John 7:47

Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(47) Are ye also deceived?—The emphasis is upon the ye. “Ye whose duty it is simply to obey, who were sent to bring Him captive before us—do ye also yield to His power?” It is the Pharisees who ask this, and their spirit is shown in the matter of their question. They make no inquiry as to what He had said, though it must have struck them as a phenomenon demanding explanation that their own officials had been convinced by His teaching. It is at once assumed that they, too, had been deceived. It is this sect of the Pharisees who speak of Him as “that deceiver” (Matthew 27:63).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:40-53 The malice of Christ's enemies is always against reason, and sometimes the staying of it cannot be accounted for. Never any man spake with that wisdom, and power, and grace, that convincing clearness, and that sweetness, wherewith Christ spake. Alas, that many, who are for a time restrained, and who speak highly of the word of Jesus, speedily lose their convictions, and go on in their sins! People are foolishly swayed by outward motives in matters of eternal moment, are willing even to be damned for fashion's sake. As the wisdom of God often chooses things which men despise, so the folly of men commonly despises those whom God has chosen. The Lord brings forward his weak and timid disciples, and sometimes uses them to defeat the designs of his enemies.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Are ye also deceived? - They set down the claims of Jesus as of course an imposture. They did not examine, but were, like thousands, determined to believe that he was a deceiver. Hence, they did not ask them whether they were convinced, or had seen evidence that he was the Messiah; but, with mingled contempt, envy, and anger, they asked if they were also deluded. Thus many assume religion to be an imposture; and when one becomes a Christian, they assume at once that he is deceived, that he is the victim of foolish credulity or superstition, and treat him with ridicule or scorn. Candor would require them to inquire whether such changes were not proof of the power and truth of the gospel, as candor in the case of the rulers required them to inquire whether Jesus had not given them evidence that he was from God.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

47. ye also deceived—In their own servants this seemed intolerable.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

You, who have us not only for your masters, whose commands you ought not to dispute, but to execute; but for your teachers also, from whom you might have learned better doctrine; are you seduced? For so wicked men count all who embrace not their notions, and follow not their ways.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then answered them the Pharisees, are ye also deceived? As well as the common people; you that have been so long in our service, and should know better; or who, at least, should have taken the sense of your superiors, and should have waited to have had their opinion and judgment of him, and been determined by that, and not so hastily have joined with a deluded set of people. It was the common character of Christ, and his apostles, and so of all his faithful ministers in all succeeding ages, that they were deceivers, and the people that followed them deceived, a parcel of poor deluded creatures, carried aside by their teachers; when, on the other hand, they are the deceived ones, who live in sin, and indulge themselves in it; or who trust in themselves that they are righteous; who think they are something, when they are nothing; who imagine, that touching the righteousness of the law, they are blameless, are free from sin, and need no repentance; who follow the traditions and commandments of men: whereas these cannot be deceived, who follow Christ, the way, the truth, and the life, and his faithful ministers, who show unto men the way of salvation.

Geneva Study Bible

Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

John 7:47-49. The answer comes from the Pharisees in the Sanhedrim, as from that section of the council who were most zealous in watching over the interests of orthodoxy and the hierarchy.

μὴ καὶ ὑμεῖς] are ye also—officers of sacred justice, who should act only in strict loyalty to your superiors. Hence the following questions: “Have any of the Sanhedrim believed in him, or of the Pharisees?” The latter are specially named as the class of orthodox and most respected theologians, who were supposed to be patterns of orthodoxy, apart from the fact that some of them were members of the Sanhedrim.

ἀλλά] at, breaking off and leading on hastily to the antithetical statement that follows; Baeumlein, Partik. p. 15; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 78.

ὁ ὄχλος οὗτος] those people there, uttered with the greatest scorn. The people hanging upon Jesus, “this mob,” as they regard them, are there before their eyes. It is self-evident, further, that the speakers do not include their own official servants in the ὄχλος, but, on the other hand, prudently separate them with their knowledge from the ὄχλος.

ὁ μὴ γινώσκ. τ. νόμον] because they regarded such a transgressor of the law as the Prophet, or the Messiah, John 7:40-41.

ἐπάρατοί εἰσι] they are cursed, the divine wrath is upon them! The plural is justified by the collective ὁ ὄχλος, comp. John 7:44. The exclamation is to be regarded merely as a blindly passionate statement[273] (Ewald); as a haughty outbreak of the rabies theological, and by no means a decree (Kuinoel and others), as if the Sanhedrim had now come to a resolution, or at least had immediately, in keeping with the informal words, put in regular form (Luthardt) what is mentioned in John 9:22. Such an excommunication of the ὄχλος en masse would have been preposterous. Upon the unbounded scorn entertained by Jewish pride of learning towards the unlettered multitude (צם הארץ), see Wetstein and Lampe in loc.; Gfrörer in the Töb. Zeitschr. 1838, I. p. 130, and Jahrb. d. Heils, I. p. 240 f.

ἐπάρατος] (see the critical notes), not elsewhere in the N. T., nor in the LXX and Apocrypha; it is, however, classical.

[273] Not of an argumentative character, as if they had inferred their disobedience from their unacquaintance with the law (Ewald). Their frame of mind was not so reflective.

Expositor's Greek Testament

John 7:47. But their apology only rouses the indignation of those who had sent them, μὴ καὶ ὑμεῖς πεπλάνησθε; Are ye also, of whom better things might have been expected, deluded?—μή τις … φαρισαίων; What right have subordinates to have a mind of their own? Wait till some of the constituted authorities or of the recognised leaders of religious opinion give you the cue. Here the secret of their hostility is out. Jesus appealed to the people and did not depend for recognition on the influential classes. Power was slipping through their fingers.—ἀλλʼ ὁ ὄχλος … εἰσι. “But this mob [these masses] that knows not the law are cursed.” This Pharisaic scorn of the mob [or “am-haarets,” which is here represented by ὄχλος] appears in Rabbinic literature. Dr. Taylor [Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, p. 44] quotes Hillel as saying: “No boor is a sin-fearer; nor is the vulgar pious”. To the Am-haarets are opposed the disciples of the learned in the law; and Schoettgen defines the Am-haarets as “omnes illi qui studio sacrarum literarum operam non dederunt”. The designation, therefore, ὁ μὴ γινώσκων τὸν νόμον, was usual. That it was prompted here by the popular recognition as Messiah of one who came out of Galilee, in apparent contradiction of the law and of the opinion of the Pharisees, is also probable. People so ignorant as thus to blunder ἐπικατάρατοί εἰσι.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

47. the Pharisees] That portion of the Sanhedrin which was most jealous of orthodoxy, regarded both by themselves and others as models of correct belief: see next verse. For ‘then’ read therefore.

Are ye also deceived] Strong emphasis on ‘ye;’ Surely ye also have not been led astray, ye, the officers of the Sanhedrin! Comp. John 7:12.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 47. - The Pharisees therefore answered them. Evidently the Pharisees were the leading spirits in this assault upon Jesus. The guardians of the orthodoxy of Israel, in the haughty pride of their order, are piqued and angry. Have ye also - the chosen servants of the august council of the nation - been led astray? In Matthew 27:63 these Pharisees speak of the Divine Lord as "this deceiver (ἐκεῖνος ὁ πλάνος)." Are folly and weakness, if not treachery and corruption, at work so near the centre of our authority? John 7:47