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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - John 4:10 - 4:10
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
10. εἰ ᾔδεις. If thou hadst known; on account of the aorists which follow: οἶδα has no aorist; comp. Joh 11:21; Joh 11:32, Joh 14:28, for the same construction; and contrast Joh 5:46 and Joh 8:19, where A.V. makes the converse mistake of translating imperfects as aorists.
τ. δωρεὰν τ. θεοῦ. What He is ready to give to all, what is now held out to thee, salvation, or the living water. Comp. Rom 5:15; 2Co 9:15.
σὺ ἂν ᾔτ. Σύ is emphatic; ‘instead of His asking of thee.’ ‘Spiritually our positions are reversed. It is thou who art weary, and footsore, and parched, close to the well, yet unable to drink; it is I who can give thee the water from the well, and quench thy thirst for ever.’ There is a scarcely doubtful reference to this passage in the Ignatian Epistles, Romans, VII. See p. xxi. and on Joh 6:33, to which there is a clear reference in this same chapter, and on Joh 3:8. The passage with these references to the Fourth Gospel is found in the Syriac as well as in the shorter Greek versions of Ignatius; so that we have almost certain evidence of this Gospel being known A.D. 115.