Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

John 7:19

John 7:19. Did not Moses give you the law, and no one of you doeth the law? Why seek ye to kill me? There are two ways in which this verse may be taken, and between them it is not easy to decide. They turn on the interpretation of ‘no one of you doeth the law;' for this may find its explanation either in the words that immediately follow or in John 7:21-25. It may be best to give the connection of thought according to each of these views. In both cases the ‘law' chiefly denotes the Ten Commandments. (I) The accusation of the Jews against Jesus, of having transgressed God's will, must fall to the ground (John 7:18), but not so His accusation against them. Moses, whom all accepted as God's true messenger, gave them the law, which therefore expressed God's will, and yet every one of them was breaking the law, for they were seeking to kill Jesus. They were therefore self-convicted by their own works of opposing the revealed will of God: no wonder therefore that they had rejected Jesus. In favour of this explanation we may say that the words are (John 7:15-16) addressed to ‘the Jews,' whose murderous intention Jesus well knew not to have been inspired by true zeal for the law, that the words so understood aptly follow John 7:17-18, and that we thus secure for the solemn expression doeth the law ‘a natural and worthy sense. (2) The other explanation connects this verse less strictly with John 7:18. In Jesus, as a true messenger, there is no unrighteousness. What they have called unrighteousness is altogether righteous, nay, it is what they themselves habitually do, and rightly do. Moses gave them the law, the whole law, and yet there is no one of them that keeps the whole law. Every one of them (as the example afterwards given proves) sets aside one of two conflicting laws, breaks one commandment when there is no other way of keeping a higher command inviolate; and this is all that Jesus did in the act for which they seek to kill Him. This second explanation agrees well with what follows; and, although at first sight it seems almost too mild to be spoken to ‘the Jews,' it has really great sharpness. It must have at once penetrated their hearts and thrown a light upon the guilt and folly of their conduct which they could only evade by again deliberately turning their eyes from the light. ‘No one of you doeth the law' is also a very heavy charge. On the whole, the second interpretation seems preferable to the first.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

John 7:19

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