from Galilee was entirely private; the final departure took place under a great convoy ( Matthew 19:1-2; Mark 10:1; Leben Jesu, p928). More below, at John 10:22.

John 7:11. The Jews therefore sought him at the feast.—According to John 7:13 the hostile Jews are, of course, primarily intended here. They thought to continue unto death the persecution opened against Jesus in John 5. Hence also the expression ἐκεῖνος, “Where is that man?”

John 7:12-13. And there was much murmuring.—An expressive designation of the ferment in the popular mass, and the powerful working of the hostile rulers upon the sentiment of the people. In the division of opinion the friends of Jesus express themselves with timid reserve: He is a good man (ἀγαθός), kind, benevolent. According to the New Testament usage (see Matthew 20:15; Romans 5:7), the term no doubt means something more than “honest, a man of honor” (Meyer); though the attenuation of the confession of Jesus in the period of rationalism could go so far that some one wrote a pamphlet: Jesus and His Disciples were honest People. The confession is evidently suppressed also here. The others more boldly speak out their opposite opinion: He deceiveth the people.

But that the more favorable public opinion concerning Him was already under the terrorism of the hostile party spirit, is told us by the addition: Yet no one [i. e. of the friendly part] spoke openly of him, for fear of the Jews—According to Meyer this last verse includes literally all. “Even the hostile ones were afraid, because, so long as those (the hierarchy) had not yet officially decided, a reversion of their sentiment was conceivable. A faithful picture of bad, Jesuitical domination of the people”. The οὐδείς μέντοι will certainly have a meaning; though the opinion, “He deceiveth the people,” was open enough. The distinction between λέγειν and λαλεῖν must be observed here. Persons on both sides were expressing themselves in a scanty λέγειν; yet did not come to a λαλεῖν παῤῥησίᾳ a full, free talk, concerning Him, because any expression of acknowledgment could easily be communicated by heresy-hunters, and because an unfavorable opinion also might easily have something contrary to form. The bondage of conscience was such that no one ventured to utter fully the thoughts of his heart, before the hierarchy had spoken.

John 7:14. The midst of the feast.—In a seven or eight days’ feast three or four days were now past, and it became clear that He did not intend this time to take part in the observance. If Jesus had come earlier to the place, it is more probable that He lodged in the vicinity than in Jerusalem itself. See above, on John 7:10.

Up into the temple.—It might seem as if by this step He passed from extreme caution to extreme boldness. But even by this new manner of appearance He proves Himself the great Master in the knowledge of men. From this time forth He could safely appear in Judea and Galilee only by suddenly entering a great assembly of the people, and working there. The spirit of reverence for Him, which animated the people, still for a time shielded Him in these situations from His enemies. Thus He made the crown or halo of the popular assembly His faithful guard, so long as the better Messianic spirit of the people recognized in Him the Son of David. He was adorned in the presence of His enemies with the wreath of popular veneration, till this wreath too was torn and withered by the poisonous breath of their enmity. (Leben Jesu, II, p932).

And taught.—From the subsequent narrative we may suppose that His teaching related to the feast of tabernacles. Song of Solomon, in John 2, His teaching connected itself with the symbolical import of the temple, which He was then for the first time officially visiting; His conversation with the theocratic Nicodemus on the need of real regeneration in order to pass from the old theocracy to the new kingdom of heaven connected itself with the proselyte baptism; His conversation with the Samaritan woman took its turn from the holy wells in Israel; His discourse in John 5, from the medicinal spring and the healing; and even in His Galilean discourse in John 6 there is a manifest reference to the approaching passover in Jerusalem.

John 7:15. How knoweth this man letters [γράμματαοἶδεν].—First are heard the voices of the adversaries of Jesus. Their first objection is founded on the fact that He is not a promoted Rabbi; the second ( John 7:27) on His origin.—The Jews here are evidently the Judaists, and probably, judging from their expressions, scribes, Rabbis. They [the hierarchical opponents, probably members of the Sanhedrin, as in John 11:13.—P. S.] marvelled; they cannot deny that He knows the books and has the gift of teaching; but, full of envy, school-bigotry and statutory zeal, they fall upon the circumstance that He has not studied [μὴ μεμαθηκώς], and is not a regular graduate of the Rabbinical schools. The γράμματα without ἱερά ( 2 Timothy 3:15) denotes not the Holy Scriptures (ἡ γραφή, according to the Peshito, Luther, Grotius), but literature, the field of learning (in the Vulgate, litteræ, see Acts 26:24).^[FN29] The passage is “important against the attempts, ancient and modern, to trace the wisdom of Jesus to human education” (Meyer). The words evidently grope in confusion half way between acknowledgment and denial of His wisdom. But the stress lies not on the concession, but on the questioning. Though He seems to know books, yet there must be some deception about it, since He has not, studied and advanced in the regular prescribed way. A young school-enthusiast trusts not his eyes, trusts not his cars, trusts not even his enthusiasm and his intellectual gain, when he meets a teacher who has the prejudice of the school against him; the old school-enthusiast is at once fully decided in his prejudice by the absence of school-endorsement. The point at which the teaching of Jesus came most in contact with Jewish learning, was the relation of His symbolical interpretation to the Jewish allegorizing (of the Old Testament and its types). It was indeed a relation as between a melon and a gourd; but the appearance of similarity must have struck the eyes of these people more than the difference. Yet, after their manner, regardless of the actual teaching of Jesus, they fell upon His want of legitimation. His doctrine is not delivered as the sacred tradition of the schools, not systematized according to the rules and practice of the school, not legalized as the production of a graduate.

[This testimony of enemies to a fact well known to them, strongly confirms what we otherwise know or must conjecture concerning Christ’s education, or rather the absence in His case of the ordinary ways and means by which other men receive their knowledge. He was neither school-taught [ἀλλο-δίδακτος), nor self-taught (αὐτο-δίδακτος), nor even God-taught (θεο-δίδακτος like inspired prophets) in the usual sense of these terms. No doubt He learned from His mother, He went to the Synagogue, He heard and read the Scriptures, He studied nature and Prayer of Manasseh, and the Holy Ghost descended upon Him at the baptism in Jordan; yet the secret fountain of His knowledge of God and man must be found in His mysterious and unique relation to the Father and derived from direct intuition into the living fountain of truth in God. He was and continued to be the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father who explained Him to us as no philosopher or prophet could do. I quote an appropriate passage from my book on the Person of Christ, p 34 ff.: “Christ spent His youth in poverty and manual labor, in the obscurity of a carpenter’s shop; far away from universities, academies, libraries, and literary or polished society; without any help, as far as we know, except the parental care, the daily wonders of nature, the Old Testament Scriptures, the weekly Sabbath services of the Synagogue at Nazareth ( Luke 4:16), the annual festivals in the Temple of Jerusalem ( Luke 2:42 ff.) and the secret intercourse of His soul with God, His heavenly Father … Christ can be ranked neither with the school-trained, nor with the self-trained or self-made men; if by the latter we understand, as we must, those who, without the regular aid of living teachers, yet with the same educational means, such as books, the observation of men and things, and the intense application of their mental faculties attained to vigor of intellect, and wealth of scholarship,—like Shakspeare, Jacob Bœhme, Benjamin Franklin, and others. All the attempts to bring Jesus into contact with Egyptian Wisdom of Solomon, or the Essenic theosophy, or other sources of learning, are without a shadow of proof, and explain nothing after all. He never quotes from books, except the Old Testament. He never refers to secular history, poetry, rhetoric, mathematics, astronomy, foreign languages, natural sciences, or any of those branches of knowledge which make up human learning and literature. He confined Himself strictly to religion. But, from that centre, He shed light over the whole world of man and nature. In this department, unlike all other great men, even the prophets and the apostles, He was absolutely original and independent. He taught the world as one who had learned nothing from it, and was under no obligation to it. He speaks from divine intuition, as one who not only knows the truth, but is the truth; and with an authority that commands absolute submission, or provokes rebellion, but can never be passed by with contempt or indifference.”—P. S.]

John 7:16. My doctrine (or, teaching) is not mine.—That Isaiah, I am no self-taught man in such a sense as to be an upstart and pretender; there is another in whose school I have regularly advanced. With cutting irony He off-sets His teaching against their Rabbinical teaching (both as to form and matter); His authority, the Father, against their authorities, the old Rabbinical masters. The first “My” therefore denotes His discourse (His system, the school He teaches); the second, His authority (the school He has learned in). Meyer: “Οὐκ—ἁλλά here also is not equivalent to tam—quam (Wolf, etc.), but is absolutely exclusive.” Hardly “absolutely,” but only so far as His person is regarded in its human aspect. Tholuck: “His human personality is viewed abstractly by itself, as in John 5:31; John 8:16.” The primary distinction is between the Son sent, who both in word and act executes the ἐντολή of the Father, who speaks what He hears of the Father, and does what the Father shows Him,—between this person and the Father Himself. And He so far views His personality abstractly by itself as He yields to their idea of an independent human person distinct from God.