John 11:8-10

“ The disciples say to him; Master, the Jews were but now seeking to stone thee, and dost thou return thither? 9. Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any one walk during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world; 10 but if any one walk in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him. ”

At the word Judea, as Jesus expected, the disciples uttered a protest. He took advantage of their objection to give them an excellent teaching with respect to their future ministry. The answer of Jesus (John 11:9-10) has naturally a double meaning. The first meaning is clear: He who accomplishes the journey to which he is called during the twelve hours of the day, does not stumble; the light of the sun enlightens him and makes him discern the obstacles in his path; while he who wishes to continue his journey even after the night has come, is in danger of perishing. In the application, some give to the idea of day a purely moral sense. According to Chrysostom, de Wette, Bruckner the day designates a virtuous life, a life passed in communion with God, and the sense is: On the line of duty marked out, one has no serious danger to fear; but as soon as one turns aside from it, he exposes himself to the danger of perishing.

The sense is good; but the figure of the twelve hours is not explained. This last expression leads naturally to the temporal application of the idea of day. Bengel, Meyer, Hengstenberg, Weiss and Reuss have felt this. They understand by the twelve hours of day the divinely measured time of the earthly life: “The time which was granted me has not yet elapsed; so long as it continues, no one can injure me; but when it shall have elapsed, I shall fall into the hands of my enemies.” So already Apollinaris, “The Lord declares that before the time of His Passion, the Jews could do nothing to Him: the day is the time until the Passion; the night, the time after the Passion.” This sense seems to me incompatible with John 11:10, in which the term προσκόπτειν, to stumble, cannot designate a purely passive state, like that of Jesus falling into the hands of the Jews, and in which the expression: There is no light in him, cannot apply to Jesus. Meyer answers: “This is a point which pertains to the figure and which has no significance.” But John 11:10, which forms half of the picture, cannot be treated in this way.

I think (partly) with Tholuck, Lange and Luthardt, that the day here designates at once the time of life and the task assigned for this time; it is the day of the workman's labor, as in John 9:4. Only here the figure is borrowed from the situation in which Jesus finds Himself with His disciples. It is the morning; the sun rises; they have before them a good day's journey, twelve hours of daylight. During all this time, they will journey without danger. Before it is night, they will have reached the end of the journey, Bethany. In the moral sense this means: “I can go without fear to Judea, whither duty calls me. The twelve hours which are granted me for the accomplishment of my task will remain intact. The sun of the divine will, in assigning me my task, enlightens my path; I shall not stumble. The danger of stumbling and falling would begin for me only at the moment when, fleeing in a cowardly way from a foreseen danger, I should wish arbitrarily to prolong the time of my life, and to add a thirteenth hour of walking to the twelve which legitimately belong to me. From that moment I could only stumble, sin, perish. For the hour of life which God had not given me, would be an hour without duty or mission; the sun of the divine will would no more enlighten my course.” In other terms: “The Jews cannot take away from me one moment of the time which is accorded me, so long as I am in the accomplishment of my task; a real danger will assail me only if, as you would have me do, I seek arbitrarily to prolong my career, by refusing to go whither duty calls me.” This word applies to the believer who, in the time of persecution, would prolong his life by denying his faith, to the physician who would flee from the approach of a contagious malady, etc.

The man, after being placed in such a situation, can only sin and perish. Meyer objects to this sense, that the disciples asked Jesus only not to shorten His life, and did not ask Him to prolong it. But this amounts to precisely the same thing. To desert duty for fear of shortening one's life, is not this to strive to prolong it beyond due measure? The expression: the light is not in him, signifies that the divine will, no longer presiding over that life, cannot serve to direct it; such a man lives only on a venture, because he ought not to live any longer. The parallel 1 John 2:10-11, confirms this meaning. The analogy of the expressions and ideas between the two passages is remarkable. John there applies to the believer who loves or does not love his brother what Jesus here says of the man who is obedient or not obedient to the will of God. This saying is, both in matter and form, the counterpart of that in which Jesus gave the reason, John 9:4, of the act of healing the man who was born blind. Only, according to the fine remark of Lange, there it was evening; He saw the sun descending to the horizon: “I must not lose a moment of the time which remains for me to enlighten the world.” Here it is morning: “The time which is assigned me is sufficient for accomplishing my whole task; I must not through cowardice seek to add an hour to the day of work which is divinely assured to me.” In these two words: to lose nothing, to add nothing, is certainly summed up the duty of man in relation to the time of his earthly work.