John 8:59

Then took they up stones Or, Therefore took they up stones, i.e. in consequence of His last words. They see clearly what He means. He has taken to Himself the Divine Name and they prepare to stone Him for blasphemy. Material lying there for completing and repairing the Temple would supply them with missiles. Comp. John 10:31; John 10:33.

but Jesus hid himself Probably we are not to understand a miraculous withdrawal as in Luke 4:30, where the -passing through the midst of them" seems to be miraculous. Here we need not suppose more than that He drew back into the crowd away from those who had taken up stones. The Providence which ordered that as yet the fears of the hierarchy should prevail over their hostility (John 7:30; John 8:20), ruled that the less hostile in this multitude should screen Him from the fury of the more fanatical. It is quite arbitrary to invert the clauses and render, -Jesus went out of the Temple and hid Himself."

going through the midst of them, and so passed by These words are apparently an insertion, and probably an adaptation of Luke 4:30. No English Version previous to the one of 1611 contains the passage.

As a comment on the whole discourse see 1 Peter 2:22-23, remembering that S. Peter was very possibly present on the occasion.

"The whole of the Jews" reasoning is strictly what we should expect from them. These constant appeals to their descent from Abraham, these repeated imputations of diabolic possession, this narrow intelligence bounded by the letter, this jealousy of anything that seemed in the slightest degree to trench on their own rigid monotheism all these, down to the touch in John 8:57, in which the age they fix upon in round numbers is that assigned to completed manhood, give local truth and accuracy to the picture; which in any case, we may say confidently, must have been drawn by a Palestinian Jew, and was in all probability drawn by a Jew who had been himself an early disciple of Christ." S. p. 160.