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Joh_10:25-26. Jesus had not only told them (on many occasions, if not always so directly as, for example, to the woman of Samaria, or the man born blind) that He was the Messiah, but had also testified to the fact by His Messianic works (v. 36). But they do not believe. The actual proof of their unbelief is first subjoined in the second clause: for ye belong not to my sheep; otherwise ye would stand in a totally different relation to me than that of unbelief; ye would hear my voice, and know me, and follow me, Joh_10:4; Joh_10:14; Joh_10:27.
ἐγὼ … ὑμεῖς ] Reproachful antithesis.
καθὼς εἶπον ὑμῖν ] belong, as both Lachmann and Tischendorf also punctuate, to what precedes (comp. Joh_1:33); but not, however, in such a way that Jesus merely makes a retrospective reference to the figure of the πρόβατα (Fritzsche: “ut similitudine utar, quam supra posui”), which would render this repulse very meaningless; but in such a way that Jesus recalls to their recollection the negative declaration itself as having been already uttered. It is true, indeed, that He had not given direct expression to the words ὅτι οὐκ ἐστὲ , etc. in the preceding allegory; indirectly, however, He had done so, namely, by a description of His sheep, which necessarily involved the denial that the Ἰουδαῖοι belonged to them. That this is the force of καθʼ εἶπ . ὑμ ., He Himself declares by the exhibition of the relation of His sheep that follows. We are precluded from regarding it as an introduction to what follows (Curss., Cant., Corb., Arr., Euth. Zigabenus, Tholuck, Godet), in which case a comma ought to be placed before καθώς , and a colon after ὑμῖν , by the circumstance that Jesus nowhere else quotes and (in the form of a summary) repeats a longer discourse of His own. In keeping with the style of the Gospels, only a brief, sententious saying, such as Joh_13:33, would be fitted for such self-quotation. In this case, however, the quotation would embrace at least Joh_10:27-28.
The circumstance that Jesus should refer to this allegory about two months after the date of Joh_10:1-21, which has been erroneously used as an argument against the originality of the discourse (Strauss, Baur), may be simply accounted for by the assumption that during the interval He had had no further discussions with His hierarchical opponents,—a supposition which is justified by its accounting for the silence observed by John relatively to that period. The presupposition involved in the words καθὼς εἶπον ὑμῖν , that Jesus here has in the main the same persons before Him as during the delivery of His discourse regarding the shepherd, has nothing against it; and there is no necessity even for the assumption that John and Jesus conceived the discourses to be directed against the Ἰουδαῖοι as a whole (Brückner).