John Chapter 10 verse 24 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 24. - Then the Jews came round about him. Not necessarily (with Godet) separating him from his disciples, but in a threatening and imperative fashion, demanding an immediate answer. It is probable that he had absented himself for two months in the neighborhood, had even been in Peraea (cf. Luke 9.), and met the multitudes coming up to the feasts. The πάλιν πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου of ver. 40, is best understood by his having been there before. The difficulty of his making retrospective reference to the similitude and allegory of the first part of this chapter is removed by the simple supposition that he saw in this group of his interrogators many of those who had heard his former discourse. And said unto him, How long dost thou hold our soul in suspense? - αἴρειν τὴν ψυχὴν ἡμῶν; used in the sense of "lift up the soul," and so used in similar connection in the classics (Eurip., 'Ion,' 928; 'Hec.,' 69; AEschylus, 'Sept.,' 198; also Josephus, ' Ant.,' 3:2. 3) - If thou art the Christ (simple supposition), tell us plainly. Observe in John 16:25 our Lord's own contrast between speaking ἐν παροιμίαις and speaking παῥῤησίᾳ, with open, clear utterance. They had heard his parables, and say, "Let him drop all reserve, and deliver himself in categoric form." Archdeacon Watkins has well recalled the various utterances which fell on the more susceptible of the Jerusalemites. This was the Feast of Lights, and has he not called himself the Light of the world? This was a feast commemorative of freedom from the Syrian yoke, and had he not said, "If the Son set you free, ye shall be free indeed"? ' This was the Feast of the Purification of the Temple; had not his first act been a cleansing of the courts of the temple? We cannot wonder at the summons and challenge of the people.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(24) Then came the Jews round about him.--The words mean literally, they encircled Him. It is again the impression of one who saw what he records. He remembers how they stood in a circle round our Lord, and watched Him with eager eyes as they asked their question.How long dost thou make us to doubt?--Literally, How long dost Thou lift up our souls? or, as the margin, "How long dost Thou keep us in suspense?" The words exactly express what was probably the real state of fluctuation in which many of these Jews then were. They do not in the true sense "believe" (John 10:25-26), and they soon pass to the other extreme of seeking to stone Him (John 10:31); but in many of them the last miracle, and the words accompanying it, had left a conviction that He was more than human, and not possessed by a demon. (See Note on John 10:21.) Two months have passed away, not, we may believe, without many an earnest thought and much anxious weighing of evidence concerning Him. And now the Feast of Dedication has come, and what thoughts have come with it? It is the Feast of Lights, and He had declared Himself the Light of the world. It is the Feast of Freedom, telling how the Maccabees had freed their nation from the tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes, and He has declared that "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). It is the feast which commemorates the cleansing of the Temple, and His first public appearance in the Temple was to cleanse it and claim it as His Father's house. May there not be, then, a close connection between the statement that "it was the Feast of the Dedication," and the question, "How long dost thou excite our souls?" Was He, the question would seem to ask, really the Messiah or not? though by the Messiah they mean only a temporal prince. Was He, like the Judas of whom they were thinking, raised up as a deliverer from the Roman power, to give them the freedom which had long been the national dream?If thou be the Christ, tell us.--Comp. Note on Luke 22:67. . . .