EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)
(19)
Did not Moses. . .?—The note of interrogation should be placed at the end of the first clause. The verse would then read,
Did not Moses give you the Law? and none of you doeth the Law. Why seek ye to kill Me? So far from the will to do God’s will, without which they could not know His teaching, they had the Law, which they all professed to accept, and yet no one kept it (
John 5:45-47). This thought follows naturally on
John 7:17-18, and, like the whole of this teaching, grows out of the truths of John 5; but it may be that this reference to Moses and the Law has a special fitness, as suggested by the feast. Moses had commanded that the Law should be read in every Sabbatical year at this very festival (
Deuteronomy 31:10); and there is good reason for believing that the current year was a Sabbatical year. The first portion of the Law which it was customary to read was
Deuteronomy 1:1 to
Deuteronomy 6:3. Within this section (
John 5:17) came the command, “Thou shalt not kill.” They were, then, in their persecution of Him (
John 5:18), breaking the Law, of which their presence at the feast was a professed obedience.
John 7:19-20.
Did not Moses give you the law —As if he had said, But you are unrighteous; for you violate the very law for which you profess so much zeal. There is a remarkable beauty in this sudden turn of the sentiment. Some of the Jews called Jesus a false prophet: because on the sabbath day he had healed the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, (
John 5:9,) pretending that it was a gross violation of the law of Moses, such as no good man, far less a prophet, would be guilty of. In answer to these evil surmises, he told them plainly, that however much they pretended to reverence the authority of Moses in his law, they made no scruple to violate the most sacred of his precepts; having entered into a resolution of murdering him, directly contrary to every Law of God and man; and being now employed in laying secret plots against his life: a reproof this, which came in with singular propriety and force, immediately after Jesus had, by the most convincing arguments, proved his mission from God.
The people answered, Thou hast a devil— Either thou art mad, or thou art actuated by the malice of the devil, or by a lying spirit;
who goeth about to kill thee? —Probably these, who spake thus, came from distant parts of the country, and did not know the design of the priests and rulers.
7:14-24 Every faithful minister may humbly adopt Christ's words. His doctrine is not his own finding out, but is from God's word, through the teaching of his Spirit. And amidst the disputes which disturb the world, if any man, of any nation, seeks to do the will of God, he shall know whether the doctrine is of God, or whether men speak of themselves. Only those who hate the truth shall be given up to errors which will be fatal. Surely it was as agreeable to the design of the sabbath to restore health to the afflicted, as to administer an outward rite. Jesus told them to decide on his conduct according to the spiritual import of the Divine law. We must not judge concerning any by their outward appearance, but by their worth, and by the gifts and graces of God's Spirit in them.
Did not Moses give you the law? - This they admitted, and on this they prided themselves. Every violation of that law they considered as deserving of death. They had accused Jesus of violating it because he had healed a man on the Sabbath, and for that they had sought his life,
John 5:10-16. He here recalls that charge to their recollection, and shows them that, though they pretended great reverence for that law, yet they were really its violators in having sought his life.
None of you ... - None of you Jews. They had sought to kill him. This was a pointed and severe charge, and shows the great faithfulness with which he was accustomed to proclaim the truth.
Why go ye about to kill me? - Why do ye seek to kill me? SeeJohn 5:16.
19, 20. Did not Moses, &c.—that is, In opposing Me ye pretend zeal for Moses, but to the spirit and end of that law which he gave ye are total strangers, and in "going about to kill Me" ye are its greatest enemies.
Moses was God’s instrument in delivering his law to the people,
Exodus 24:3Deu 33:4; a law which none of them exactly kept, but daily broke. Why do you (saith our Saviour) make it such a capital crime (suppose you were not in an error, but I had in this one point of the sabbath violated the law) in me to break the law, that you for it would have my blood? How cometh it to be a more heinous offence in me to break the law in one thing, than it is in you, who violate it in so many things? Or, do not you think it a capital crime maliciously to go about to destroy an innocent person? Is not that a greater breach, think you, of the sixth commandment, than what I have done is of the fourth? Supposing that had been any breach of the law at all, which indeed it was not.
Did not Moses give you the law,.... After Christ had vindicated himself and his doctrine, he proceeds to reprove the Jews for their breaking the law, which contained the will of God: by which it appeared, that they were no proper judges of his doctrine, though they cavilled at it: the question he puts could not be denied by them; for though, properly speaking, God was the lawgiver, yet inasmuch as it was delivered by Moses, it is ascribed to him, and said to come by him; and it was put into his hands, to be delivered by him, peculiarly to the people of Israel; and being given to the Jewish fathers, not only for themselves, but for their posterity in ages to come, is said to be given to the then present generation; and may be understood, either of the whole system of laws, moral, ceremonial, and, judicial, belonging to that people; or else of the particular law, concerning the keeping of the sabbath, which was a peculiar law of Moses, and proper to the children of Israel only:
and yet none of you keepeth the law; though they boasted of it as a singular privilege, and rested in it, and their obedience to it for life and salvation, yet daily broke it in various instances, in thought, word, or deed; yea, those that sat in Moses's chair, and taught it, did not observe and do what they taught; nor could the most holy and righteous man among them perfectly keep it: and many of them, who were most forward to censure others, for the violation of it, paid the least regard to it; and particularly to the law of the sabbath, which both priests and people transgressed, in one point or another, every sabbath day: wherefore our Lord reasons with them,
why go ye about to kill me? an harmless and innocent man, who never injured you in your persons and properties; and which is a proof of their not keeping that body of laws Moses gave them, since "thou shalt not kill" is one of them: though rather this may refer to the law of the sabbath, and the sense he, that since Moses had given them the law of the sabbath, and they did not keep it themselves, why should they seek to take away his life, for what they pretended was a breach of it? for our Lord here, as appears by what follows, refers to what they sought to do, above a year and a half ago, and still continued to seek after; namely, to kill him, because he had healed a man on the sabbath day,John 5:16.
{7} Did not Moses give you the law, andyet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me?(7) None boast more confidently that they themselves are the defenders of the law of God than they that break it most impudently.
