Joh 1:5, 11 | JFB | STEP | 5. shineth in darkness, &c.—in this dark, fallen world, or in mankind "sitting in darkness and the shadow of death," with no ability to find the way either of truth or of holiness. In this thick darkness, and consequent intellectual and moral obliquity, "the light of the Word" shineth— by all the rays whether of natural or revealed teaching which men (apart from the Incarnation of the Word) are favored with. the darkness comprehended it not — did not take it in, a brief summary of the effect of all the strivings of this un incarnate Word throughout this wide world from the beginning, and a hint of the necessity of His putting on flesh, if any recovery of men was to be effected ( ).

John 1:5

5. shineth in darkness, &c.—in this dark, fallen world, or in mankind "sitting in darkness and the shadow of death," with no ability to find the way either of truth or of holiness. In this thick darkness, and consequent intellectual and moral obliquity, "the light of the Word" shineth—by all the rays whether of natural or revealed teaching which men (apart from the Incarnation of the Word) are favored with.

the darkness comprehended it not—did not take it in, a brief summary of the effect of all the strivings of this unincarnate Word throughout this wide world from the beginning, and a hint of the necessity of His putting on flesh, if any recovery of men was to be effected (1Co 1:21).

John 1:11

11. his own—"His own" (property or possession), for the word is in the neuter gender. It means His own land, city, temple, Messianic rights and possessions.

and his own—"His own (people)"; for now the word is masculine. It means the Jews, as the "peculiar people." Both they and their land, with all that this included, were "HIS OWN," not so much as part of "the world which was made by Him," but as "THE HEIR" of the inheritance (Lu 20:14; see also on Mt 22:1).

received him not—nationally, as God's chosen witnesses.