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Joh_7:35-36. An insolent and scornful supposition, which they themselves, however, do not deem probable (therefore the question is asked with μή ), regarding the meaning of words to them so utterly enigmatical. The bolder mode of teaching adopted by Jesus, His universalistic declarations, His partial non-observance of the law of the Sabbath, would lead them, perhaps, to associate with the unintelligible statement a mocking thought like this, and all the more because much interest was felt among the heathen, partly of an earnest kind, and partly (comp. St. Paul in Athens) arising from curiosity merely, regarding the oriental religions, especially Judaism; see Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 110 f. ed. 3.
πρὸς ἑαυτούς ] the same as πρὸς ἀλλήλους , yet so that the conversation was confined to one party among the people, to the exclusion of the others. See Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. ii. 6. 20.
οὗτος ] contemptuously, that man!
ὅτι ] not to be arbitrarily supplemented by a supposed λέγων put before it, or in some other way (Buttmaim, N. T. Gr. p. 305 [E. T. p. 358]); but the simple because: “Where will this man go, because, or seeing, that we are not (according to his words) to find him?” It thus states the reason why the ποῦ is unknown.
εἰς τ . διασπ . τ . Ἑλλ .] to the dispersion among the Greeks. Comp. Winer, p. 176 [E. T. p. 234]; and upon the thing referred to, Schneckenburger, N. T. Zeitgesch. p. 94 ff. The subjects of the διασπορά are the Jews,[268] who lived beyond Palestine dispersed among the heathen, and these latter are denoted by the genitive τῶν Ἑλλήν . Comp. 1Pe_1:1, and Steiger and Huther thereon. Differently in 2Ma_1:27; LXX. Psa_146:2. The abstract διασπορά is simply the sum-total of the concretes, like περιτομή and other words. See 2Ma_1:27. Ἕλληνες in the N. T. invariably means the heathen, Gentiles, not the Hellenists (Graecian Jews), so even in Joh_12:20; and it is wrong, therefore, to understand τῶν Ἑλλήν . of the latter, and to take these words as the subject of the διασπορά (Scaliger, Lightfoot, Hammond, B. Crusius, Ammon), and render διδάσκ . τ . Ἑλλ .: “teach the Hellenists.” The thought is rather: “Will Jesus go to the Jews scattered among the Gentiles, in order to unite there with the Gentiles, and to become their teacher?” This was really the course of the subsequent labours of the apostles.
Joh_7:36. τίς ἐστιν ] Their scornful conjecture does not even satisfy themselves; for that they should seek Him, and not be able to come to Him—they know not what the assertion can mean ( τίς ἐστιν , κ . τ . λ .).
[268] Not the heathen, as if ἡ διασπ . τ . Ἑλλ . were the same as Dispersi Graeci (Chrysostom and his followers, Rupertius, Maldonatus, Hengstenberg, and most). Against this Beza well says: “Vix conveniret ipsis indigenis populis nomen διασπορᾶς .”