John 12:41

Ver. 41. “ This did Isaiah say, when he saw his glory and spoke of him. ”

John justifies in this verse the application which he has just made to Jesus Christ of the vision of Isaiah 6. The Adonai whom Isaiah beheld at that moment was the divine being who is incarnated in Jesus. Herein also John and Paul meet together; comp. 1 Corinthians 10:4, where Paul calls the one who guided Israel from the midst of the cloud Christ. Some interpreters have tried to refer the pronoun αὐτοῦ, of him, not to Christ, but to God. But the last words: and spoke of him, would be useless in this sense and this remark would be aimless in the context. The Alexandrian reading, “ because he saw,” instead of “ when he saw,” is adopted by Tischendorf, Weiss, Keil, etc. But it does not appear to me acceptable. Its only reasonable sense would be: “because he really saw his glory and spoke of Him so long beforehand (a thing which seems impossible).” But this reflection would be very coldly apologetic and quite useless for readers who were accustomed to hear the prophecies quoted. It is much more easy to understand how the conjunction ὅτε, which is quite rarely used, may have been replaced by ὅτι, which appears in every line, than how the reverse could have taken place. The ancient Latin and Syriac versions are agreed in supporting the received text. The sense of the latter is simple and perfectly suitable. “It was of Christ, who manifested Himself to him as Adonai, that Isaiah spoke when he uttered such words.” John proves that he has the right to apply this passage here.

It might be inferred from John 12:37-41 that no Jew had either believed or been able to believe; John 12:42-43, while completing this historical resume, remove this misapprehension, but, at the same time, explain the want of significance of these few exceptions with reference to the general course of the history.