John 7:25-27 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Then While our Lord was thus discoursing in the temple; some of them of Jerusalem Some of the inhabitants of the city, who knew more of the designs of the sanhedrim than the others who had spoken before; said, Is not this he whom they seek to kill? Seek an opportunity to put to death? But lo He is not only come up hither to the feast, but speaks openly and freely in the very temple itself, and they are so far from seizing him, that they do not so much as say any thing to prohibit him. Do the rulers know indeed Are they now fully convinced; that this is the very Christ And that therefore they were mistaken in their former censures? Howbeit, we know this man, whence he is And therefore have sufficient reason to conclude, that he cannot be the Messiah: for, when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is This Jewish tradition was true in regard to his pre-existing and divine nature: in that respect, according to the obvious popular sense of Isaiah 53:8, None could declare his generation: but it was not true with regard to his human nature, for both his family, and the place of his birth, were plainly foretold. And “it is evident from Matthew 2:4-5, that the Jews apprehended the Messiah was to be born at Bethlehem; and from a multitude of other places, that they knew he was to be a descendant of David.” Archbishop Tillotson supposes, that the words, no man knoweth whence he is, “refer to an expectation the Jews had, that he would be born of a virgin. As for the notion which Justin Martyr mentions, that the Messiah should, for a while, be hid, it seems more modern, and they must put a strange interpretation on Isaiah 53:8; Micah 5:2; and Psalms 110:4, to draw any such consequence from these passages, as Dr. Whitby and M. L'Enfant suppose they did.” Doddridge.