in four other passages in the Gospels,— viz., Matt, xxvii. 50; Mirk xv. 39 ; John vii. 37, and xii. 44. The Greek for "cried " in Matt, xxvii. 46 is even a stronger word than that before us.
[Ye both know me and. ..whence lam.'] This is an undeniably difficult expression; partly because it is hard to reconcile with John viii. 14, and partly because it is not clear how the Jews could be said to "know our Lord" and "whence He was." The explanations suggested are various.
(1) Some, as Grotius, Lampe, Doddridge, Bloorafield, Titt- man, and A. Clarke, would have the sentence read as a question : — " Do you both know me, and do ye know whence I am? Are you quite sure that you are correct in saying this? " — In this view it would be rather like the mode of expression used by our Lord in John xvi. 31, — "Do ye now believe?" where the interrogative forms the beginning of the sentence.
(2) Some, as Calvin, Ecolampadius, Beza, Flacius, Gualter, Rolluck, Toletus, Glassius, Olshausen, Tholuck, Stier, and Webster, think that the sentence is spoken ironically: — "Truly you do know me and whence I am, aud poor miserable knowl- edge it is, worth nothing at all." — Bengel and others object to this view, that our Lord never spoke ironically. Yet it would be hard to show that there is no irony in John x. 32, if not in Matt. xxvi. 45, and Mark vii. 9.
(3) Some think, as Chrysostom, Cocceius, Jansenius, Di- odati, Bengel, Henry, Burkitt, Hengstenberg, Alforcl, Words- worth, and Burgon, that the sentence is is a simple affirmation : — " It is true that you know me and whence I am. I grant that in a certain sense you are right. You know where I have been brought up, and who my relatives according to the flesh are. And yet in reality you know very little of me. Of my Divine nature and my unity with my Father ye know nothing at all." —On the whole I prefer this last view to either of the other twTo.
[And I am not come of myself, etc.'] This sentence and the rest of the verse are evidently elliptical, and must be para- phrased to give a full idea of the sense : — " Aud yet ye do not really and thoroughly know me; for I am not come of myself, independent of God the Father, and without commission, but sent by the Father into the world. And He that seut me has proved Himself true to His promises by sending me, and is indeed a real true Person, the true and faithful God of Israel, whom ye, with all your profession, do not know."
Here, as elsewhere, our Lord's expression, "not come of myself," points directly to that intimate union between Himself and God the Father, which is so constantly referred to in the Gospel of John.
Here too, as elsewhere, our Lord charges on the unbelieving