7:40-53 The malice of Christ's enemies is always against reason, and sometimes the staying of it cannot be accounted for. Never any man spake with that wisdom, and power, and grace, that convincing clearness, and that sweetness, wherewith Christ spake. Alas, that many, who are for a time restrained, and who speak highly of the word of Jesus, speedily lose their convictions, and go on in their sins! People are foolishly swayed by outward motives in matters of eternal moment, are willing even to be damned for fashion's sake. As the wisdom of God often chooses things which men despise, so the folly of men commonly despises those whom God has chosen. The Lord brings forward his weak and timid disciples, and sometimes uses them to defeat the designs of his enemies.

Verse 41. - Others said, This is the Christ. These must have pressed the argument further. The Lord must have seemed to them to combine the yet more explicit signs, not only of the Prophet that should come into the world, but of the anointed King and Priest - the Christ of their current expectation. But some said, Both the Christ come out of Galilee? Here criticism was at once at work upon obvious appearances, but misunderstood facts. Was he not called "Jesus of Nazareth"? His life had been spent there, his ministry in the main restricted to the northern province. These questions give a vivid scene and portray a great emotion. The people are resting on the letter of prophecy (Micah 5:2), where the Messiah, as understood by their own teachers (see Matthew 2:5), was to proceed from Bethlehem; but they overlook the remarkable prediction in Isaiah 9:1, where Galilee is spoken of as the scene of extraordinary illumination.

Others said, this is the Christ,.... The true Messiah, which they concluded, not only from the miracles, John 7:31, but from his speaking of rivers of living water flowing from him that believes in him; for the same prophecy that speaks of miracles to be performed in the times of the Messiah, speaks also of waters breaking out in the wilderness, and streams in the desert, of the parched ground becoming a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water, Isaiah 35:5.

But some said, shall Christ come out of Galilee? as they supposed Jesus did; and because he was educated at Nazareth, and Capernaum was his city, and he chiefly conversed, preached, and wrought his miracles in these parts, they concluded that he was born there; and therefore object this to his being the true Messiah. For if they did not mean this, according to their own accounts, the Messiah was to be in Galilee, and to be first revealed there; for they affirm (i) this in so many words, that , "the King Messiah shall be revealed in the land of Galilee"; accordingly Jesus, the true Messiah, as he was brought up in Galilee, though not born there, so he first preached there, and there wrought his first miracle; here he chiefly was, unless at the public feasts; and here he manifested himself to his disciples after his resurrection.

(i) Zohar in Gen. fol. 74. 3. & in Exod. fol. 3. 3. & 4. 1.

John 7:41 Parallel Commentaries
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