John Chapter 1 verse 24 Holy Bible
And they had been sent from the Pharisees.
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Those who had been sent came from the Pharisees.
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And they were sent from among the Pharisees.
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And they which were sent were of the Pharisees.
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read chapter 1 in WBT
The ones who had been sent were from the Pharisees.
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And those sent were of the Pharisees,
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Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 24. - And they had been sent from the Pharisees, which amounts to the same thing as "they which were sent were of the Pharisees," and it is after the manner of John to introduce explanatory, retrospective comment, which may throw light on what follows (vers. 41, 45; John 4:30; John 11:5). The οϋν of the following verse shows that we have still to do with the same deputation. The Pharisees were accustomed to lustral rites, but had legal points to make as to the authority of any man who dared to impose them upon the sacred nation, and especially on their own section, which made its special boast of ceremonial exactitude and purity. They might justify an old prophet, or the Elijah of Malachi, and still more the Christ himself, should he call men to baptismal cleansing. But the dim mysterious "voice in the wilderness," even if John could prove his words, had no such prescriptive claim. The Pharisaic priests and Levites would take strong views on the baptismal question, and even exalt it into a more eminent place in their thoughts than the fundamental question, "Art thou the very Christ?" The same confusion of essential and accidental elements of religious truth and life was not confined to old Pharisees.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(24) They which were sent.--The best MSS. omit the relative, and the verse thus becomes, "And they had been sent from the Pharisees." (For account of the Pharisees, see Note on Matthew 3:7.) The statement is made to explain the question which follows, but it should be observed that in this Gospel, where the Sadducees are nowhere mentioned, the term "Pharisees" seems to be used almost in the sense of "Sanhedrin." (Comp. John 4:1; John 8:3; John 11:46; John 11:57.)