John 8:43

Joh 8:43. Διατί, why is it that) To this particle by and by answers Joh 8:44, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye do].—ὅτι, because) By this clause the one immediately preceding is explained. Comp. ὅτι, ch. Joh 11:47, “What do we? for this man doeth many miracles;” Joh 9:17, “What sayest thou of Him, (seeing) that He hath opened thine eyes].—τὴν λαλιὰν τὴν ἐμήν) my speech, which is most true.—οὐ δύνασθε ἀκούειν, ye cannot hear by reason of the hatred which is innate in you. A similar epitasis [an emphatic explanation of a proposition already stated, appended to it] occurs, 1Co 2:14, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God—neither can he know them, for,” etc.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Or, language: as though he said, you do no more understand what I say, than if I spake in a strange and unknown language to you.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Verse 43. Why do ye not understand my speech?] την λαλιαν την εμην, This my mode of speaking - when illustrating spiritual by natural things: λαλια refers to the manner of speaking; λογος, to the matter or subject on which he spoke. For λαλιαν, the Codex Bezae had originally αληθειαν: why do ye not acknowledge this TRUTH of mine? A few other MSS. agree in this reading.

Because ye cannot hear my word.] That is, ye cannot bear my doctrine: it comes too close to you; it searches your hearts, detects your hypocrisy, and exposes your iniquitous intentions and designs; and as ye are determined not to leave your sins, so ye are purposed not to hear my doctrine.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

43. Why do you not understand my language? In this passage, he reproaches the Jews with their obstinacy, which was so great, that they could not even endure to hear him speak Hence he infers, that they are actuated and hurried away by diabolical rage. Some make a distinction here between language and speech, as if speech had a more extensive meaning; but I do not see it; and besides, it would not be appropriate that the word which means less should be placed first. Many point this verse in such a manner as to make the question close with the word language; as if the question consisted only of these words, Why do you not understand my language? So that the reason is immediately assigned, Because you cannot hear my word. But I think that it ought rather to be read in immediate connection, as if he had said, “What is the reason why my speech appears to you barbarous and unknown, so that I gain nothing by speaking to you, and so that you do not even deign to open your ears to receive what I say?” In the former clause, therefore, he reproves their stupidity; in the latter, he reproves their obstinate and ungovernable hatred of his doctrine; and he afterwards assigns a reason for both, when he says, that they are sprung from the devil For by putting the question, he intended to take out of their hands what was the subject of their continual boasting, that they are led by reason and judgment to oppose him.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(43) Why do ye not understand my speech, . . . my word.—The distinction between “speech” (the form) and “word” (the matter which was spoken) is rightly preserved. Comp. Joh_12:48, “the word that I have spoken.” A good instance of the meaning of “speech is found in Mat_26:73, “thy speech betrayeth thee.” From Joh_8:33 onwards, they had constantly misunderstood His expressions. The reason is that the subject-matter of His discourse is altogether above them. He is speaking of spiritual things, which are spiritually discerned. They, if children of the Father whom they claimed, would recognise these spiritual truths and know the language of home.

Ye cannot hear.—Comp. Note on Joh_6:60. The sense is, “Ye cannot hear, so as to receive and obey.” He supplies the answer to His own question. In the following verses (44-47), He expresses this answer more fully.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

43. my speech … my word] ‘Speech’ is the outward expression, the language used; ‘thy speech bewrayeth thee’ (Mat_26:73; comp. Mar_14:70). Besides these two passages the word for ‘speech’ is used only Joh_4:42, where it is rendered ‘saying,’ and here. ‘Word’ is the meaning of the expression, the teaching conveyed in the language used. They perpetually misunderstand His language, because they cannot appreciate His meaning. They are ‘from beneath’ (Joh_8:23), and He is speaking of ‘things above’ (Col_3:1); they are ‘of this world,’ and He is telling of ‘heavenly things’ (Joh_3:12); they are ‘natural,’ and He is teaching ‘spiritual things’ (1Co_2:14; see note there). They ‘cannot hear;’ it is amoral impossibility: they have their whole character to change before they can understand spiritual truths.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Which of you convinceth me of sin?.... Of any immorality in life, or of any imposture, corruption, or deceit in doctrine. There were many of them that were forward enough to charge him with both scandalous sins, and false doctrines; but none of them all could prove anything against him, so as to convict him according to law: they called him a wine bibber, and a glutton; gave out they knew he was a sinner; charged him with blasphemy and sedition; sought to bring proof of it, but failed in their attempt:

and if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? since as no sin in life, so no corruption in doctrine, could be proved against him, what he said must be truth; and therefore it was a most unreasonable thing in them, and showed invincible obstinacy, not to believe him.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.

Ver. 43. Why do ye not understand my speech?] Any more than if I spake to you in a strange language. So many of our hearers.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Why do ye not ... - My meaning is clear, if you were disposed to understand me.

Even because ye cannot hear my word - The word “hear” in this place is to be understood in the sense of bear or tolerate, as in Joh 6:60. His doctrine was offensive to them. They hated it, and hence they perverted his meaning, and were resolved not to understand him. Their pride, vanity, and wickedness opposed it. The reason why sinners do not understand the Bible and its doctrines is because they cannot bear them. They hate them, and their hatred produces want of candor, a disposition to cavil and to pervert the truth, and an obstinate purpose that it shall not be applied to their case. Hence, they embrace every form of false doctrine, and choose error rather than truth, and darkness rather than light. A disposition to believe God is one of the best helps for understanding the Bible.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

It is manifest all along this discourse, that Christ spake riddles to the Jews, and that they understood not the import and sense of his discourse: Now (saith our Saviour) the reason is,

because ye cannot hear, that is, believe, my word: they could and did hear it with their ears; they heard the sound of it, but they could not discern the spiritual sense and meaning of it: it was not given to them to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, Mat 13:11. And the reason was, because they suffered themselves to be blinded by prejudice, and by their own lusts and corrupt affections, till God gave them up to a judicial blindness, that hearing they heard, and did not understand; and seeing they saw, and did not perceive.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

43. Speech… word—The speech is his discourse; the word is his doctrine. As they would not accept his doctrine, so they would persistently pervert and misunderstand his language.

Hear—Listen to, accept.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Why do ye not understand come to appreciate and penetrate the significance ofmy speech? There is delicate subtle distinction between lalia and logov , corresponding to that between lalew and legw . The former word connotes the form, manner, and tone of utterance, and the latter its inner substance and power. Lalia is a, word used for any manifestation of sound, a voice, the babble of children, the cries and songs of beasts or birds, for which purpose legw and logov are not used (Trench, "Syn. of N.T."). Peter"s lalia betrayed him to the Jerusalem crowd. (Mat_26:73) Logov is the substance of the message, the burden of the revelation. The speech (lalia) of Christ refers to the appropriate and significant clothing which he gave to his word (logov). He mournfully asks why they had failed to get to understand the method of his converse; why they perpetually failed to appreciate his discourse; why they persistently put wrong constructions upon his phrase, and imagined him to be speaking of earthly things when he was discoursing to them of heavenly ones. Why? Because ye cannot hear my word the Divine communication I have made to you. They were morally so far from him that they could not listen so as to receive his revelation. The inward organ of receptivity was lacking, and "so the spiritual idiom in which he spake was not spiritually understood" (Alford). The Divine significance of the whole word of Christ, the new and strange doctrines of Messiah, of redemption, of the Father, of a sacrifice and death on the part of the Son of man for the salvation of the world excited their animosity and bitter antipathies. They were not conscious of any of the need he came to satisfy, and so they failed to apprehend the entire manner of his revelation. They were from beneath (ver. 23). He is disclosing heavenly things. "Their ears have they closed, lest they should hear."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye cannot - Such is your stubbornness and pride, hear - Receive, obey my word. Not being desirous to do my will, ye cannot understand my doctrine, chap. vii, 17.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

43. Ye cannot hear my word. Cannot receive it because Satan has your hearts, and is your father.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

43. τ. λαλιὰν τ. ἐμ … τ. λόγον τ. ἐμ. See on Joh 8:31. Λαλιά is the outward expression, the language used: ἡ λαλιά σου δῆλόν σε ποιεῖ (Mat 26:73), ἡ λαλιά σου ὁμοιάζει (Mar 14:70). Elsewhere λαλιά occurs only Joh 4:42 and here. Λόγος is the meaning of the expression, the thoughts conveyed in the language. They perpetually misunderstand His language because they cannot appreciate His meaning. They are ἐκ τῶν κάτω (Joh 8:23), and He is speaking of τὰ ἄνω (Col 3:1); they are ἐκ τ. κόσμου τούτου (Joh 8:23), and He is telling of τὰ ἐπουράνια (Joh 3:12); they are ψυχικοί, and He is teaching πνευματικά (1Co 2:13; see notes there). They ‘cannot hear:’ it is a moral impossibility (see on Joh 6:44): they have their whole character to change before they can understand spiritual truths. Ἀκούειν, as in Joh 8:47, means ‘listen to, obey:’ comp. Psa 81:11.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

43.] λαλιὰν γινώσκειν is to understand the idiom or dialect in which a man speaks, λαλ. being his manner of speech: see Mat 26:73, and Son 4:3, LXX. Why do ye not understand my speech? as E. V. But this of course does not here refer to the mere outward expression of the Lord’s discourses, but to the spiritual idiom in which He spoke, and which can only be spiritually understood. Then ὁ λόγος ὁ ἐμός is the matter of those discourses, the Word itself.

The connexion of the two clauses is, Why, &c.? Because ye cannot receive, hear with the inner ear (see reff., and ch. 6:60), that which I say. And the verification and ground of this ‘cannot’ is in the next verse. Meyer remarks, that in questions and answers, the emphatic words come last—being here γινώσκετε and τὸν λόγον τ. ἐμόν.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

43. διὰ τί τὴν λαλιὰν τὴν ἐμὴν οὐ γινώσκετε; For λαλιά, see on 4:42: it does not mean “talk” in any disparaging sense (as it sometimes does in classical writers), but “manner of speech.” The Jewish disputants did not appreciate the spiritual idiom of Jesus’ words, in which they did not recognise the Divine accent.

ὅτι οὐ δύνασθε ἀκούειν τὸν λόγον τὸν ἐμόν. ἀκούειν with the accusative always means in Jn., to perceive by hearing, as distinct from hearing with appreciation and intelligence, when ἀκούειν takes the genitive (see on 3:8; and cf. 5:37). Here, then, the incapacity of the Jews for “hearing” the message of Jesus is an even graver disability than that of their failure to understand it. As He said at v. 37, His λόγος or message had no place in them. It did not appeal to them at all. Their in-capacity was, as it were, a spiritual deafness, and not merely an intellectual stupidity. See on 12:40; and cf. v. 47 below.

The contrast in the two clauses of the verse is between γινώσκειν and ἀκούειν rather than between λαλιά and λόγος. There is a difference between the usage of these words, but it cannot be sharply pressed in Jn.: see on 3:11.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Speech - word [λαλιαν - λογον] . The former word refers to the form, the latter to the substance of discourse. So Mt 26:73, of Peter, "thy speech [λαλια] bewrayeth thee;" thy mode of speaking. If they had understood the substance, they would have understood the form.

Cannot. See on 7 7.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 43. Why then does all this escape them? How does it happen, in particular, that they do not distinguish the tone, and, so to speak, the heavenly timbre of his speech? Λαλία, speech, differs from λόγος, word, as the form differs from the contents, the discourse from the doctrine. “You do not know my speech; you do not distinguish it from an ordinary human word. Why? Because you are unable to lay hold of and receive my doctrine.” There was wanting to them that internal organ by means of which the teaching of Christ would become in them a light perceived. ᾿Ακούειν, to hear, signifies here to understand; to listen with that calmness, that seriousness, that good will which enables one to apprehend. This inability was not a fact of creation; it results from their previous moral life; compare Joh 5:44-47. Jesus now develops in full the idea of the first cause of their moral incapacity. This cause He had already declared in Joh 8:38. It is the dependence in which they are inwardly on an enemy of the truth, who fills their hearts with tumultuous and hateful passions, and thus renders them deaf to the voice of God which speaks to them through Jesus.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.