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Joh_8:59. The last assertion of Jesus strikes the Jews as blasphemous; they therefore set themselves, in the spirit of zealotry, to inflict punishment (comp. Joh_10:31). A stoning in the temple is mentioned also by Joseph. Antt. xvii. 9. 3. The stones were probably building stones lying in the fore-court. See Lightfoot, p. 1048.
ἐκρύβη κ . ἐξῆλθεν ] He hid Himself (probably in the crowd), and went out (whilst thus hidden).[43] The word ἐκρύβη explains how He was able to go out, and therefore (how very different from this is Luk_4:30!) precludes the notion of anything miraculous ( ἀόρατος αὐτοῖς κατέστη τῇ ἐξουσίᾳ τῆς θεότητος , Euth. Zigabenus; comp. Grotius, Wolf, Bengel, Luthardt, Hilgenfeld, and even Augustine),—a notion which gave rise to the addition in the Text. Rec. (see the critical observations), which Ewald defends. Baur, who likewise defends the Text. Rec. (p. 384 ff.), finds here also a docetic disappearance (comp. on Joh_7:10 f.); if, however, such was John’s meaning, he selected the most unsuitable possible terms to express it in writing ἐκρύβη (comp. on the contrary, Luk_24:31 : ἄφαντος ἐγένετο ἀπʼ αὐτῶν ) and ἐξῆλθεν ἐκ τοῦ ἱεροῦ . The “providential protection of God” (Tholuck) is a matter of course, but is not expressed.
There is no exegetical ground for supposing that the simple close of the narrative is designed to prefigure the death of Christ, which, being accomplished under the appearance of legality, released the Lord from the judgment of Israel, so that He left the old Israel as the school of Satan, and, on the other hand, gathered around Him the true Israel (Luthardt). Note how the breach between Jesus and the Jews gradually approached the extremity, and “how admirable, even in the details, is the delineation of the ever-increasing intensification of the crisis” (Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 477, ed. 3).
[43] Hengstenberg reverses the logical relation: καὶ ἐξῆλθε stands, he says, for ἐξελθών , and describes the manner in which He hid Himself,—a purely arbitrary statement. Even if ἐξελθών had been used, it would be that which preceded the ἐκρύβη (egressus), as in the case of ἀπελθών , Joh_12:36.