John 2:18

Ver. 18. “ The Jews, therefore, answered and said unto him: What sign showest thou unto us, that thou doest these things? ”

The particle, therefore, connects again with John 2:16, after the interruption in John 2:17. The expression “ the Jews ” designates here especially the authorities charged with the care of the temple, with the shade of hostility which attaches to this term in our Gospel (see John 1:19). Riggenbach (“ Leben des Herrn Jesu,” p. 382) observes that “it is, indeed, the method of Pharisaism to demand a σημεῖον, an external sign, to legitimate an act which commends itself to the conscience by itself alone, because, once on this path, one can cavil about the nature and value of the sign, can move on indefinitely from demand to demand, and can ask finally, after a multiplication of loaves: What sign doest thou then? ᾿Αποκρίνεσθαι does not signify here, any more than elsewhere, to take up the discourse (Ostervald, Rilliet, Arnaud). This word always contains the idea of reply; only the reply is sometimes addressed to the conduct or the feeling of the interlocutor. Here the Jews' question is an answer to the act of Jesus; Jesus had just addressed an appeal to the religious sentiment of the people. The attitude of the people, thus called upon to declare themselves, in some sort decided fatally their future. The reply was significant. The nineteenth verse will show us that Jesus immediately penetrated its whole meaning. ῞Οτι : “What sign showest thou (to explain) that thou art doing...” Meyer: εἰς ἐκεῖνο ὅτι.