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Joh_4:51-54. Αὐτοῦ καταβ .… αὐτῷ ] see Buttmann, N. T. Gr. p. 270 [E. T. p. 315].
ἤδη ] belongs to καταβ ., not to ὑπήντ . (B. Crusius): when he was already going down, and now was no longer in Cana, but upon his journey back.
οἱ δοῦλοι , κ . τ . λ .] to reassure the father, and to prevent the now unnecessary coming of Jesus.
ζῇ ] he is not dead, but the sickness has the opposite issue: he lives!
κομψότερον ] finer, prettier, as in common life we are wont to say, “he is pretty well.” Exactly so in Arrian. Epict. iii. 10 of the sick: κομψῶς ἔχεις , and its opposite κακῶς ἔχεις . Comp. the Latin belle habere. Here it is an “amoenum verbum” (Bengel) of the father’s heart, which apprehends its good fortune still with feelings of tenderness and anxiety.
ἐχθές ] see Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 323.
ὥραν ἑβδόμην ] He had therefore been on the way since one o’clock the day before, because we must suppose from Joh_4:50 that he set out immediately after the assurance of Jesus. This also seems strange to us, considering the distance from Cana to Capernaum, not exactly known to us indeed, but hardly three geographical miles. That in his firm faith he travelled “non festinans” (Lampe) is unnatural; the impulse of parental love would hurry him home; and so is also the idea that he stayed the night somewhere on the way, or at Cana (Ewald assumes the latter, making the seventh hour seven in the evening, according to the Roman reckoning). We may suppose some delay not named, on the journey back, or (with Hengstenberg, Brückner, and others) take the to-day in the mind of the Jewish servants as denoting the day which began at six P.M. (sunset). According to Baur and Hilgenfeld, this noting of the time is to be attributed, not to the genuineness and originality of the account, but to the subjective aim of the writer, which was to make the miracle as great and pointed as possible (comp. Joh_4:54, note).
ἐν ἐκ . τ . ὥρᾳ ] sc. ἀφῆκεν αὐτὸν ὁ πυρετός . Observe, with reference to ἐκεῖνος , that it does not mean idem, but is the simple relative ille.
κ . ἐπίστευσεν , κ . τ . λ .] upon Jesus as the Messiah. Καλῶς οὖν καθήψατο αὐτοῦ ὁ τὴν καρδίαν αὐτοῦ γινώσκων Χριστὸς , εἰπών · ὅτι ἐὰν μὴ σημεῖα , κ . τ . λ ., Euthymius Zigabenus. Observe how faith here attains its realization as to its object, and further, the importance of this καὶ ἡ οἰκία αὐτοῦ (the first household), which now occurs for the first time. Comp. Act_16:14-15; Act_16:34; Act_18:8.
τοῦτο πάλιν δεύτερον , κ . τ . λ .] Referring back to Joh_2:11. Literally inaccurate, yet true as to its import, is the rendering of Luther: “This is the second miracle that Jesus did;” τοῦτο stands by itself, and the following δεύτ . σημ . supplies the place of the predicate (this Jesus did as the second miracle), hence no article follows τοῦτο . See on Joh_2:11, and Bremi, ad Lys. Exc. II. p. 436 f.; Ast, Lex. Plat. II. 406; Stallbaum, ad Plat. Apol. pp. 18 A, 24 B. Πάλιν , however, must not be overlooked, nor is it to be joined with δεύτερον (so usually) as a current pleonasm (see on Mat_26:42; comp. Joh_21:15, Act_10:15), for δεύτερον is not an adverb, but an adjective. It rather belongs to ἐποίησεν , thus affirming that Jesus now again did this as a second miracle (comp. Beza) upon His return from Judea to Galilee (as in Joh_2:1). Thus the idea that the miracle was a second time wrought upon His coming out of Judea into Galilee is certainly doubly expressed,—once adverbially with the verb ( πάλιν ἐποίησεν ), and then adjectivally with the noun ( δεύτερονσημ .); both receive their more minute definition by ἐλθὼν , κ . τ . λ . Schweizer (p. 78) quite arbitrarily considers the reference to the first miracle at Cana unjohannean.
Note.
The βασιλιχός is not the same with the Centurion of Mat_8:5 ff.; comp. Luk_7:2 ff. (Origen, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, and most others). On the assumption of their identity (Irenaeus, Eusebius, Semler, Seyffarth, Strauss, Weisse, B. Bauer, Gfrörer, Schweizer, Ammon, Baumgarten Crusius, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Ewald, Weizsäcker), which thus attributes the greater originality on the one hand to Matthew and Luke (Strauss, B. Bauer, Weisse, Baur, Hilgenfeld), on the other to John (Gfrörer, Ewald), and to the latter an adjusting purpose (Weizsäcker), the discrepancies as to place, time, and even as regards the sick person, constitute lesser difficulties, as well as the entirely different character in which the suppliant appears in John and in the two Synoptics. In these latter he is still a heathen, which, according to John, he cannot be (against Cyril, Jerome, Baur, and Ewald); see Joh_4:48, which represents him as associated with Galileans, and therefore Jews; and this alone suffices to establish the difference of the two miracles, apart from the fact that there is no more objection against the supposition of two healings wrought at a distance than against one. This is at the same time against Schweizer’s view, that the section in John is an interpolation. Indeed, a single example of healing at a distance, the historical truth of which, moreover, even Ewald maintains, might more easily be resolved by the arbitrariness of criticism into a myth borrowed from the history of Naaman, 2Ki_9:5; 2Ki_9:9 ff. (Strauss), or be explained away as a misunderstanding of a parable (Weisse), or be dissolved into a subjective transposition and development of the synoptical materials on John’s part for his own purpose, which would make the belief in miracles plainly pass beyond the Jewish range of view (Hilgenfeld), and appears in its highest form as a πιστεύειν διὰ τὸν λόγον (Baur, p. 152);[202] although πιστεύειν τῷ λόγῳ , Joh_4:41, is something quite different from πιστεύειν διὰ τὸν λόγον , and the ἐπίστευσεν in Joh_4:53 took place, not διὰ τὸν λόγον , but διὰ τὸ σημεῖον .
[202] If John had really derived his matter from the Synoptics, it would be quite inconceivable how, according to the design attributed to him by Baur, he could have left unused the statement of Mat_8:10, especially if the βασιλικός is taken to be a Gentile. See Hase, Tübingen Schule, pp. 32, 33.