“Clamabat ergo Jesus in templo docens, et dicens : Et me scitis, et unde sim scitis : et a meipso non veni, sed est verus qui misit me, quem vos nescitis.”
“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.”
“Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “You know Me, and you know where I am from. I have not come of My own accord, but He who sent Me is true. You do not know Him,”
“Jesus therefore cried out in the temple, teaching and saying, “You both know me, and know where I am from. I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you don’t know.”
“Jesus therefore cried in the temple, teaching and saying, Ye both know me, and know whence I am; and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not.”
You both know me; i.e. you know me as man, and where I have been educated. — But him that sent me, from whom I proceeded, and who sent me into this world to be its Redeemer, you know not; because you know not, that he was always, and from all eternity, my eternal Father, and I his eternal Son. (Witham)
[2.] Christ's answer to this objection, v. 28, 29.
Verses 25-30 Christ proclaimed aloud, that they were in error in their thoughts about his origin. He was sent of God, who showed himself true to his promises. This declaration, that they knew not God, with his claim to peculiar knowledge, provoked the hearers; and they sought to take him, but God can tie men's hands, though he does not turn their hearts.
[1.] The objection concerning this stated by some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who seem to have been of all others most prejudiced against him, v. 25. One would think that those who lived at the fountain-head of knowledge and religion should have been most ready to receive the Messiah: but it proved quite contrary. Those that have plenty of the means of knowledge and grace, if they are not made better by them, are commonly made worse; and our Lord Jesus has often met with the least welcome from those that one would expect the best from. But it was not without some just cause that it came into a proverb, The nearer the church the further from God. These people of Jerusalem showed their ill-will to Christ,