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Joh_2:4. Jesus understands His mother’s wish, but He has in His mind a method of help altogether different from what she meant. He therefore repels her interference, in the consciousness of the call which here is given Him to begin His Messianic ministry of miracles, and holds out the prospect of rendering help at a later period.
τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί ;] a rejection of fellowship ( îÇäÎìÌÄé åÈìÈêÀ , Jos_22:24; Jdg_11:12, al.; Mat_8:29; Mat_27:19; Mar_1:24; Luk_8:28; also in the classics; see Bernhardy, p. 98), here with reference to the help to be rendered, which He Himself, without His mother’s assistance, and independently of her, would accomplish, according to His own divinely determined call and will, and in a miraculous manner. Godet well says: “Sa devise sera désormais: mon père et moi.” Comp. Dorner, Jesu sündlose Vollkommenh. p. 11. The appellation γύναι added to the τί
σοί (which Hofmann thinks should be joined to what follows; but why?) does not contain anything unfriendly (“duriter respondet,” Melancthon), as is clear already from Joh_19:21; see also Wetstein. Comp. Joh_20:15. But His not saying μῆτερ followed involuntarily from the consciousness of His higher wonder-working capacity and will, by virtue of which, as an ἀμήτωρ , He rejected any, interference proceeding from feminine weakness, even such as, was presented here before Him in His mother. The remark of Euthymius Zigabenus is not happy (comp. Augustine): “He spoke thus as God;” while that of Epiphanius, Beza, Calvin, and many others, is singular: “His aim was to oppose that future Mariolatry which He foresaw.” Still, the passage tells against that worship. Schenkel says erroneously, quoting Mar_3:21, “He was at variance with the members of His family.”
ἡ ὥρα μου ] can only mean, the moment when it will he for me to help.[135] So also Hengstenberg, in keeping with the context. Jesus, conscious of His close communion with the Father, sees clearly that this His first manifestation of Himself as Messiah in the working of miracles stands, even with reference to the time when it is to begin, in close connection with the divine appointment; and He feels that the moment ( ἡ ὥρα = ὁ καιρός , as in Joh_16:21, and often in the N. T. and the classics) for this first Messianio display of power is not yet present when His mother refers to the want of wine. How He was conscious of the exact horas et moras for working, cannot be more precisely determined. Euthymius Zigabenus is substantially right: ἡ τοῦ θαυματουργῆσαι ; and Ewald: “the hour of full Messianic sense of power.” Strangely attributing to Mary thoughts of that kind, Baumgarten Crusius remarks, “the moment of my public appearance as Messiah;” and Godet: “l’heure de l’avénement royal.” Anticipating Joh_2:11, Lücke, Tholuck, Brückner, Maier, Baur, Baumgarten render: “the moment of the revelation of my glory.” Comp. Luthardt: “This miracle, as the figurative prolepsis of Christ’s subsequent full revelation of Himself before the eyes of men, was of significance only for that narrow circle, and was intended to lead Jesus on from it into public life,”—of which, however, the text contains no hint either in John 2 :or elsewhere.
[135] It is an error to suppose that ἡ ὥρα μου in John always signifies the hour of Christ’s death. Its reference depends entirely upon the context, as in Joh_7:30, Joh_8:20, where it means the hour of Christ’s seizure; and Joh_13:1, where the more precise definition is expressly given. Already τινὲς in Chrysostom, Ebrard, and many, take it here as meaning the hour of Christ’s death. Hilgenfeld understands it of the hour of the glorification of Jesus, the culminating point of which was certainly the crucifixion; and that Jesus, according to John, gives expression to the full consciousness of the Logos, and its superhuman independence of all human counsel.