Jews ignorance of the God whom they professed to serve, and for whose honour they professed to be jealous. With all their boasted zeal for true religion and the true God, they did not really know God.
The word "true," here, is of doubtful interpretation. It means " truthful," according to Cyril, Chrysostom, Theophy- lact, Lampe, Tholuck. But it is not clear that this is so. Alford maintains that it must mean " really existent." Trench takes the same view in his " New Testament Synonyms."
29. — [But I know him, etc.~\ The knowledge of which our Lord here speaks, is that peculiar and intimate knowledge which is necessarily implied in the unity of the three Persons of the Trinity, in the Godhead. There is a high and deep sense in which the Son knows the Father, and the Father knows the Son, which we cannot pretend to explain, because it is far above our capacities. (John x. 15.) The Jews knew nothing rightly of God the Father. Jesus on the contrary could say, "I know him," as no one else could. ''Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." (Matt. xi. 27.)
The expression " I am from Him," must not be confined and cramped down to mean only that our Lord had come like any prophet of old, with a message aucl commission from God. It declares the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. " I am from Him by eternal generations, — always one with Him, — always equal with Him,— but always a distinct person;— always the only begotten Son, — always from Him."
The expression " He hath sent me," is, like the preceding one, something far more than the mere assertion of a prophet's commission. It is a declaration that He was the Sent One, — the Messiah, the Prophet greater than Moses, whom the Father had always promised to send :— " I am the Seed of the woman sent to bruise the serpent's head. I am He whom the Father covenanted and engaged to send for the redemption of a lost world. I am He whom the Father hath sent to be the Saviour of lost man. I proclaim myself the Sent One,— the Christ of God."
Bishop Hall paraphrases the two verses thus : " Ye mutter secretly that ye know me, and the place of my birth and parent- age; but ye are utterly mistaken, for I have a Father in heaven whom ye know not. I came not of myself, but my Father is He that sent me, who is the God of truth ; of whom ye, after all your pretences of knowledge, are utterly ignorant. But I do perfectly know Him, as I have good reason; for both I am from Him by eternal generation, and am by Him sent into the' world to do the great work of redemption."
SO. — [ Then they sought to take him.'] This last declaration seems to have raised the anger of the Jerusalem multitude, who were lis-