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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - John 7:27 - 7:27
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Howbeit (alla). Clearly adversative here.
This man (touton). Possibly contemptuous use of houtos as may be true in Joh 7:25, Joh 7:26.
Whence he is (pothen estin). The Galilean Jews knew the family of Jesus (Joh 6:42), but they knew Jesus only as from Nazareth, not as born in Bethlehem (Joh 7:42).
When the Christ cometh (ho Christos hotan erchētai). Prolepsis of ho Christos and indefinite temporal clause with hotan and the present middle subjunctive erchētai rather than the more usual second aorist active elthēi as in Joh 7:31, a trifle more picturesque. This is a piece of popular theology. “Three things come wholly unexpected - Messiah, a godsend, and a scorpion” (Sanhedrin 97a). The rulers knew the birthplace to be Bethlehem (Joh 7:42; Mat 2:5.), but some even expected the Messiah to drop suddenly from the skies as Satan proposed to Jesus to fall down from the pinnacle of the temple. The Jews generally expected a sudden emergence of the Messiah from concealment with an anointing by Elijah (Apoc. of Bar. XXIX. 3; 2Esdr. 7:28; 13:32; Justin Martyr, Tryph. 110).