Jesus does then go to Jerusalem for the feast. The evangelist unfolds his attendance in three steps: • He initially directs that his brothers will attend but He will remain in Galilee () • Afterwards he does go to Jerusalem, "not openly, but as it were in secret" (,
NKJV translation) () • "But when the middle feast day came, Jesus went up into the
temple, and taught" (,
Wycliffe Bible). H. W. Watkins supposes that the main party travelling from Galilee to Jerusalem would have taken the route to the east of the
River Jordan, and that Jesus took the alternative route through
Samaria, as he had done when he travelled back from Jerusalem to Galilee in
chapter 4,
Verses 15-17 When Jesus began to teach in the Temple, he was perceived as being uneducated and yet learned, not having received rabbinical, priestly or
Sadduceean training, but "knowing his letters" (οὗτος γράμματα οἶδεν,
houtos grammata oiden), γράμματα not meaning "the scriptures" as such but what theologian
Heinrich Meyer calls "scriptural erudition". "His teaching on this occasion was expository", of other learned scholars, but He explains that His teaching is not His own, "but His who sent Me" (). Jesus does not disown His teaching, but He does not claim to be its originator or its authority: :"The 'my' refers to the teaching itself, the 'mine' to the ultimate authority on which it rests. I am not a
self-taught Man, as though out of the depths of my own independent human consciousness I span it ... 'He who sent me' gave [it] to me. I have been in intimate communion with HIM. All that I say is Divine thought." The evangelist has already referred to
four witnesses to the validity of Jesus' testimony (), and now adds that anyone who wants to do God's will know the authority of His teaching ().
Learned discussion on Laws In a discussion which demonstrates this point to the learned Jews, Jesus then refers to the
Mosaic law, and to the law and tradition of the
patriarchs. The law of circumcision prescribed by
Moses () originated with God's
covenant with Abraham and required every male child to be
circumcised on his eighth day. If this day was a
Sabbath, the obligation to circumcise that day overrode the obligation to rest on the Sabbath (). Jews familiar with both laws would also have been familiar with the rule of precedence between them. But Jesus then refers to the
healing at the Temple on the Sabbath day of a man who had had an infirmity for thirty-eight years (), on account of which the Jews wanted to kill Jesus (): :"Are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath?" () The responses to Jesus' teaching identified in this section are: • Some people were impressed: "He is good" (, a) • Others said, "No, on the contrary, He deceives the people" (, b) • Discussion is restricted: "no one spoke openly of Him for fear of the Jews" () • Some people marveled, saying, "How does this Man know letters, having never studied?" () • Some wanted to kill Him () • Some suggested He was "crazy and perhaps
paranoid": "You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill You?" () • Some were angry with Him () • Some recognized Him as the
Messiah and believed in Him () • Some denied that He could be the Messiah: "We know where this Man is from; but when the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from" () • No one laid a hand on Him, because (according to the evangelist), "His hour had not yet come". () The debate or "murmurings" about whether Jesus could be the Messiah came to the attention of the
Pharisees, and they and the
Chief Priests "sent officers in order to take him into custody".(). In this verse and in verse , "the reader is for the first time informed that the Pharisees and the chief priests try to
arrest Jesus but do not succeed. This anticipates their new initiatives in chapters
9 to
12, where they finally achieve their plans.
Jesus' impending departure Then Jesus said "I shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me. You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come." () The evangelist has noted twice in this chapter that Jesus' time has not yet come ( and , see also
John 2:4), but in a little while (), the time will come for Jesus to depart. The word in ,
I go away, is a distinctively Johannine word, used 15 times throughout the gospel. The
Pulpit Commentary suggests that "a little while" amounts to six months, as "six months would bring round the last Passover". non-conformist theologian
Philip Doddridge described it as "a sarcasm", and the
International Standard Version offers the translation as follows:
Verse 35 :
"Will he go where our people live scattered among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks?" However, it is not an unreasonable supposition, as the mission to the Jewish diaspora formed "the very mode of proceeding afterwards adopted by the Apostles"
Peter asks the same question of Jesus when He has privately told His disciples that He is leaving them, and "where [He is] going, [they] cannot come". Peter is told "you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterwards” ().
The promise of the Holy Spirit Verses 37-39 :
On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ::
"If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. ::
He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." The
Book of Leviticus prescribed that the Feast of Tabernacles should last for seven days, and that on the
eighth day: :
You shall have a holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. It is a sacred assembly, and you shall do no customary work on it. () On this sacred day, Jesus stood (presumably at the Temple) and cried out: :
If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. () Many translations include the scriptural reference within the words Jesus cried out. The
Jerusalem Bible breaks up the text in a different manner: :
... Jesus stood there and cried out: ::
"If any man is thirsty, let him come to me! ::
Let the man come and drink who believes in me!" :
As scripture says: From his breast shall flow fountains of living water. Many
Fathers of the Church, from
Origen onwards, have reflected on the words of verse 38, "out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water", seen as a reference to "those who, having drunk of Christ, put their faith in him". The quoted words, "
If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink" is a reference to
Isaiah 55:1. Meyer explains that "there is no exactly corresponding passage, indeed, in Scripture" for the words
out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. He suggests that "it is simply a free quotation harmonizing in thought with parts of various passages, especially , and ". "the [Holy] Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (). Literally, the text states "the (Holy) Spirit was not yet", but this "strange and startling statement" "This is the Christ" (John 7:41). The people of Jerusalem, debating at whether Jesus could be the Messiah, cast doubt on this interpretation of Jesus' works because "when the Christ comes, no one [will] know where He is from".
Verse 42 In
John 7:42, some of the crowd reason that "the Christ [will] come from the seed of
David and from the town of
Bethlehem, where David was" and therefore Jesus, who came from Galilee, could not be the Messiah: :
Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the seed of David and from the town of Bethlehem, where David was?” It is written in
Micah 5:2: :
But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times ( NIV) The Gospels of
Matthew and
Luke give an account of how Jesus of
Nazareth in Galilee could also be from Bethlehem, as He was
born there, but John's Gospel has no parallel account. The Pulpit Commentary identifies a number of theologians (
De Wette,
Baur,
Weisse,
Keim and others) who "have tried to prove from this that the evangelist was ignorant of Christ's birth at Bethlehem", This is reminder of the words in : :
You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike () The Sanhedrin advises Nicodemus that he should study the scriptures further:
Verse 52 :
They answered and said to him, "Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee." ==Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53–8:11)==