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Joh_2:7-8. The transformation is accomplished in the time between Joh_2:7 and Joh_2:8.[136]
αὐτοῖς ] the servants, who obeyed Him according to the direction of Mary, Joh_2:5; not, as Lange’s imagination suggests, “under the influence of a miraculously excited feeling pervading the household.”
ΓΕΜΊΣΑΤΕ ] The most natural supposition from this and Joh_2:6 is that the pitchers had been empty, the water in them having been used up before the feast began, and were to be filled afresh for use after meat. Observe, moreover, that Christ does not proceed creatively in His miracles, neither here nor in the feedings.
ἕως ἄνω ] This is stated for no other purpose than to give prominence to the quantity of the wine which Jesus miraculously produced.
ἀντλήσατε ] Altogether general, without specifying any particular pitcher,—showing that as all were filled, the water in all was turned into wine (in answer to Semler and Olshausen). From the nature of the case, no object is appended, and we therefore can only understand the general word it. The drawing out was done by means of a vessel (a tankard, πρόχοος , Hom. Od. xviii. 397), out of which the master of the feast would fill the cups upon the table (comp. Nitzsch on Hom. Od. η . 183).
The ἈΡΧΙΤΡΊΚΛΙΝΟς , table-master (Heliod. vii. 27), in Petron. 27 triclinarches, elsewhere also called τραπεζοποιός (Athen. iv. p. 170 D E; Beck. Char. II. 252), is the chief of the waiters at table, upon whom devolved the charge of the meats and drinks, and the entire arrangement of the repast. See Walch, De architriclino, Jena 1753. Comp. Fritzsche on Sir_35:1, where he is designated as ἡγούμενος . He was at the same time the taster of the meats and drinks, and is not to be confounded with the ΣΥΜΠΟΣΊΑΡΧΟς , modimperator, arbiter bibendi, who was chosen by the guests themselves from among their own number (Xen. Anab. vi. 1. 30; Herm. Privatalterth. § 28, 29; Mitscherlich, ad Hor. Od. i. 4. 18).
[136] The commencement of the transformation might indeed be also placed after the drawing out, and consequently after ver. 8, so that only that portion of water which was drawn was converted into wine. But the minute statement of the number and large size of the vessels in ver. 6, by which it is manifestly intended to draw attention to the greatness in a quantitative point of view of the miracle of transformation, presupposes rather that all the water in the pitchers was converted into wine.