Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - John 14:27 - 14:27
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Joh_14:27. “These are last words, as of one who is about to go away and says good-night, or gives his blessing,” Luther.
εἰρήνην ἀφίημι ὑμῖν ] The whole position of affairs, as Jesus is on the point of concluding these His last discourses (Joh_14:31), as well as the characteristic word εἰρήνη , introduced without further preface, justifies the ordinary assumption that here there is an allusion to the Oriental greetings at partings and dismissals, in which ùÑÈìåÉí (i.e. not specially: Peace of soul, but generally: Prosperity) was wished. Comp. 1Sa_1:17; 1Sa_20:42; 1Sa_29:5; Mar_5:34; Luk_7:50; Luk_8:48; Act_16:36; Jam_2:16; also the Syrian pacem dedit, in the sense of valedixit in Assem. Bibl. I. p. 376; and finally, the epistolary farewell-greeting, Eph_6:23; 1Pe_5:14; 3 John 15. That which men were wont to wish at departure, namely, prosperity, Jesus is conscious of leaving behind, and of giving to His disciples, and that in the best and highest sense, namely, the entire prosperity of His redemptive work, “fore ejus benedictione semper felices” (Calvin), in which, however, the peace of reconciliation with God (Rom_5:1), as the first essential element, is also included. To assume (with Lücke) in the expression a reference, at the same time, to the O. T. peace-assuring and encouraging address ùÑÈìåÉí ìÈëÆí (Gen_43:23; Jdg_6:23, et al.), is less in harmony with the departing scene, and the remote μὴ ταρασσέσθω , κ . τ . λ ., as well as with the expression of this consolatory address.
εἰρ . τ . ἐμὴν δίδ . ὑμ .] More precise definition of what has preceded. It is His, the peculiar prosperity proceeding from Him, which He gives to them as His bequest. Thus speaks He to His own, who, on the threshold of death, is leaving hereditary possessions: “I leave behind, I give,” in the consciousness that this will be accomplished by His death. So also Jesus, whose δίδωμι is to be understood neither as promitto (Kuinoel), nor even to be conceived as first taking place through the Paraclete (who rather brings about only the appropriation of the salvation given in the death of Jesus).
Not as the world gives, give I TO YOU! Nothing is to be supplied. My giving to you is of quite another kind than the giving of the (unbelieving) world; its giving bestows treasure, pleasure, honour, and the like, is therefore unsatisfying, bringing no permanent good, no genuine prosperity, etc.[156] Quite out of relation to the profound seriousness of the moment, and therefore irrelevant, is the reference to the usual empty formulas of salutation (Grotius, Kling, Godet).
ΜῊ ΤΑΡΑΣΣΈΣΘΩ , Κ . Τ . Λ .] “Thus does He conclude exactly as He first (Joh_14:1) began this discourse,” Luther. The short asyndetic (here supply ΟὖΝ ) sentences correspond to the deep emotion.
ΔΕΙΛΙΆΩ (Diod. xx. 78) here only in the N. T., frequently in the LXX., which, on the other hand, has not the classical ( ΔΟΚΙΜΏΤΕΡΟΝ , Thomas Magister) ἈΠΟΔΕΙΛΙΆΩ .
[156] Hengstenberg introduces quite groundlessly a reference to the θλῖψις which the world gives, according to Joh_16:33.