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Joh_6:70-71. Not a justification of the question in Joh_6:67, nor any utterance of reflection generally, but an outburst of grief at the sad catastrophe which He foresaw (Joh_6:64), in the face of that joyous confession which the fiery Peter thought himself warranted in giving in the name of them all.
The question extends only as far as ἐξελεξ .; then comes with the simple καὶ the mournful contrast which damps the ardour of the confessing disciple. Comp. Joh_7:19.
Observe the arrangement of the words, ἐγώ and ἐξ ὑμῶν impressively taking the lead: Have not I (even I, and no other) chosen you the twelve to myself? And of you (this one chosen by myself) one is devil! not the devil, but of devilish kind and nature. Comp. θεός , Joh_1:1. In what an awful contrast the two stand to each other! The addition of τοὺς δώδεκα to ὑμᾶς heightens the contrast, laying stress upon the great significance of the election, which nevertheless was to have in the case of one individual so contradictory a result.
διάβολος ] not an informer (Theophylact, De Wette, Baeumlein), not an adversary or betrayer (Kuinoel, Lücke, B. Crusius, and earlier writers), but, in keeping with the deep emotion (comp. Mat_16:23), and the invariable usage of the N. T. in all places where διάβ . is a substantive (in Joh_8:44; Joh_13:2; 1Jn_3:8; 1Jn_3:10): devil, whereby antagonism to Christ is set forth in its strongest manner, because in keeping with its demoniacal nature. That John would have written υἱὸς , or τέκνον διαβόλου (Joh_8:44; 1Jn_3:10), is an arbitrary objection, and does not adequately estimate the strength of the emotion, which the expression employed, never forgotten by John, fully does.
Joh_6:71. ἔλεγε δὲ τὸν , κ . τ . λ .] He spoke of, like Joh_9:19; Mar_14:71; see Stallb. ad Plat. Rep. p. 363 B. As to the name Ἰσκαρ .,[255] man of Karioth, see on Mat_10:4. Observe the sad and solemn emphasis of the full name Ἰούδαν Σίμωνος Ἰσκαριώτην , as in Joh_13:22. Ἰσκαριώτην itself is used quite as a name, as forming with ἸΟΎΔ . ΣΊΜΩΝΟς one expression. Bengel, therefore, without reason desiderates the article ΤΌΝ before ἸΣΚΑΡ ., and prefers on that account the reading ἸΣΚΑΡΙΏΤΟΥ (see the critical notes).
ἬΜΕΛΛΕΝ , Κ . Τ . Λ .] traditurus erat, not as if he was already revolving it in his mind (see, on the contrary, Joh_13:2), but according to the idea of the divine destiny (Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 72). Comp. Joh_7:39, Joh_11:51, Joh_12:4; Joh_12:33, Joh_18:32; Wis_18:4 : οδιʼ ὧν ἤμελλε … δίδοσθαι ; Jdt_10:12. Kern has erroneously lowered the expression to the idea of possibility.
ΕἿς ὪΝ , Κ . Τ . Λ .] although he, etc. Still ὤν is critically doubtful (omitted by Lachmann), and without it the tragic contrast is all the stronger.
[255] Not equivalent to àéù ù÷øéí , man of lies, as Hengstenberg maintains, after Pro_19:5; the Greek form itself already forbids this.
Note 1.
With respect to the psychological difficulty of Jesus having chosen and retained Judas as an apostle, we may remark: 1. That we cannot get rid of the difficulty by saying that Jesus did not make or intend a definite election of disciples (Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 370 ff.), for this would be at variance with all the Gospels, and in particular with Joh_6:70. 2. Jesus cannot have received Judas into the company of the apostles with the foreknowledge that He was choosing His betrayer (Hengstenberg; comp. Augustine in Psalms 55 : electi undecim ad opus probationis, electus unus ad opus tentationis); this would be psychologically and morally inconceivable. He must have had confidence that each one of the twelve, when He selected them according to the variety of their gifts, temperaments, characters, etc., would become under His influence an effective supporter of His work; and, at any rate, the remark in Joh_6:64 is only a retrospective inference from the inconceivableness of so hideous an act in the case of one selected by the Lord Himself. The view in question also goes too far in this respect, that it attributes the crime not to the dangerous disposition of Judas, but to the knowledge of Christ from the outset, which would logically lead to the outrageous and inadmissible thought of Daub, that He purposely chose Judas, in order that he might betray Him. Comp. Neander, Lücke, Kern, Ullmann (Sündlosigk.), Tholuck, De Wette, Ewald, and many others. 3. Although the bent of the man, and his inclination towards an unhallowed development,—which, however, did not lead to a complete rupture until late (Joh_13:2),—must have been known to Christ, the reader of all hearts, yet it may have been accompanied with the hope, that this tendency might be overcome by the presence of some other apostolic qualification possessed by Judas, perhaps a very special gift for external administration (Joh_12:6, Joh_13:28). 4. As it became gradually evident that this hope was to be disappointed when the care of the money affairs became a special temptation to the unhappy man, it was the consciousness of the divine destiny herein manifesting itself (Joh_6:70-71; Act_4:28) which prevented Jesus from dismissing Judas, and so disturbing the further progress of the divine purpose; while on the part of the Lord, we must, in conformity with His calling, suppose a continual moral influence bearing upon Judas, though this to the last remained without effect, and turned out to his condemnation,—a tragic destiny truly, whose details, besides, in the want of sufficient historical information concerning him before the commission of his bloody deed, are too far removed from the reach of critical judgment to enable them to lend any support to the difficulties arising therefrom as to the genuineness of Joh_6:70-71 (Weisse, Strauss, B. Bauer), or to warrant the assumption of any modification of the statement, which John, in accordance with his later view, might have given to it (Lücke, Ullmann, and others).
Note 2.
The aim of Jesus in the discourse Joh_6:26 ff. was to set before the people, who came to Him under the influence of a carnal belief in His miracles, the duty of seeking a true and saving faith instead, which would secure a deep living reception of and fellowship with Christ’s personal life, and that with a decision which, with an ever-advancing fulness, lays open this true work of faith in the appropriation of Himself to the innermost depth and the highest point of its contents and necessity. Baur’s opinion, that the discourse sets forth the critical process of the self-dissolution of a merely apparent faith, so that the latter must acknowledge itself as unbelief, has no such confession in the text to support it, especially as the ὄχλος and the Ἰουδαῖοι are not identical. See, besides, Brückner, p. 143 ff. Regarding the difficulty of understanding this discourse, which even Strauss urges, it may partly be attributed to the Johannean idiosyncrasy in reproducing and elaborating his abundant recollections of the words of Jesus. The difficulty, however, is partly exaggerated (see Hauff in the Stud. u. Krit. 1846, p. 595 ff.); and partly it is overlooked that Jesus, in all references to His death and its design, had to reckon on the light which the future would impart to these utterances, and sowing, as He generally did, for the future in the bosom of the present, He was obliged to give expression to much that was mysterious, but which would furnish material for, and support to, the further development and purification of faith and knowledge. The wisdom thus displayed in His teaching is justified by the history.