Joh 8:48-58 | Clarke | STEP | Verse 48 Thou art a Samaritan - This was the same, among them, as heretic, or schismatic, among us. This is the only time in which the Jews gave our Lord this title of reproach; and they probably grounded it on his having preached among them, and lodged in their villages. See the account in , ; but Samaritan, among them, meant a person unworthy of any credit. Hast a devil? - Art possessed by an evil spirit; and art, in consequence, deranged.

John 8:48-58

Verse 48

Thou art a Samaritan - This was the same, among them, as heretic, or schismatic, among us. This is the only time in which the Jews gave our Lord this title of reproach; and they probably grounded it on his having preached among them, and lodged in their villages. See the account in Joh 4:39, Joh 4:40; but Samaritan, among them, meant a person unworthy of any credit.

Hast a devil? - Art possessed by an evil spirit; and art, in consequence, deranged. Verse 49

I have not a devil - The first part of the charge was too futile: if taken literally, it was both absurd and impossible; they did not believe it themselves, and therefore our Lord does not stop a moment to refute it; but he answers to the second with the utmost meekness and conclusiveness: I honor God. This is what no demon can do, nor any man who is under such influence. Verse 50

I seek not mine own glory - Another proof that I am not influenced by any spirit but that which proceeds from God. But there is one that seeketh - i.e. my glory - and judgeth - will punish you for your determined obstinacy and iniquity. Verse 51

Shall never see death - As Moses promised a long life, with abundance of temporal blessings, to those who should keep his statutes and ordinances, so he who keeps my doctrine shall not only have a long life, but shall never see death - he shall never come under the power of the death of the soul, but shall live eternally with me in glory. Verse 54

Your God - Many MSS. and most of the versions read ἡμων, our, instead of ὑμων. The variation is of very little consequence. They called God their God, while enemies to him both in their spirit and conduct. Verse 56

Abraham rejoiced to see my day - Or, he earnestly desired to see my day; ηγαλλιασατο, from αγαν, very much, and ἁλλομαι, I leap - his soul leaped forward in earnest hope and strong expectation that he might see the incarnation of Jesus Christ. The metaphor appears to be taken from a person who, desiring to see a long-expected friend who is coming, runs forward, now and then jumping up to see if he can discover him. There is a saying very like this in Sohar Numer fol. 61: "Abraham rejoiced because he could know, and perceive, and cleave to the Divine Name." The Divine name is יהוה Yehovah; and by this they simply mean God himself.

And he saw it - Not only in the first promise, Gen 3:15, for the other patriarchs saw this as well as he; and not only in that promise which was made particularly to himself, Gen 12:7; Gen 22:18, (compared with Gal 3:16), that the Messiah should spring from his family; but he saw this day especially when Jehovah appeared to him in a human form, Gen 18:2, Gen 18:17, which many suppose to have been a manifestation of the Lord Jesus. Verse 57

Thou art not yet fifty years old - Some MSS. read forty. The age of our blessed Lord has never been properly determined. Some of the primitive fathers believed that he was fifty years old when he was crucified; but their foundation, which is no other than these words of the Jews, is but a very uncertain one. Calmet thinks that our Lord was at this time about thirty-four years and ten months old, and that he was crucified about the middle of his thirty-sixth year; and asserts that the vulgar era is three years too late. On the other hand, some allow him to have been but thirty-one years old, and that his ministry had lasted but one year. Many opinions on this subject, which are scarcely worthy of being copied, may be found in Calmet. Verse 58

Before Abraham was, I am - The following is a literal translation of Calmet's note on this passage: - "I am from all eternity. I have existed before all ages. You consider in me only the person who speaks to you, and who has appeared to you within a particular time. But besides this human nature, which ye think ye know, there is in me a Divine and eternal nature. Both, united, subsist together in my person. Abraham knew how to distinguish them. He adored me as his God; and desired me as his Savior. He has seen me in my eternity, and he predicted my coming into the world." On the same verse Bishop Pearce speaks as follows: - "What Jesus here says relates (I think) to his existence antecedent to Abraham's days, and not to his having been the Christ appointed and foretold before that time; for, if Jesus had meant this, the answer I apprehend would not have been a pertinent one. He might have been appointed and foretold for the Christ; but if he had not had an existence before Abraham's days, neither could he have seen Abraham, (as, according to our English translation, the Jews suppose him to have said), nor could Abraham have seen him, as I suppose the Jews understood him to have said in the preceding verse, to which words of the Jews the words of Jesus here are intended as an answer."