Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - John 7:23 - 7:23
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Joh_7:23. Περιτομήν ] Circumcision, without the article, but placed emphatically first, corresponding with ὅλον ἄνθρωπον in the apodosis.
ἵνα μὴ λυθῇ , κ . τ . λ .] in order that so the law of Moses be not broken (by the postponement of the rite), seeing that it prescribes circumcision upon the eighth day. Jansen, Bengel, Semler, Paulus, Kuinoel, Klee, Baeumlein, wrongly render ἵνα μή “without,” and take ὁ νόμ . Μωϋσ . to mean the law of the Sabbath.
ἐμοὶ χολᾶτε ] towards me how unjust! On χολᾶν , denoting bitter, violent anger (only here in the N. T.), comp. 3Ma_3:1; Artemid. i. 4; Beck, Anecd. p. 116.
ὅτι ὅλον ἄνθρ . ὑγ . ἐπ . ἐν σαββ .] The emphasis of the antithesis is on ὅλον ἄνθρ ., in contrast with the single member in the case of circumcision. We must not, therefore, with Kling in the Stud. u. Krit. 1836, p. 157 f., find here the antithesis between wounding and making whole; nor, with B. Crusius, that between an act for the sake of the law, on account of which circumcision was performed, and one for the sake of the man himself; similarly Grotius. In ὑγ . ἐποίησα , further, there must necessarily be expressed an analogy with what is done in circumcision, which is therefore equally regarded as a cure, and a healing, not with reference to the subsequent healing of the wound (Cyril, Lampe), for περιτ . is circumcision itself, not its healing; nor with reference to the supposed medical object of circumcision (Rosenmüller, Kuinoel, Lücke, Lange; comp. Philo, de Circumcis. II. 210 f.; see, on the contrary, Keil, Archaeol. I. 309 f.), no trace of which was contained either in the law or in the religious ideas of the people; but with reference to the purification and sanctification wrought upon the member by the removal of the foreskin.[265] In this theocratic sense, a single member was made whole by circumcision; but Christ, by healing the paralytic, had made an entire man whole, i.e. the whole body of a man. The argument in justification, accordingly, is one a minori ad majus; if it was right not to omit the lesser work on the Sabbath, how much more the greater and more important! To take ὅλον ἄνθρ ., with Euthymius Zigabenus 2, Beza, Cornelius a Lapide, Bengel, and Olshausen, as signifying body and soul, in contrast with the σάρξ , on which circumcision was performed, is alien to the connection, which shows that the Sabbath question had to do only with the bodily healing, and to the account of the miracle itself, according to which Jesus only warned the man who had been made whole, Joh_5:14.
[265] Comp. Bammidbar, R. xii:i. 203. 2 : “praeputium est vitium in corpore.” With this view, which regards the foreskin as impure,—a view which does not appear till a late date (Ewald, Alterth. p. 129 f.),—corresponds the idea of the circumcision of the heart, which we find in Lev_26:41, Deu_10:16; Deu_30:6, and often in the prophets and the N. T., Rom_2:29, Col_2:11, Act_7:51.