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Joh_7:32-34. The Pharisees present hear how favourable are the murmured remarks of the people concerning Jesus, and they straightway obtain an edict of the Sanhedrim ( οἱ Φαρισ . κ . οἱ ἀρχιερ .,
οἱ Φαρισ . first, for they had been the first to moot the matter; otherwise in Joh_7:45), appointing officers to lay hands on Him. The Sanhedrim must have been immediately assembled. Thus rapidly did the ἐζήτουν of Joh_7:30 ripen into an actual decree of the council. The thing does not escape the notice of Jesus; He naturally recognises in the officers seeking Him, who were only waiting for a suitable opportunity to arrest Him, their designs against Him; and He therefore ( οὖν ) says what we have in Joh_7:33-34 in clear and calm, foresight of the nearness of His death,—a death which He describes as a going away to God (comp. on Joh_6:62).
μεθʼ ὑμῶν ] Jesus speaks to the whole assembly, but has here the hierarchy chiefly in his eye; comp. Joh_7:35.
πρὸς τὸν πέμψαντά με ] These words are, with Paulus, to be regarded not as original, but as a Johannean addition; because, according to Joh_7:35-36, Jesus cannot have definitely indicated the goal of His going away, but must have left it enigmatical, as perhaps in Joh_8:22; comp. Joh_13:33. Had He said πρ . τ . πέμψ ., His enemies could not have failed, after Joh_7:16-17; Joh_7:28-29, to recognise the words as referring to God, and could not have thought of an unknown ποῦ (against Lücke, De Wette, Godet). There is no room even for the pretence “that they acted as if they could not understand the words of Jesus,” after so clear a statement as πρὸς τ . πέμψ . με (against Luthardt).
ζητήσετέ με , κ . τ . λ .] not of a hostile seeking, against which is Joh_13:33; nor the seeking of the penitent (Augustine, Beza, Jansen, and most), which would not harmonize (against Olshausen) with the absolute denial of any finding, unless we brought in the doctrine of a peremptory limitation of grace, which has no foundation in Holy Scripture (not even in Heb_12:17; see Lünemann, in loc.), and which could only refer to individuals; but a seeking for help and deliverance (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Erasmus, Calvin, Aretius, Hengstenberg; comp. Luthardt, Ewald, Brückner). This refers to the time of the divine judgments in the destruction of Jerusalem (Luk_20:16 ff; Luk_19:43, al.), which were to ensue as the result of their rejection of Jesus. Then, Jesus means, the tables will be turned; after they had persecuted and killed Him who now was present, they then would anxiously long, but in vain, for Him, the absent One,[267] as the wonder-working helper, who alone could save them from the dire calamity. Comp. Pro_1:28. The prophecy of misfortune involved in ζητήσετέ με , κ . τ . λ . is not expressly declared; but it lies in the thought of retribution which the words contain,—like an enigma which the history was to solve; comp. Joh_8:21. Theodoret, Heracleon (?), Maldonatus, Grotius, Lücke, De Wette, take the whole simply as descriptive of entire separation, so that nothing more is said than: “Christum de terris sublatum iri, ita ut inter viros reperiri non posit,” Maldonatus. The poetical passages, Psa_10:15; Psa_37:10, Isa_41:12, are appealed to. But even in these the seeking and finding is not a mere figure of speech; and here such a weakening of the signification is all the more inadmissible, because it is not annihilation, as in those passages, which is here depicted, and because the following words, καὶ ὅπου εἰμὶ ἐγὼ , κ . τ . λ ., describe a longing which was not to be satisfied. Luk_17:22 is analogous.
καὶ ὅπου εἰμὶ , κ . τ . λ .] still more clearly describes the tragic οὐχ εὑρήσ .: “and where I (then) am, thither ye cannot come,” i.e. in order to find me as a deliverer, or to flee to me. Rightly says Euthymius Zigabenus: δηλοῖ δὲ τὴν ἐπὶ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ πατρὸς καθέδραν . The εἶμι (I go), not found in the N. T., is not the reading here (against Nonnus, H. Stephens, Casaubon, Pearson, Bengel, Wakefield, Michaelis, and most). Comp. Joh_14:3, Joh_17:24.
[267] They would long for Him in His own person, for Jesus the rejected one, and not for the Messiah generally (Flacius, Lampe, Kuinoel, Neander, Ebrard), whom they had rejected in the person of Jesus (comp. also Tholuck and Godet),—an explanation which would empty the words of all their tragic nerve and force.