John 7:37-52 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink.… Nicodemus does not announce himself a believer in Jesus but he lays down a general principle sanctioned by the law of Moses (Exodus 23:1); and by the law of nature. His cautious answer may have been dictated by a constitutional timidity, or by a hope that if the Pharisees would only have the fairness to examine the doe- trine and the claims of Jesus before they condemned Him they would not wish to condemn Him; that, like the officers who were sent to apprehend Him, they too would be filled with admiration for Him. But the Pharisees, who are blinded by envy and spite, see not the want of truth, or the falsehood as well as the irrelevancy of their answer to Nicodemus. Many prophets had come out of Galilee. But if not, that was no reason why prophets should not still arise in Galilee. Deborah the Prophetess was from the country of Galilee. She dwelt between Ramah and Bethel in Mount Ephraim (Judges 4.). Anna the Prophetess was from Galilee, of the tribe of Asher (Luke 2:36). The prophet Jonah was of Gathhepher, a town of Lower Galilee in Zebulun (2 Kings 14:25). There is also a general consent among com- mentators that the Prophecies of Hosea were delivered in the kingdom of Israel. It was also anciently believed that Hosea belonged to the tribe of Issachar, which would be included in the more modern district of Galilee. Nahum was born in Elkosh, a small village in Galilee; hence he was called Nahum the Elkoshite (John 1:1), The Prophet Elijah the Tishbite was born, according to some, in Thisbe, in the tribe of Naphtali, in Galilee; according to others in Gilead, on the east side of the Jordan. Elisha was born at Abel-Meholah, in the northern part of the valley of the Jordan. Though neither of these were strictly in the district called Galilee, they were neither of them in the country of Judaea, or in the kingdom of Judah, but both in the kingdom of Israel. Nicodemus simply asks that they should hear Him before they condemn Him. The answer of the Pharisees shows that they had already condemned Him, and unheard. It was impossible, they said, that He could be the Christ, because the Christ should come from Bethlehem, in Judah, and Jesus was born in Galilee. (F. I. Dunwell, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. |
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