John 7:8

Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) Go ye up unto this feast.—This should be, rather, Go ye up unto the feast, with the stress on the pronoun “ye,” and the article instead of the demonstrative “this.”

I go not up yet unto this feast.—The “yet” is of doubtful authority, though it is found in some early MSS. and versions, and the more so because it removes an apparent difficulty. Without it, the words do not involve a change of purpose, and Porphyry’s often-repeated charge of fickleness has no real ground. He is not going up unto the feast in the sense in which they intended—openly, with the usual caravan from Galilee. Another going up publicly, as they intended, and with an issue the dark presages of which now crowd upon Him, is present to His mind. “Ye, go ye up to the feast; I go not up to this feast.” The verb is in the present, and its meaning does not exclude a going up afterwards. (See also Note on John 7:10.) They were then going; the caravan was preparing to start. I am not going up (now). The time is coming, but it has not yet fully come. (Comp. Note on Luke 9:51.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:1-13 The brethren or kinsmen of Jesus were disgusted, when they found there was no prospect of worldly advantages from him. Ungodly men sometimes undertake to counsel those employed in the work of God; but they only advise what appears likely to promote present advantages. The people differed about his doctrine and miracles, while those who favoured him, dared not openly to avow their sentiments. Those who count the preachers of the gospel to be deceivers, speak out, while many who favour them, fear to get reproach by avowing regard for them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I go not up yet - Jesus remained until about the middle of the feast, John 7:14. That is, he remained about four days after his brethren had departed, or until the mass of the people had gone up, so that his going might excite no attention, and that it might not be said he chose such a time to excite a tumult. We have here a signal instance of our Lord's prudence and opposition to parade. Though it would have been lawful for him to go up at that time, and though it would have been a favorable period to make himself known, yet he chose to forego these advantages rather than to afford an occasion of envy and jealousy to the rulers, or to appear even to excite a tumult among the people.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6-10. My time is not yet come—that is, for showing Himself to the world.

your time is always ready—that is "It matters little when we go up, for ye have no great plans in life, and nothing hangs upon your movements. With Me it is otherwise; on every movement of Mine there hangs what ye know not. The world has no quarrel with you, for ye bear no testimony against it, and so draw down upon yourselves none of its wrath; but I am here to lift up My voice against its hypocrisy, and denounce its abominations; therefore it cannot endure Me, and one false step might precipitate its fury on its Victim's head before the time. Away, therefore, to the feast as soon as it suits you; I follow at the fitting moment, but 'My time is not yet full come.'"

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Go ye up unto this feast; let not my forbearance to go up hinder your going up according to the law.

I go not up yet unto this feast; I have some particular reasons why as yet I will not go to be there at the beginning of it.

For my time is not yet full come; I know my time to go, when it will be most safe and proper for me. I shall be there some time during the feast, but my time is not yet come; I shall not be there at the beginning of it. It appeareth that he came not into the temple till about the middle of it, John 7:14, which was three or four days after it was began, for it held seven days, Leviticus 23:34. Or his time was not come, because he designed to go very privately without any notice taken of his coming; which must have been, if he had at that time gone up with his kindred and acquaintance.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Go we up unto this feast,.... Suggesting, that he would not have them stay for him, or hinder themselves on his account: he encourages them to go up, and observe this festival; for the ceremonial law was not yet abolished; and though they were carnal men, and did not understand what it typified: and so unregenerate persons ought to attend on the outward means, as the hearing of the word, &c. though they do not understand it; it may be God may make use of it, for the enlightening of their minds; and blessed are they that wait at Wisdom's gates, and there find Christ, and life and salvation by him:

I go not up yet unto this feast; this clause, in one of Beza's copies, is wholly left out; and in some, the word "this" is not read; and in others it is read, "I go not up unto this feast"; leaving out the word "yet"; and so read the Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions; and the Persic version only, "I do not go up"; which occasioned Porphyry, that great enemy of Christianity, to reproach Christ, as guilty of inconstancy, or of an untruth, since he afterwards did go up: but in almost all the ancient copies the word is read; and so it is by Chrysostom and Nonnus; and to the same sense the Syriac and Arabic versions render it, "I do not go up now to this feast"; that is, just at that very time, that very day or hour: which is entirely consistent with what is afterwards said,

for my time is not yet full come; not to die, or to be glorified, but to go up to the feast.

Geneva Study Bible

Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast: for my time is not yet full come.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

John 7:8. ὑμεῖς … πεπλήρωται “Go ye up to the feast. I go not up yet to this Feast, for my time is not yet fulfilled.” His time for manifesting Himself publicly was not yet come, and therefore He did not wish to go up to the feast with His brothers, who were eager for some public display. Had He gone in their company He would have been proclaimed, and would have appeared to be the nominee of His own family. It was impossible He should go on any such terms.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. Go ye up unto this feast] ‘Ye’ is emphatic; ‘this’ is wanting in authority; we should read, go ye up unto the feast.

I go not up yet] ‘Yet,’ though very ancient, is possibly no part of the original text: it may have been inserted to avoid the charge of the heathen critic Porphyry, that Jesus here shews fickleness or deceit, and therefore cannot be Divine. But the sense is the same, whether ‘yet’ is inserted or not. He means ‘I am not going now; not going publicly in the general caravan of pilgrims; not going with you, who do not believe on Me.’ He does not say ‘I shall not go.’ The next two verses shew exactly what is meant by the negative.

Bengel's Gnomen

John 7:8. οὐκ, not) I do not now go up with you (John 7:10, When His brethren were gone up, then went He also up), as you advise, that I may be seen in the highway and in the city. For which reason He abode [still in Galilee], John 7:9. Ἀναβαίνω, I go up, is to be taken strictly in the present. Comp. οὐκ, not [= not yet], at Matthew 11:11 [οὐκ ἐγήγερται—μείζων Ἰωάννου], where also the past tense ought to be understood in its strict sense. So σὐ, not, for οὔπω, not yet, Mark 7:18, “Are ye so without understanding? Do ye not (yet) perceive that,” etc.; οὐ νοεῖτε ὅτι: comp. Matthew 15:17 [where Beng. with Rec. Text reads οὔπω. But [165][166][167] read Οὐ ΝΟΕῖΤΕ ὍΤΙ]. He who was not present on the first day of the feast, was likely to be thought not present at all. The Lord afterwards went up to the feast, but as it were incognito, and not so much to the feast, as to the temple; John 7:10, “not openly, but as it were in secret;” 14, “Jesus went up into the temple and taught.” There was now but one going up, in the proper sense, set before the Lord, namely, that at the passover of His passion: it is concerning this that He speaks in an enigmatical way.—ὁ καιρός, time [season]) Wisdom observes carefully the [right] time. His speech at John 7:6, “My time is not yet come,” refers to His time for going up to the feast; but in this verse, as it seems, it refers to His time of suffering: comp. John 5:30, “No man laid hands on Him, because His hour was not yet come.” This journey to the Feast of Tabernacles was His last journev but one to Jerusalem.

[165] the Vatican MS., 1209: in Vat. Iibr., Rome: fourth cent.: O. and N. Test. def.

[166] Bezæ, or Cantabrig.: Univ. libr., Cambridge: fifth cent.: publ. by Kipling, 1793: Gospels, Acts, and some Epp. def.

[167] Dubliniensis rescr.: Trin. Coll., Dublin: Matthew def.: sixth cent.: publ. by Barrett, 1801.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - Go ye up to the feast. "Join the pilgrim bands. Take part in the ceremonial of sacrifice and lustration. Be there in good time for the booth building. You have no testimony to deliver against the corruption of the holiest service, the hollowness of the ritual thanksgiving." I go not yet unto this feast. The text as it here stands frees the language of our Lord from the charge of Porphyry, or proves that it was founded on false premisses; though the fact that the apparent refusal was so soon followed by a compliance makes it probable that the real point of the sentence rests not so much on the οὔπω as on the ταύτην ἑορτήν. Not as a pilgrim, not in triumphal procession, would he go to the Feast of Tabernacles. He reserved that solemn sacrificial act for a later occasion, He would suffer as the Paschal Lamb, not go to Jerusalem to assert the completion of its acceptable year, and to foment the self-satisfaction of its religious guides. This is not satisfactory, because there is no feast the special features of which seemed to furnish our Lord with more obvious illustrations of his own work and Person. Moreover, he did make his appearance in the midst of the feast. So Godet and Meyer accepted the οὐκ, and urge therefrom the fact that Jesus deliberately altered his intention, so soon as a new motive sufficiently strong presented itself. With the assistance of οὔπω, or with such an emphasis upon the present tense (ἀναβαίνω) as to make it equivalent to the introduction of a νῦν, the passage means. "I am not going up now." Chrysostom, Lucke, De Wette, see in this suggestion the solution of the problem and a preparation for what follows. The word ἐγγύς, "nigh" (ver. 2), may reasonably be interpreted with more latitude than is generally done. It might easily mean a date sufficiently near to be the topic of conversation in the family circle, even were it still a month before the celebration. The preparations may have been made, the pilgrims were beginning to assemble for their long journey, and the "not yet" and the emphasis on the present tense of ἀναβαίνω may easily have been conditioned by some of the special work which had still to be completed in Galilee on the way to Judaea and Persea. Because my season - my special opportunity - has not been yet fulfilled; or, fully come. Probably this clause points to the completion of the predestined hour of his consummation, of the baptism with which he should be baptized, the fire that he would kindle, the work which he would finish. John 7:8

Vincent's Word Studies

This feast

For this, read the, the first time, but not the second.

Full come (πεπλήρωται)

Literally, has been fulfilled. So Rev., is not yet fulfilled.