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Joh_1:35-36. Πάλιν εἱστήκει ] pointing back to Joh_1:29.
δύο ] One was Andrew, Joh_1:41. The other? Certainly John himself,[120] partly on account of that peculiarity of his which leads him to refrain from naming himself, and partly on account of the special vividness of the details in the following account, which had remained indelibly impressed upon his memory ever since this first and decisive meeting with his Lord.
ἐμβλέψας ] denoting fixed attention. Comp. Joh_1:43; Mar_10:21; Mar_10:27; Mar_14:67; Luk_20:17; Luk_22:61. The profoundest interest led him to fix his gaze upon Him.
ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τ . θεοῦ ] These few words were quite sufficient to direct the undivided attention of both to Him who was passing that way; for, beyond a doubt (against De Wette, Ewald,—because the fact that nothing is now added to the ὁ ἀμνὸς τ . θεοῦ gives the words quite a retrospective character), they had been witnesses the day before of what is recorded in Joh_1:29-34. The assumption of a further conversation not here recorded (Kuinoel, Lücke, and most) is unnecessary, overlooks the emphasis of the one short yet weighty word on which hangs their recollection of all that occurred the day before, and moreover is not required by Joh_1:37.
We need not even ask why Jesus, who was now walking along ( περιπατ .) in the same place, had not been with John, because the text says nothing about it. Answers have been devised; e.g. Bengel: “Jesus had sufficiently humbled Himself by once joining Himself with John;” Lampe: “He wished to avoid the suspicion of any private understanding with the Baptist.” Equally without warrant in the text, B. Crusius and Luthardt: “Jesus had already separated Himself from the Baptist to begin His own proper ministry, while the Baptist desired indirectly to command his disciples to join themselves with Jesus;” as Hengstenberg also supposes, judging from the result, and because he at the same time regards the two as representatives of all John’s disciples.
[120] Already Chrysostom (according to Corderius, Cat.; Theodore of Mopsuestia) mentions the same view, but along with it the other: ὅτι ἐκεῖνος οὐχὶ τῶν ἐπισήμων ἦν , which he seems to approve of.—But if John is here already (and see on ver. 42) indicated, though not by name, and afterwards (ver. 46) Bartholomew under the name Nathanael; if, again, ver. 42 implies that James is brought to Jesus by his brother John, and that he therefore has his place after John; then we certainly cannot say, with Steitz (in the Stud. u. Krit. 1868, p. 497): “The order in which Papias, in Euseb. iii. 39, quotes the six apostles, Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, exactly corresponds with that in which these names occur in succession in the fourth Gospel.”