John 8:56

And as regards The connection they claim with Abraham, this reflects discredit on their present attitude towards Jesus; for Ἀβραὰμ ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν, “Abraham in whose parentage you glory,” ἠγαλλιάσατο ἵνα ἴδῃ τὴν ἡμέραν τὴν ἐμήν, “rejoiced to see my day”. The day of Christ is the time of His earthly manifestation: τῆς ἐπιδημίας αὐτοῦ τῆς μετὰ σαρκός, Cyril. See Luke 17:22-26; where the plural expresses the same as the singular here. “To see” the day is “to be present” at it, “to experience” it; cf. Eurip., Hecuba, 56, δούλειον ἦμαρ εἶδες, and the Homeric νόστιμον ἦμαρ ἰδέσθαι. ἵνα ἴδῃ cannot here have its usual Johannine force and be epexegetical (Burton, Moods, etc.), nor as Holtzmann says = ὅτι ὄψοιτο, because in this case the εἶδε καὶ ἐχάρη would be tautological. Euthymius gives the right interpretation: ἠγαλλ., ἤγουν, ἐπεθύμησεν (similarly Theophylact), and the meaning is “Abraham exulted in the prospect of seeing,” or “that he should see”. This he was able to do by means of the promises given to him. καὶ εἶδε, “and he saw it,” not merely while he was on earth (although this seems to have been the idea the Jews took up from the words, see John 8:57); for this kind of anticipation Jesus uses different language, Matthew 13:17, and at the utmost the O.T. saints could be described as πόρρωθεν ἰδόντες, Hebrews 11:13; but he has seen it in its actuality. This involves that Abraham has not died so as to be unconscious, John 8:52, and cf. Mark 12:26.