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Joh_10:6-7. Παροιμία ] Every species of discourse that deviates from the common course ( οἶμος ); hence in the classical writers especially—proverb (Plat. Soph. p. 261 B; Soph. Aj. 649; Ael. N. H. 12. 22; Lucian, Nigr. 1. 37; comp. 2Pe_2:22). It denotes here, as corresponding to the Hebrew îùÑì , if we define the conception more exactly, not parable (because it is not a history), but allegory (see Wilke, Rhetor. p. 109). Suidas: ἡ παροιμία ἐστὶ λόγος ἀπόκρυφος διʼ ἑτέρου προδήλου σημαινόμενος .
The Pharisees do not understand the meaning of what He thus allegorically delivered to them, and therefore ( οὖν , Joh_10:7) Jesus sees Himself compelled to begin again ( πάλιν ), and to explain to them, first of all, the main point on which the understanding of the whole depended, namely, how the door in Joh_10:1 is to be understood. It is incorrect, accordingly, with most recent commentators (also Hengstenberg and Godet), to say that we have a second parable with a different turn; if Christ had not intended even in Joh_10:1 to describe Himself as the θύρα , He would only have confused His hearers in Joh_10:7, instead of clearing matters up.
ἐγώ ] with great emphasis.
τῶν προβάτων ] to the sheep, as is required by Joh_10:1; not, through which the sheep enter into the fold (Chrysostom, Euth. Zigabenus, Wolf, Lampe, Fritzsche, Ebrard, Hengstenberg, Baeumlein, Godet, and others), so that Jesus characterizes Himself as the tutorem ac nutritorem of the sheep (Fritzsche). Christ, however, is the door to the sheep, so far as the true spiritual leaders of the people of God receive through Him the qualification and appointment to their vocation. See on Joh_10:1.