John 7:28 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
John 7:28
Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not.
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
John 8:42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he s…
John 8:19 Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my…
Jeremiah 9:6 Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD.
John 5:43 I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.
John 8:14 Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye…
John 8:26 I have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him.
John 12:49 For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
Matthew 11:27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son,…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on John 7:14-36
Here is, I. Christ's public preaching in the temple (Joh 7:14): He went up into the temple, and taught, according to his custom when he was at Jerusalem. His business was to preach the gospel of the kingdom, and he did it in every place of concourse. His sermon is not recorded, because, probably, it was to the same purport with the sermons he had preached in Galilee, which were recorded by the other evangelists. For the gospel is the same to the plain and to the polite. But that which is observable here is that it was about the midst of the feast; the fourth or fifth day of the eight. Whether he did not come up to Jerusalem till the middle of the feast, or whether he came up at the beginning…
cried Jesus--in a louder tone, and more solemn, witnessing style than usual.
Ye both, &c.--that is, "Yes, ye know both Myself and My local parentage, and (yet) I am not come of Myself."
but he that sent me is true, &c.--Probably the meaning is, "He that sent Me is the only real Sender of any one."
Adam Clarke on John 7:28
Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am - Perhaps they should be read interrogatively: Do ye both know me, and know whence I am? Our Lord takes them up on their own profession, and argues from it. Since you have got so much information concerning me, add this to it, to make it complete; viz. that I am not come of myself; am no self-created or self-authorized prophet; I came from God: - the testimony of John the Baptist, the descent of the Holy Ghost, the voice from heaven, the purity and excellence of my doctrine, and the multitude of my miracles, sufficiently attest this. Now, God is true who has borne testimony to me; but ye know him not, therefore it is that this testimony is disregarded…
Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught,.... Overhearing the reasonings of these men, however, knowing what they said; so the Persic version adds, "having secretly known this"; exalted his voice as he was teaching in the temple, and in the midst of his discourse, publicly before all the people, in the temple, spoke out with a loud voice, that all might hear:
saying, ye both know me, and ye know whence I am; some, as the Ethiopic version, read these words by way of interrogation, "do ye both know me, and do ye know from whence I am?" no; you do not. Or they may be considered as an ironical concession; yes, you know me, and you know whence I am; you know me to be Jesus of Nazareth, but yo…
The Church Fathers
"I know Him," He saith, "for I am from Him, and He hath sent Me." Seest thou how He continually seeketh to prove the, "I am not come of Myself," and, "He that sent Me is true," striving not to be thought an enemy of God? And observe how great is the profit of the humility of His words.
The Lord introduces two opinions about himself: (1) that they know where he comes from, since his mother is Mary; and (2) that he has something they do not know, since he is and has come from God. Therefore, he would not be a presumptuous person or a self-appointed teacher but had rather arrived at his teaching because God the Father sent him. Moreover, God who had sent him was not known to them because they kept themselves as far apart as possible from the God of true knowledge inasmuch as they revolted from his purpose and deeds. It is quite reasonable that he would know the Father, since he himself was with him. One knows one's relatives and household best.
(de Trin. ult. med.) Every man, ever born in the flesh, is in a certain sense from God. How then could He say that they were ignorant who He was, and whence He wasa? Because our Lord is here referring to His own peculiar birth from God, which they were ignorant of, because they did not know that He was the Son of God. His very saying then that they did not know whence He was, was telling them whence He was. If they did not know whence He was, He could not be from nothing; for then there would be no whence to be ignorant of. He must therefore be from God. And then not knowing whence He is, was the reason that they did not know who He is. He does not know the Son who does not know His birth from the Father.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
John 7:25-30
25. Some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem therefore said, Is not this he whom they seek to kill? 26. And, lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say nothing to him. Do the rulers actually know that this is truly the Christ? 27. But we know whence this man is; but when Christ shall come, no man will know whence he Isaiah 28. Jesus therefore exclaimed in the temple, teaching and saying, You both know me, and you know whence I am; and I did not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you know not. 29. But I know him, for I am from him, and he hath sent me. 30. Therefore they sought to seize him; but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come.
25. Some of the in…
Some of the crowd thought that since they could trace Jesus’ earthly origins, he could not be the Messiah. They believed that the Messiah would simply appear.
