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Joh_7:25-27. Οὖν ] in consequence of this bold vindication. These Ἱεροσολυμῖται , as distinct from the uninitiated ὄχλος of Joh_7:20, as inhabitants of the Holy City, have better knowledge of the mind of the hierarchical opposition; they wonder that the Sanhedrim should let Him speak so boldly and freely, and they ask, “After all, do they not know in very deed that this” etc.? This, however, is only a momentary thought which strikes them, and they at once answer it themselves.
πόθεν ἐστιν ] does not denote the birth-place, which was known both in the case of Jesus (Joh_7:41) and of the Messiah (Joh_7:42), but the descent; not, indeed, the more remote, which in the case of the Messiah was undoubted as being Davidic, but (comp. Joh_6:42) the nearer—father, mother, family (Mat_13:55). Comp. Joh_19:9; Homer, Od. p. 373: αὐτὸν δʼ οὐ σάφα οἶδα , πόθεν γένος εὔχεται εἶναι ; Soph. Trach. 1006; Eur. Rhes. 702; Heliod. iv. 16, vii. 14.
ὁ δὲ Χρι .] is in antithesis with τοῦτον , and it therefore takes the lead. The popular belief that the immediate ancestry of the Messiah would be unknown when He came, cannot further be historically proved, but is credible, partly from the belief in His divine origin (Bertholdt, Christol. p. 86), and partly from the obscurity into which the Davidic family had sunk, and was supported, probably, by the import of many O. T. passages, such as Isa_53:2; Isa_53:8, Mic_5:2, and perhaps also by the sudden appearance of the Son of man related in Daniel 7 (Tholuck), and is strongly confirmed by the description in the book of Enoch of the heavenly Messiah appearing from heaven (Ewald). The passages which Lücke and De Wette quote from Justin (c. Tryph. pp. 226, 268, 336, ed. Col.) are inapplicable, as they do not speak of an unknown descent of the Messiah, but intimate that, previous to His anointing by Elias, His Messiahship was unknown to Himself and others. The beginning of Marcion’s Gospel (see Thilo, p. 403), and the Rabbinical passages in Lightfoot and Wetstein, are equally inapplicable.