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Joh_2:20. An intended deductio ad ahsurdum. Τεσσαράκ . κ . ἓξ ἔτεσιν ] length of time named without ἐν . Bernhardy, p. 81; Winer, p. 205 [E. T. p. 273]. The great number of years stands emphatically first.
ᾠκοδομήθη ] i.e. so far as it was already complete. The proposed enlargement and renewal of the temple of Zerubbabel was begun in the 18th year of Herod the Great’s reign (autumn of 734–5; see Joseph. Antt. xv.11. 1), and was first completed, according to Josephus, Antt. xx. 9. 7, under Herod Agrippa II., A.D. 64. How the 46 years named here prove that the passover then being held was that of the year 782 (A.D. 29), corresponding with the year of the Baptist’s appearance according to Luk_3:1 (August 781–2), see on Acts, Introd. § 4. Wieseler, p. 166, reckoning onwards from Nisan 735, places the end of the 46th year exactly in Nisan 781;[146] comp. also Wieseler in Herzog’s Encykl. XXI. 546.
[146] Ewald reckons from B.C. 20 to A.D. 28, and, counting only the full intervening years, he gets the 46, thus omitting B.C. 20, the year in which the rebuilding began, and A.D. 28, the year of the passover named in our text.—For the rest, it must be remembered (in opposition to Keim’s doubts in his Gesch. J. I. p. 615) that the statement in the text does not necessarily oblige us to suppose an οἰκοδομεῖσθαι without any interruptions. The building had been going on now for 46 years.