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It is one of the many curious things that assure us that the Gospels themselves are substantially fragments out of the real life and times of Jesus Christ, that these men should be Greeks, at that time probably the most inquisitive and newsy race on earth. They had come, I presume, from Corinth or Ephesus; and, when they went back home, the first question would be, "What's the news?" Now, the news was Jesus. He was just then the common subject of discussion; and it would be a great thing for them, when they got home, to say, "We have seen Jesus, and talked with Him." And the answer of Christ, though it seems at the first glance to be no answer at all, touches the very heart of all such question and answer, and is, beside that, a beautiful instance of the rich, transcendental nature of this Son of God: "Except a corn of wheat," etc. As if He would say, "These men want to see Me. What can they gain by that? What they will see is not Me. The root is not the flower. This common, footsore man, with this poor brown face, so thin and worn that men think I may be nearly fifty, while I am but thirty — what can I be to men whose ideal is Apollo? My simple words about God and man, and duty and destiny, would be foolishness to them. Let them wait until the world burns with the lustre of what is sprung out of Me. When I have whispered my comfort and confidence to millions of desolate souls; when I have created new homes for purity and peace to dwell in, and brought men and women and children back to the Divine will; when the love and truth and self-sacrifice of which God has made me, though I seem but a poor peasant, shall have done what all the genius of all the ages has failed to do; when I have hushed the fevered heart of the world to rest, and quickened it into a new life — then they can see Me. But I must die to live."

(R. Collyer, D. D.)

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KJV: And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast:

WEB: Now there were certain Greeks among those that went up to worship at the feast.