John 7:40-44

“ Some among the multitude, who had heard these words said, This man is of a truth the prophet. Others said, This is the Christ. 41. But others said, Does the Christ then come out of Galilee? 42. Has not the Scripture declared that the Christ comes of the seed of David and from the village of Bethlehem, where David was? 43. So there arose a division in the multitude because of him, 44 and some of them would have taken him; but no one laid hands on him. ”

These brief descriptions of the impressions of the people, which follow each of the discourses of Jesus serve to mark the two- fold development which is effected and thus prepare the way for the understanding of the final crisis. These pictures are history taken in the act; how could they proceed from the pen of a later narrator? John has given us only the resume of the discourses delivered by Jesus on this occasion. This is what he gives us to understand by the plural τῶν λόγων, these discourses, which, according to the documents, is to be regarded as the true reading. We know already who this prophet was of whom a portion of the hearers are thinking. Comp. John 1:12; John 6:14. The transition from this supposition to the following one: This is the Messiah, is easily understood from the second of these passages.

As there were two shades of opinion among the well-disposed hearers, so there were also two in the hostile party: some limited themselves to making objections (John 7:41-42); this feature suffices to isolate them morally from those previously mentioned. Others (John 7:44) already wished to proceed to violent measures. De Wette, Weiss, Keim ask why John does not refute the objection advanced in John 7:42, which it would have been easy for him to do, if he had known or admitted the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. From this silence they infer that he was ignorant of or denied the whole legend of the Davidic descent of Jesus and His birth at Bethlehem. But the evangelist relates his story objectively (Weiss), and it is precisely in the case of his believing the objection to be well founded that he would be obliged to try to resolve it. John often takes pleasure in reporting objections which, for his readers who are acquainted with the Gospel history, turn immediately into proofs. At the same time he shows thereby how the critical spirit, to which the adversaries of Jesus had surrendered themselves had been a less sure guide than the moral instinct through which the disciples had attached themselves to Him. The γάρ, for (John 7:41), refers to an understood negative: “By no means, for...” The present ἔρχεται, comes, is that of the idea, the expression of what must be, according to the prophecy. ῝Οπου ἦν “ where he was (his home);” comp. 1 Sam. 16:44. The some, according to Weiss, formed a part of the officers sent to take Him. But, in that case, why not designate them, as in John 7:45 ? They were rather some violent persons in the crowd who were urging the officers to execute their commission. To take Him, in the sense of causing Him to be taken.