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Joh_1:19-20. The historical narrative, properly so called, now begins, and quite in the style of the primitive Gospels (comp. Mark 1; Act_10:36-37; Act_13:23-25), with the testimony of the Baptist.
καὶ ] and, now first of all to narrate the testimony already mentioned in Joh_1:15; for this, and not another borne before the baptism, is meant; see note foll. Joh_1:28.
αὕτη ] “The following is the testimony of John, which he bore when,” etc.[111] Instead of ὍΤΙ , the evangelist puts ὍΤΕ , because the idea of time was with him the predominant one. Comp. Pflugk, ad Hec. 107; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 393. Had he written ὅτι , his thought would have been: “Herein did his testimony consist, that the Jews sent to him, and he confessed,” etc.
ΟἹ ἸΟΥΔΑῖΟΙ ] means, even in such passages as this, where it is no merely indifferent designation of the people (as in Joh_2:6; Joh_2:13, Joh_3:1, Joh_4:22, Joh_5:1, Joh_18:33 ff., and often), nothing else than the Jews; yet John, writing when he had long severed himself from Judaism, makes the body of the Jews, as the old religious community from which the Christian Church had already completely separated itself, thus constantly appear in a hostile sense in face of the Lord and His work, as the ancient theocratic people in corporate opposition to the new community of God (which had entered into their promised inheritance) and to its Head. How little may be deduced from this as ground of argument against the age and genuineness of the Gospel, see my Introd. § 3. For the rest, in individual passages, the context must always show who, considered more minutely as matter of history, the persons in question were by whom οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι are represented, as in this place, where it was plainly the Sanhedrim[112] who represented the people of the old religion. Comp. Joh_5:15, Joh_9:22, Joh_18:12; Joh_18:31, etc.
καὶ Λευΐτας ] priests, consequently, with their subordinates, who had, however, a position as teachers, and aspired to priestly authority (see Ewald and Hengstenberg). The mention of these together is a trait illustrative of John’s precision of statement, differing from the manner of the Synoptics, but for that very reason, so far from raising doubts as to the genuineness, attesting rather the independence and originality of John (against Weisse), who no longer uses the phrase so often repeated in the Synoptics, “the scribes and elders,” because it had to him already become strange and out of date.
σὺ τίς εἶ ] for John baptized (Joh_1:25), and this baptism had reference to Messiah’s kingdom (Eze_36:25-26; Eze_33:23; Zec_13:1). He had, generally, made a great sensation as a prophet, and had even given rise to the opinion that he was the Messiah (Luk_3:15; comp. Act_13:25); hence the question of the supreme spiritual court was justified, Deu_18:21-22, Mat_21:23. The question itself is not at all framed in a captious spirit. We must not, with Chrysostom and most others, regard it as prompted by any malicious motive, but must explain it by the authoritative position of the supreme court. Nevertheless it implies the assumption that John regarded himself as the Messiah; and hence his answer in Joh_1:20, hence also the emphatic precedence given to the σύ ; comp. Joh_8:25. Luthardt too hastily concludes from the form of the question, that the main thing with them was the person, not the call and purpose of God. But they would have inferred the call and purpose of God from the person, as the question which they ask in Joh_1:25 shows.
ἐξ Ἱεροσ .] belongs to ἀπέστειλαν .
καὶ ὡμολογ .] still dependent on the ὅτε .
ὡμολ . καὶ οὐκ ἠρνήσ .] emphatic prominence given to his straightforward confession; ὡς ἀληθὴς καὶ στεῤῥός , Euthymius Zigabenus; comp. Eur. El. 1057: Φημὶ καὶ οὐκ ἀπαρνοῦμαι ; Soph. Ant. 443; Dem. de Chers. 108. 73: λέξω πρὸς ὑμᾶς καὶ οὐκ ἀποκρύψομαι . See Bremi in loc. Valcken. Schol. ad Act_13:11.
καὶ ὡμολ .] The first κ . ὡμολ . was absolute (Add. ad Est_1:15, and in the classics); this second has for subject the following sentence ( ὅτι recitative). Moreover, “vehementer auditorem commovet ejusdem redintegratio verbi,” ad Herenn. iv. 28. There is, however, no side glance here at the disciples of John (comp. the Introd.). To the evangelist, who had himself been the pupil of the Baptist, the testimony of the latter was weighty enough in itself to lead him to give it emphatic prominence.
According to the right order of the words (see crit. notes), ἐγὼ οὐκ εἰμὶ ὁ Χ ., the emphasis lies upon ἐγώ ; I on my part, which implies that he knew another who was the Messiah.
[111] Following Origen and Cyril, Paulus and B. Crusius suppose that ὅτε begins a new sentence, of which καὶ ὡμολόγησε , etc., is to be taken as the apodosis—contrary to the simplicity of John’s style.
[112] Comp. Ἀχαιοί in Homer, which often means the proceres of the Greeks.