John 7:40-44

IGNORANCE OF THE JEWS

John 7:40-44. “Then some of the multitude, hearing these words, continued to say, Truly this One is the Prophet.” This is a phrase in O. T. often applied to the Messiah. “Others continued to say, He is the Christ.” I trow, the latter were Galileans, who had so frequently heard Him preach and witnessed His mighty works. “Others continued to say, Whether does Christ come out of Galilee?” Doubtless these were Jerusalemites, who looked with a degree of contempt on the Galileans, whose opportunities of light and culture had been quite inferior to those of Southern Palestine. “Does not the Scripture say that Christ cometh of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” Do you not see the gross and inexcusable ignorance here manifested? Bethlehem being only seven miles distant, and Jesus actually having been born there, according to the prophecies they now quote against Him, being shamefully ignorant of the fact that He was not born up in Galilee, as they claim, but in Bethlehem, and though constantly stigmatized as a Galilean, He was really a Bethlehemite. “Therefore there was a division in the crowd with reference to Him.” It seems that none there present knew the facts of His having been born in Bethlehem, all thinking that He was really a Galilean, some claiming His Christhood, notwithstanding the ostracism brought to bear against Galilee, and others rejecting him altogether on that account. Why did not He or some of His apostles speak out, and tell them that He was born in Bethlehem of Judea? It would have done no good, because they had a caviling spirit, and would have lighted on something else. “And some of them wished to arrest Him, but no one laid hands on Him.” They could not touch Him till His work was done.