Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Seven

                                                                                                                                              Verses 1-13

Jesus remained in Galilee for a while because that was His home country. Jesus intended to go to Jerusalem for the feast of tabernacles, but He knew that His enemies there desired to kill Him. Jesus was not afraid to go. He knew that He had to go to the cross, but He did not want to expose Himself to the danger of the cross until His Father told Him that the time was right. John 5:30.

Jesus' half-brothers, who were the biological sons of Mary and Joseph, displayed a somewhat contemptuous attitude toward Jesus when they urged Him to go to Judea and preach. They knew that Jesus' enemies desired to kill Him, and by that which they said to Him in a slightly mocking way, they implied that they thought He was afraid to leave Galilee. They also may have wanted to get rid of Him for awhile because His very presence made them feel guilty.

No doubt, by the indication of that which Jesus said to them, He had already told His brothers and His disciples that He would be crucified and rise from the dead, but His brothers did not believe Him. They could not believe that Jesus, whom they thought of as their ordinary brother, could be the Messiah. When Jesus told them that He would not go to the feast at that time because His time had not yet come, they had to know what He meant. Jesus also urged His brothers to go ahead to the feast because, unlike Him, they were under no restraint to do whatever they pleased. Jesus did nothing until His Father told Him what to do. John 5:30. Jesus reminded them that the world hated Him because He preached against its evil, but the world did not hate them, so they could do as they pleased. Like all unbelievers, Jesus' brothers did not like Jesus to preach against their evil as well. Nevertheless, after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, all of His brothers and sisters became believers.

After His brothers had gone to the feast, Jesus also went to the feast but in a subdued way like any ordinary person, not in any ostentatious way.

God relates in this story about the attitudes that the people at the feast had about Jesus. They all looked for Jesus, and they all talked together about Jesus in a quiet way because they knew that the Pharisees hated Jesus so much that they did not want the people to talk about Him in an open manner. Some in the crowd said Jesus was a good man, and others said He was a deceiver, but none of them believed He was the Savior.