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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - John 8:44 - 8:44
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Ye are of your father the devil (humeis ek tou patros tou diabolou). Certainly they can “understand” (ginōskete in Joh 8:43) this “talk” (lalian) though they will be greatly angered. But they had to hear it (akouein in Joh 8:43). It was like a bombshell in spite of the preliminary preparation.
Your will to do (thelete poiein). Present active indicative of thelō and present active infinitive, “Ye wish to go on doing.” This same idea Jesus presents in Mat 13:38 (the sons of the evil one, the devil) and Mat 23:15 (twofold more a son of Gehenna than you). See also 1Jo 3:8 for “of the devil” (ek tou diabolou) for the one who persists in sinning. In Rev 12:9 the devil is one who leads all the world astray. The Gnostic view that Jesus means “the father of the devil” is grotesque. Jesus does not, of course, here deny that the Jews, like all men, are children of God the Creator, like Paul’s offspring of God for all men in Act 17:28. What he denies to these Pharisees is that they are spiritual children of God who do his will. They do the lusts and will of the devil. The Baptist had denied this same spiritual fatherhood to the merely physical descendants of Abraham (Mat 3:9). He even called them “broods of vipers” as Jesus did later (Mat 12:34).
A murderer (anthrōpoktonos). Old and rare word (Euripides) from anthrōpos, man, and kteinō, to kill. In N.T. only here and 1Jo 3:15. The Jews were seeking to kill Jesus and so like their father the devil.
Stood not in the truth (en tēi alētheiāi ouk estēken). Since ouk, not ouch, is genuine, the form of the verb is esteken the imperfect of the late present stem stēkō (Mar 11:25) from the perfect active hestēka (intransitive) of histēmi, to place.
No truth in him (ouk estin alētheia en autōi). Inside him or outside (environment). The devil and truth have no contact.
When he speaketh a lie (hotan lalēi to pseudos). Indefinite temporal clause with hotan and the present active subjunctive of laleō. But note the article to: “Whenever he speaks the lie,” as he is sure to do because it is his nature. Hence “he speaks out of his own” (ek tōn idiōn lalei) like a fountain bubbling up (cf. Mat 12:34).
For he is a liar (hoti pseustēs estin). Old word for the agent in a conscious falsehood (pseudos). See 1Jo 1:10; Rom 3:4. Common word in John because of the emphasis on alētheia (truth).
And the father thereof (kai ho patēr autou). Either the father of the lie or of the liar, both of which are true as already shown by Jesus. Autou in the genitive can be either neuter or masculine. Westcott takes it thus, “because he is a liar and his father (the devil) is a liar,” making “one,” not the devil, the subject of “whenever he speaks,” a very doubtful expression.