(36) What manner of saying is this. . .?--We get a better sense by omitting the words in italics, and reading, "What saying is this . . .?" Their scorn does not solve their difficulty, and gives place to wonder. They feel His words cannot mean what they have said. "What, then, do they mean? What is the force of His saying?"
Verse 36. - What is this word (λόγος) which he spake, Ye shall seek me, and ye shall not find (me), and where I am, ye cannot come? This verse is simply a repetition of the Lord's sentence, which, notwithstanding their damaging interpretation and unconscious prophecy of great events, haunted them with a weird power, and left them, as his word left the officers who were silenced and paralyzed by it, with a sense of undiscovered and awful meaning. Both here and in ver. 45 we see that the evangelist had access to the ideas and converse of the "Jews," which proves that he had special sources of information to which the ordinary synoptic tradition was strange. The thought grows upon one that John was more than the mere fisherman of the lake. He was a friend of Nicodemus, and known to Caiaphas. It is clear that some further time elapses. This conversation, of which we have the prominent items, the chief utterances, was producing its effect upon the two-sided multitude, upon "the Jews," the "Pharisees," the city party, the chief priests. The Lord probably retired once more to the house of Lazarus or of John.
7:31-36 The discourses of Jesus convinced many that he was the Messiah; but they had not courage to own it. It is comfort to those who are in the world, but not of it, and therefore are hated by it and weary of it, that they shall not be in it always, that they shall not be in it long. Our days being evil, it is well they are few. The days of life and of grace do not last long; and sinners, when in misery, will be glad of the help they now despise. Men dispute about such sayings, but the event will explain them.
What manner of saying is this that he said,.... It is not easy to be understood; and if that is not meant, which is suggested, what should he mean by saying,
ye shall seek me, and shall not find me, and where I am, thither ye cannot come? repeating the words of Christ just now expressed by him.
ye shall seek me, and shall not find me, and where I am, thither ye cannot come? repeating the words of Christ just now expressed by him.