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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - John 5:39 - 5:39
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39. ἐραυνᾶτε τ. γρ. It will never be settled beyond dispute whether the verb here is imperative or indicative. As far as the Greek shews, it may be either, ‘search,’ or ‘ye search,’ and both make sense. Comp. Joh 12:19, Joh 16:31. The question is, which makes the best sense, and this the context must decide. The context seems to be strongly in favour of the indicative, ye search the Scriptures. All the verbs on either side are in the indicative; and more especially the one with which it is so closely connected, οὐ θέλετε. Ye search the Scriptures, and (instead of their leading you to Me) ye are not willing to come to Me. The tragic tone once more: see on Joh 1:5. The reproach lies not in their searching, but in their searching to so little purpose. Jewish study of the Scriptures was too often learned trifling and worse; obscuring the text by frivolous interpretations, ‘making it of none effect’ by unholy traditions. Ὑμιε͂ς is emphatic: because ye are the people who think. Not that they were wrong in thinking that eternal life was contained in the Scriptures: their error was in thinking that by their dissection of them, letter by letter, they had found it. They had scrutinised with the utmost minuteness the written word (γραφαί), and missed the living word (λόγος) which spoke of the Messiah; ἐκεῖναι (Joh 1:8; Joh 1:18), precisely they, the very books ye study so diligently.