Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - John 7:3 - 7:3
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Joh_7:3. The brothers (Joh_2:12; their names are given, Mat_13:55, Mar_6:3) were still unbelievers (Joh_7:5), because biassed by the prevailing Messianic views;[257] yet, allowing to themselves, because of the miracles, the possibility of His being the Messiah, they are anxious—partly, perhaps, for the sake of their own family—for the decision of the matter, which they thought might most appropriately take place at the great joyous feast of the nation, and which certainly must occur, if at all, in Jerusalem, the seat of the theocracy. A malicious and treacherous intention ( ἵνα ἀναιρεθῇ παρᾶ τῶν ζητούντων ἀποκτεῖναι αὐτόν , Euthymius Zigabenus, also Luther) is imputed to them without any foundation. They are of cold Jewish natures, and the higher nature belonging to their Brother is as yet hidden from them. The light of faith seems not to have dawned upon them until after His resurrection, and by means of that event (1Co_15:7; Act_1:14). This long-continued unbelief of His own earthly brothers (comp. Mar_3:21) is important in estimating the genuineness of the accounts given in Matthew and Luke of the miraculous birth and early childhood of Jesus.
καὶ οἱ μαθηταί σου ] This expression entirely corresponds with the position of the brothers as outside the fellowship of Jesus. It does not say, “thy disciples there also” (so usually; even Baur, who takes it to refer to those who are first to be won over in Judaea), for the word there does not occur, nor “thy disciples collectively,” but simply, “thy disciples also.” They would be gathered together from all parts at the feast in Jerusalem, and He should let Himself and His works be seen by them also. It does not, indeed, clearly appear from this that coldness began to be exhibited towards Him within the circle of His disciples (Weizsäcker), but rather perhaps that Jesus had gone about in Galilee and worked miracles very much in secret, without attracting observation, and not attended by any great following, but perhaps only by the trusted twelve, which silent manner of working He was perhaps led to adopt by the lying in wait of the Jews (Joh_7:1). Comp. Joh_7:4 : ἐν κρυπτῷ . According to B. Crusius, the brothers speak as it nothing miraculous had been done by Him in Galilee. Contrary to the narrative; and therefore ἃ ποιεῖς cannot mean “what you are reported to have done” (B. Crusius), but “what thou doest,” i.e. during thy present sojourn in Galilee, although ἐν κρυπτῷ , Joh_7:4. According to Brückner (comp. Ebrard, and substantially also Godet), the brothers express themselves as if Jesus had made and retained no disciples in Galilee, and, indeed, with malicious and ironical allusion to the fact stated Joh_6:66, and to the report (Joh_4:1) which they did not believe. But, considering the long interval which elapsed between chap. 6 and Joh_7:2, such allusions, without more precise indication of them in the text, are all the less to be assumed. Luthardt attributes to the brothers the notion that in Galilee it was only the multitudes that followed Him, and that there was no such personal adherence to Him as had taken place in Judaea (in consequence of His baptizing). But it is incredible that they should entertain a notion so obviously erroneous, because the events which they were continually witnessing in Galilee, as well as those which they witnessed in Judaea on occasion of their journeys to the feast, must have been better known to them.
[257] Hengstenberg is not deterred even by this passage from recognising in these brothers of Jesus His cousins (the sons, he thinks, of Cleopas and Mary; but see on Joh_19:25), and from maintaining, with all the arbitrariness and violence of exegetical impossibilities, that three of them, James, Simon, and Judas, were apostles, in spite of vv. 3, 5, 7 (comp. Joh_15:19). Against every attempt to explain away the literal brothers and sisters of Jesus, see on Mat_1:25; Mat_12:46; 1Co_9:5; also Laurentius, N. T. Stud. p. 153 ff.; comp. Pressensé, Jesus Chr. p. 287.