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Joh_1:10. What here follows is linked on to the preceding by ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν , following upon εἰς τ . κόσμ . This is a fuller definition of the emphatic ἦν of Joh_1:9 : “It was in the world”, viz. in the person of Jesus, when John was bearing witness. There is no mention here of its continual presence in humanity (B. Crusius, Lange), nor of the “lumière innée” (Godet) of every man; see on Joh_1:5. The repetition of κόσμος three times, where, on the last occasion, the word has the narrower sense of the world of mankind, gives prominence to the mournful antithesis; Buttm. neut. Gr. p. 341 [E. T. p. 398].
ἦν ] not pluperfect (“It had been already always in the world, but was not recognised by it”), as Herder, Tholuck, Olshausen, and Klee maintain, but like ἦν in Joh_1:9.
καὶ ὁ κόσμος διʼ αὐτοῦ ἐγέν .] Further preparation, by way of climax, for the antithesis with reference to Joh_1:3. If the Light was in the world, and the world was made by it, the latter could and ought all the more to have recognised the former: it could, because it needed only not to close the inner eye against the Light, and to follow the impulse of its original necessary moral affinity with the creative Light; it ought, because the Light, shining within the world, and having even given existence to the world, could demand that recognition, the non-bestowal of which was ingratitude, originating in culpable delusion and moral obduracy. Comp. Rom_1:19 ff. We need not attach to the καί , which is simply conjunctive, either the signification although (Kuinoel, Schott), nor the force of the relative (which was made by it, Bleek).
αὐτόν ] the Logos, which is identified with the Light, which is being spoken of as its possessor, according to Joh_1:4 ff.; αὐτοῦ was still neuter, but the antithesis passes over into the masculine, because the object which was not recognised was this very personal manifestation of the Logos.
With regard to the last καί , observe: “cum vi pronuntiandum est, ut saepe in sententiis oppositionem continentibus, ubi frustra fuere qui καίτοι requirerent,” Stallbaum, ad Plat. Apol. p. 29 B. Comp. Hartung, Partikell. p. 147. Very often in John.