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Joh_11:9-10. The sense of the allegorical answer is this: “The time appointed to me by God for working is not yet elapsed; as long as it lasts, no one can do anything to me; but when it shall have come to an end, I shall fall into the hands of my enemies, like him who walketh in the night, and who stumbleth, because he is without light.” In this way Jesus sets aside the anxiety of His disciples, on the one hand, by directing their attention to the fact that, as His time is not yet expired, He is safe from the apprehended dangers; and, on the other, by reminding them (Joh_11:10) that He must make use of the time apportioned to Him, before it come to an end.[72] So substantially Apollinaris ( διδάσκει ὁ κύριος , ὅτι πρὸ τοῦ καιροῦ τοῦ πάθους οὐκ ἂν ὑπὸ Ἰουδαίων πάθοι · καὶ διδάσκει τοῦτο διὰ παραβολῆς , ἡμέρας μὲν καιρὸν ὀνομάζων τὸν πρὸ τοῦ πάθους , τὸν δὲ τοῦ πάθους νύκτα ), Ruperti (only partially), Jansen, Maldonatus, Corn.a Lapide, Wolf, Heumann, and several others; also Maier and B. Crusius; comp. Ewald and Hengstenberg. On individual points, note further: (1) ΔΏΔΕΚΑ is placed emphatically at the beginning, signifying that the day referred to is still running on, and that anxiety is still premature (not: only twelve hours; Bengel correctly remarks: “jam multa erat hora, sed tamen adhuc erat dies”). The supposition that Jesus spoke the words early in the morning, at sunrise (Godet, Gumlich), is as arbitrary as it is unnecessary. (2) τὸ φῶς τ . κόσμ . is the light of the sun, so designated in harmony with the elevated tone which marks the entire saying; the words ὅτι … βλέπει belong merely to the details of the picture, and are not intended to be specially interpreted (for example, of the guidance of the divine will, as Godet thinks, following older commentators). (3) Applying the figure to Jesus, night (Joh_11:10) commenced with the ἐλήλυθεν ἡ ὥρα , Joh_17:1 (comp. Joh_12:27); the ἩΜΈΡΑ with its twelve hours was then over for Him, and, according to the divine decree, the ΠΡΟΣΚΟΠΉ in His path which, with the close of the twelfth hour, had become dark, must now follow,[73] in that He fell into the hands of His enemies; till then, however, οὔπω ἐληλύθει ἡ ὥρα αὐτοῦ , Joh_7:30, Joh_8:20. (4) The expression ὍΤΙ ΤῸ Φῶς ΟὐΚ ἜΣΤΙΝ ἘΝ ΑὐΤῷ , which is also a detail not intended for interpretation, is not equivalent to: he has not, etc. (Ewald; it is also inadmissible to take this view of Psa_90:10), but is an outflow of the notion that, in the case of a man walking in the night, it is dark in him, i.e. his representation of his surroundings is dark and without light, so that he cannot discover his whereabouts in his consciousness of that which is round about him. Grotius: “in oculis ejus;” but the expression ἐν αὐτῷ suggests the inner intuition and representation. (5) Substantially the same, and decisive for the view which the disciples would take, are the thought and figure in Joh_9:3 f.; hence also here neither is ἩΜΈΡΑ to be taken as an image of tempus opportunum (Morus, Rosenmüller, Paulus, Kuinoel), nor νύξ of tempus importunum; nor is it any more allowable to say, with Gumlich and Brückner (comp. Melanchthon, Beza, and Calvin), that φῶς τοῦ κ . τ . is God, who shows the Son the way, so that this latter thus walks in the day, and His person and work remain unendangered ( οὐ προσκόπτει [74]); similarly Baeumlein; Lücke, on the other hand, rightly refers Τῆς ἩΜΈΡΑς to the “day’s work” of Christ, which has its definite limit (its twelve hours); but then he explains ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ of fulfilling the duties of His calling (comp. Melanchthon), which is always the way of safety, and takes νύξ as an image of unfaithfulness to one’s calling, which leads to destruction. In this way, however, two totally different meanings are assigned to the figurative term ἡμέρα , the second of which is the more decidedly to be rejected, as the mention of twelve hours is evidence that the temporal explanation alone is correct. For this reason, further, we must reject not only the view taken by De Wette, who regards the day as the image of “upright, innocent, clear action,” the twelve hours, as the ways and means of action, and the night as the lack of prudence and singlemindedness; but also that of Luthardt: “He who keeps within the limits of his calling will not strike against anything, will not make false steps, for the light of the world, i.e. the will of God, gives him light; he, however, who passes beyond the limits of his calling will go wrong in his doings, seeing that he is guided, not by God’s will, but by his own pleasure.” Tholuck also diverges from the consistent carrying out of the temporal view; for, though understanding the twelve hours of the day of the fixed time of the vocation, he afterwards introduces the calling itself: “Whoso abides not by his calling will come to damage.” Comp. Schweizer, p. 106; also Lange, who combines several very different views. According to Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Euth. Zigabenus, the walking in the day denotes either a blameless walk, in which a man has no need to be afraid; or fellowship with Christ (so also Erasmus: “quamdiu vobis luceo, nihil est periculi; veniet nox, quando a me semoti conturbabimini.”[75] Vatablus, Clarius, Lampe, Neander). Both are incorrect, for the simple reason that the disciples had expressed concern, not for themselves, but for Christ, by their question in Joh_11:8 (Chrysostom and his followers arbitrarily remark that they had been more in anxiety, ὑπὲρ ἑαυτῶν ); and because the former of these views would furnish no explanation of the mention of the hours, which is just the key to the figure. This objection holds good also against Hilgenfeld, Lehrbegr. p. 263, who brings out as the meaning of Jesus: He has the light absolutely in Himself, and for Him, therefore, no dark point can exist in His earthly course. On this view, moreover, Joh_11:10 remains without explanation. Olshausen, adopting the second view of Chrysostom, is prepared to accept an unhermeneutical double meaning of ἡμέρα ;—in the one case, mindful of His near brotherly relationship to men, Jesus regarded Himself as accomplishing His ordained day’s work; but, in the other case, He had in view His higher dignity as the spiritual enlightener, in the rays of whose brightness the disciples would have nothing to fear.[76] Comp. Bengel, who thinks that τὸ φῶς τ . κόσμ . τούτου signifies the “providentia Patris respectu Jesu, et providentia Christi respectu fidelium.
[72] Not, as Godet interprets: that He dare not lengthen the working time appointed to Him by the divine will, that He may not venture to add to it as it were a thirteenth hour. Such a thought was totally foreign to the minds of the disciples in giving their warning. All that they desired was, that He should not shorten His life by exposing Himself to the threatening danger of death.
[73] The idea set forth is therefore not “the wish to be active beyond the ordained goal and limit of life,” which would, indeed, be absurd (Tholuck’s objection); but to be set free of activity on the attainment of the ordained goal of life. When the twelfth hour has passed, night falls on the wanderer, and he stumbles.
[74] Ver. 10. τὸ φῶς οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν αὐτῷ is then explained by Brückner, after Mat_6:22 f., to mean that the eye, which has received the light, becomes itself a lamp, and so the whole man is illumined. But how could Jesus expect the disciples to understand so far-fetched an illusion? If such had been His meaning, He must have used, in agreement with Mat_6:23, some such words as: ὅτι τὸ φῶς τὸ ἐν αὐτῷ σχότος ἐστιν .
[75] So in the Paraphr. But in the Annotat. he takes substantially our view: “Dies habet suas horas, nec is nostro arbitrio fit brevior aut longior; et ego tempus habeo praescriptum, quo debeam redimendi orbis negotium peragere, id Judaeorum malitia non potest anticipari: proinde nihil est, quod mihi timeatis.”
[76] Ebrard adopts Olshausen’s view in the following more definite shape: “The day has its determinate measured duration. If a man use the day as day, i.e. the time for working given him by God as a time of working, he needs to be in no fear that his working will bring him mischief, for the light of the mundane sun illumines him. But he who walks as though it were night, i.e. without working the will of God, would procure for himself eternal mischief, because he had not in him the light (in the absolute sense, Joh_1:5).” In this way the essential elements are read into the passage; and what a strange difference in the conceptions found in the same expressions! How could the disciples have possibly understood their Master!