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Joh_7:21-22. Ἀπεκρίθη ] The reply of Jesus, not to the Ἰουδαῖοι (Ebrard), but to the ὄχλος (for it is really addressed to them, not in appearance merely, and through an inaccurate account of the matter on John’s part, as Tholuck unnecessarily assumes), contains, indeed, no direct answer to the question put, but is intended to make the people feel that all had a guilty part in the murderous designs against Him, and that none of them are excepted, because that one work which He had done among them was unacceptable to them all, and had excited their unjustifiable wrath. Thus He deprives the people of that assurance of their own innocence which had prompted them to put the question to Him; “ostendit se profundius eos nôsse et hoc radio eos penetrat,” Bengel.
ἓν ἔργον ] i.e. the healing on the Sabbath, Joh_5:2 ff., the only miraculous work which He had done in Jerusalem (against Weisse[262]) (not, indeed, the only work at all, see Joh_2:23, comp. also Joh_10:32, but the only one during the last visit), for the remembrance of which the fact of its being so striking an instance of Sabbath-breaking would suffice.
καὶ πάντες θαυμάζετε ] πάντες is correlative with ἕν , “and ye all wonder” (Act_3:12), i.e. how I could have done it as a Sabbath work (Joh_5:16); it is the object of your universal astonishment! An exclamation; taken as a question (Ewald), the expression of disapprobation which it contains would be less emphatic. To put into θαυμάζετε the idea of alarm (Chrysostom), of blame (Nonnus), of displeasure (Grotius), or the like, would be to anticipate; the bitterness of tone does not appear till Joh_7:23.
διὰ τοῦτο ] connected with θαυμάζετε by Theophylact, and most moderns (even Lücke, Tholuck, Olshausen, De Wette, B. Crusius, Maier, Lange, Lachmann, Hengstenberg, Ewald, Baeumlein, Ebrard, Godet; among earlier expositors, Beza, Casaubon, Homberg, Maldonatus, Wolf, Mill, Kypke, etc.; see on Mar_6:6); but Syr. Goth. Codd. It., Cyril, Chrysostom, Nonnus, Euthymius Zigabenus, Luther, Castalio, Erasmus, Aretius, Grotius, Cornelius a Lapide, Jansen, Bengel, Wetstein, and several others, also Luthardt, and already most of the Codices, with true perception, place the words at the beginning of Joh_7:22 (so also Elzevir); for, joined with θαυμάζετε , they are cumbrous and superfluous,[263] and contrary to John’s method elsewhere of beginning, not ending, with διὰ τοῦτο (Joh_5:16; Joh_5:18, Joh_6:65, Joh_8:47, Joh_10:17, al.; see Schulz on Griesbach, p. 543). Only we must not take them either as superfluous (Euthymius Zigabenus) or as elliptical: “therefore hear,” or “know” (Grotius, Jansen, even Winer, p. 58 [E. T. p. 68]); the former is inadmissible, the latter is neither Johannean nor in keeping with what follows, which does not contain a declaration, but a deduction of a logical kind. We ought rather, with Bengel (“propterea, hoc mox declaratur per ΟὐΧ ὍΤΙ , nempe non quia”) and Luthardt, following Cyril, to regard them as standing in connection with the following οὐχ ὅτι . With this anticipatory διὰ τοῦτο , Jesus begins to diminish the astonishment which His healing on the Sabbath had awakened, showing it to be unreasonable, and this by the analogy of circumcision, which is performed also on the Sabbath. Instead of simply saying, “because it comes from the fathers,” He puts the main statement, already introduced by ΔΙᾺ ΤΟῦΤΟ , and so important in the argument, both negatively and positively, and says, “Therefore Moses gave you circumcision, not because it originated with Moses, but (because it originated) with the fathers, and so ye circumcise” ( ΚΑῚ consecutive), etc.; that is, this ΟὐΧ ὍΤΙ , on to ΠΑΤΈΡΩΝ , serves to show that circumcision, though divinely commanded by Moses in the law, and thus given to the Jews as a ritualistic observance, was not Mosaic in its origin, but was an old patriarchal institution dating back even from Abraham. The basis of its historic claim to validity lies in the fact that the law of circumcision precedes the law of the Sabbath, and consequently the enjoined rest of the Sabbath must give way to circumcision.[264] Even the Rabbins had this axiom: “Circumcisio pellit sabbatum,” and based it upon the fact that it was “traditio partum.” See Wetstein on Joh_7:23. The anger of the people on account of the healing on the Sabbath rested on a false estimate of the Sabbath; comp. Mat_12:5. From this explanation it is at the same time clear that οὐχ ὅτι … πατέρων is not of the nature of a parenthesis (so usually, even Lachmann). Of those who so regard it, some rightly recognise in the words the authority of circumcision as outweighing that of the Sabbath; while others, against the context, infer from them its lesser sanctity as being a traditional institution (Paulus, B. Crusius, Ewald, Godet). Others, again, take them as an (objectless) correction (De Wette, Baeumlein), or as an historical observation (equally superfluous) of Jesus (Tholuck, Hengstenberg, and earlier expositors) or of John (Lücke, cf. Ebrard). Above all, it would have been very strange and paltry to suppose (with Hengstenberg) that Jesus by this remark was endeavouring, with reference to Joh_7:15, to do away with the appearance of ignorance.
Μωϋσῆς ] Lev_12:3.
οὐχ ὅτι ] not as in Joh_6:46, but as in Joh_12:6.
ἐκ τοῦ Μωϋσέως ] Instead of saying ἐξ αὐτοῦ , Jesus repeats the name, thus giving more emphasis to the thought. See Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 6. 1, ad Anab. i. 6. 11.
ἐκ τῶν πατέρων ] Gen_17:10; Gen_21:4; Act_7:8; Rom_4:11.
ἐν Σαββ .] if it be the eighth day. Comp. the Rabbinical quotations in Lightfoot. Being emphatic, it takes the lead.
[262] How does he make out the ἓν ἔργον ? It is the one miracle which Christ came to accomplish (Mat_12:38; Mat_16:1 sqq.; Luk_11:29 ff.), described by Him metaphorically as a Sabbath healing; this the evangelist has taken for a single miraculous act. See Evangelienfr. p. 249.
[263] This accounts for the omission of διὰ τοῦτο in à Tisch. deletes it, and with à * reads ὁ Μωϋσ . (with the article).
[264] The patriarchal period wag indeed that of promise, but this is not made prominent here, and we cannot therefore say with Luthardt: “Jesus puts the law and the promise over-against one another, like Paul in Gal_3:17.” There is no hint of this in the text. Judging from the text, there rather lies in οὐχ ὅτι , κ . τ . λ ., the proof that, in the case of a collision between the two laws, that of circumcision and that of the Sabbath, the former must have the precedence, because, though enjoined by Moses, it already had a patriarchal origin, and on account of this older sanctity it must suffer no infringement through the law of the Sabbath. Nonnus well describes the argumentation by the words ἀρχεγόνῳ τινὶ θεσμῷ .