John 10:24

John 10:24. The Jews therefore surrounded mm, and said unto him, How long dost thou excite our soul? If thou art the Christ, tell us plainly. The recurrence of the oft - repeated term ‘the Jews' is a sufficient indication of the tone and design of the question asked. Taking advantage, perhaps, of the fact that Jesus was in the cloisters of the temple-courts, and not now in the midst of a listening ‘multitude,' His enemies encompass Him, determined to gain from Him such an avowal of His Messiahship as shall enable them to carry out their designs against His life. The expression which in the Authorised Version is rendered ‘make us to doubt' has received various explanations. That adopted by us is perhaps, upon the whole, the most probable. Another, however, may be suggested by what is at least a curious coincidence, that the verb used by the Jews is the same as that used by our Lord for ‘taketh' in the first clause of John 10:18, and that the noun now rendered ‘soul' is more probably ‘life , ' and is indeed so translated in John 10:17. Following these hints we venture to ask whether the words may not mean, ‘How long dost thou take away our life?' They will then be one of those unconscious prophecies, of those unconscious testimonies to the going on of something deeper than they were themselves aware of, which John delights to find on the lips of the opponents of Jesus. They were stirring up their enmity against Him to a pitch which was to lead them to take away His life; and by their words they confess that He is taking away theirs. It is not meant, in what has now been said, to assert that the Jews actually intended to express this, but only that John sees it in the language which they use. They meant only, How long dost thou excite us or keep us in suspense? Put an end to this by speaking plainly, or (more literally) by speaking out, telling all Thou hast to tell.