the world. Up to the time of the destruction of the temple, they seemed like a nation of madmen, and a people judicially bliuded, — conscious that they were in a wrong position, strug- gling furiously to get out of it, and yet only plunging deeper into the mire of hopeless misery, till Titus took the city, and carried the whole race into captivity. They had put out their own eyes by rejecting Christ, and were like a strong man blinded, maddened by a sense of his own misery, and yet im- potent to get out of it.
86.— [IVhile light. ..believe. ..children of light.'] This sentence would have been more accurately rendered, " While ye have thh Light;" that is, "while ye have Me, the Light of the world, with you." It is a final, affectionate entreaty to the Jews repeat- ing in more plain words the exhortation of the last verse, " To walk in the light." It is as though our Lord said, " Once more I beseech you to believe in Me as the Light of the world, while I am with you." The end and object for which they are to be- lieve is also added, "That ye may become my children, have light in your hearts, light in your consciences, light in your lives, light on your present path, light in your future pros- pects." There can be no doubt that the expression "children of light" is a Hebraism, signifying "to be brought inclose connection with or under the full influence of light."
Let us note that here, as elsewhere, believing is the first step, the one thing needful. The exhortation is still to be offered to every sinner directly and personally, — "Believe, that thou mayest be a child of light."
[TJiese tilings. .. spake... departed. ..hide... them.'} "We know not exactly on what day in the last week of our Lord's life the words just recorded had been spoken. The sentence before us cer- tainly seems to mark a break and interval, and we can hardly suppose that the short address from the forty-fourth verse to the end of the chapter was spoken the same day, or was contin- uously connected with the discourse ending in this verse.
To me it seems probable that our Lord " departed " to Beth- any after the miracle of the Voice from the heavens, and the commotion that followed it. — The words of our English version " Did hide Himself," seem to me rather stronger than the Greek warrants. It would be more literally, " Was concealed from them." Whether this was by miracle, as on other occasions, is not clear.
Calvin seems to think that our Lord only departed from the hearers immediately round Him, and went to the temple, where He met with another audience, of a more believing kind. Flacius, too, thinks it was only a short and temporary withdrawal. Poole, on the contrary, takes the view that I adopt, and says that our Lord withdrew to Bethany.
W. — [But though. ..so many miracles. ..them.'] This verse begins a long parenthetical comment, which John was inspired to make