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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - John 8:20 - 8:20
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The Treasury (γαζοφυλακίῳ)
From γάζα, treasure, a Persian word, occurring only once in the New Testament (Act 8:27), and φυλακή, guard. Used by John only here. The Treasury was in the Court of the Women, so called, not because it was appropriated to the worship of women exclusively, but because they were not allowed to proceed further, except for sacrificial purposes. The court covered a space upwards of two hundred feet square, and was surrounded by a colonnade, within which, and against the wall, were the thirteen trumpet-shaped chests, called “trumpets” from their shape, for charitable contributions. This court was the most public part of the temple.
And no man laid hands on Him (καὶ οὐδεὶς ἐπίασεν αὐτὸν)
Notice the connection with the previous sentence by the simple and, where another writer would have said and yet: the sense being that though Jesus was teaching where He might easily have been apprehended, yet no one attempted to arrest Him. See on Joh 1:10. Laid hands on is better rendered, as elsewhere, took (compare Joh 7:30). The inconsistency of the A.V. in the renderings of the same word, of which this is only one of many instances, is noteworthy here from the fact that in the only two passages in which John uses the phrase laid hands on (Joh 7:30; Joh 7:44), he employs the common formula, ἐπιβάλλειν τὰς χεῖρας, or τὴν χεῖρα, and in both these passages the word πιάσαι is rendered take. The use of this latter word is confined almost exclusively to John, as it is found only three times elsewhere (Act 3:7; Act 12:4; 2Co 11:32).