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Joh_10:22-23. A new section; the proceedings at the feast of the Dedication of the Temple.
As there is not the least hint of a return journey to Galilee or Peraea, and as Joh_10:26 ff. point back to the discourse concerning the Good Shepherd, we must needs suppose that Jesus remained in Jerusalem and the neighbourhood between the feast of Tabernacles and the feast of Dedication (about two months), and did not labour outside of Judaea; He first leaves Judaea in Joh_10:30. Compare also Wieseler, p. 318; Ewald, Gesch. Christi, p. 471. The insertion here of a journey to Galilee or Peraea (as recently proposed, especially by Ebrard, Neander, Lange L. J. II. p. 1004 f., Riggenbach, Luthardt, Godet) is dictated by harmonistic presuppositions and clumsy combinations (suggested especially by the narrative of the journey in Luk_9:51 ff.), and not by the requirements of exegesis; for πάλιν in Joh_10:40 cannot be reckoned among such requirements.
τὰ ἐγκαίνια ] the feast of Renewal, founded by Judas Maccabaeus, to commemorate the purification and consecration anew of the temple after its desecration by Antiochus Epiphanes, celebrated for eight days every year, from the 25th Kislev onwards (the middle of December), and especially distinguished by the illumination of the houses; hence also termed τὰ φῶτα . See 1Ma_4:50 ff.; 2Ma_1:18; 2Ma_10:6 ff.; Joseph. Antiq. 12:7. 7. From this festival ( äÇðåÌëÈä ) sprang the Christian Church Dedication Festival, and its name ἐγκαίνια . See Augusti, Denkw. III. p. 316.
ἐν Ἱερουσ .] The celebration was not restricted to Jerusalem, but was universal (see Lightfoot, p. 1063 f.); the words ἐν Ἱερουσ . are added because Jesus was still there.
κ . χειμὼν ἦν ] a remark added for the sake of John’s Gentile Christian readers, for whom the statement that it was winter when the festival occurred, would be sufficient to explain why Jesus walked about in Solomon’s porch and not in the open air; hence the explanation, stormy weather (Mat_16:3, so Er. Schmid, Clericus, Lampe, Semler, Kuinoel, Lange), is not in harmony with the context.
The στοὰ Σολομῶνος (comp. Act_3:11) was a portico on the eastern side of the temple buildings (hence denominated στ . ἀνατολική by Josephus in his Antt. 20:9. 7), which, according to Josephus, was a relic from Solomon’s days which had remained intact during the destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar. The mention of this particular part of the temple is one of the traces of the writer having himself been an eye-witness; events like this no doubt impressed themselves on the memory so as never to be forgotten (comp. Joh_8:20). Any reason for Jesus being in the porch, beyond the one given in the words καὶ χειμὼν ἦν (Luthardt, after Thiersch, Apost. Zeitalter, p. 73: “for the purpose of expressing in a figurative way the unity of the Old and New Covenants”), must be rejected as arbitrary, seeing that John himself gives no hint to that effect.