John 10:22

John 10:22. There came to pass at that time the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem: it was winter. With these words we enter on a new scene, where the Evangelist first sets before us the outward circumstances, expressing them, after his usual manner, by three clauses. Where and how the weeks intervening between the feast of Tabernacles in chap. 7 and the feast now mentioned were spent John does not inform us. Once more he shows clearly that his intention is not to give a continuous narrative; for, though he has clearly defined two points of time (the two festivals), he records in the interval events of but two or three days. The festival here spoken of was instituted by Judas Maccabeus, B.C. 165. For three years the sanctuary had been desolate, and on the altar of burnt-offering had been placed an altar for idol-worship. After the victory gained at Bethsura (or Bethzur), the first thought of Judas was to ‘cleanse and dedicate the sanctuary' which had been profaned. The altar of burnt-offering was taken down, and a new altar built; and all Israel ‘ordained that the days of the dedication of the altar should be kept in their season from year to year by the space of eight days, from the five and twentieth day of the month Cisleu, with mirth and gladness' (1Ma 4:59). The date would correspond to a late day in our month of December. We do not find in the following verses any words of our Lord which directly relate to this festival; but those readers who have noted how carefully the Evangelist points to the idea of every Jewish feast as fulfilled in Jesus will not suppose that there is an exception here. Having heard the words of chap. John 2:19, he could not but associate his Lord with the temple: and a feast which commemorated the reconstruction of the temple must have had great significance in his eyes. The mention of the time of year connects itself naturally with the choice, spoken of in the next verse, of the covered walk (‘Solomon's Porch'); but the mode in which the fact is mentioned recalls at once chap. John 13:30, where every one acknowledges that the closing words are more than a note of time: the ‘night' there and the ‘winter' here are felt by the narrator to be true emblems of the events which he records.