Little children, yet a little while I am with you. — The thought of His own glory brings with it the thought of their state of orphanage when He shall have departed from them, and He addresses them as “Little children,” with a word of tenderness spoken only here by Him. The word impressed itself upon the mind of St. John, and it occurs elsewhere in the New Testament only in his First Epistle (1 John 2:1; 1 John 2:12; 1 John 2:28; 1 John 3:7; 1 John 3:18; 1 John 4:4; 1 John 5:21), and in an uncertain reading in the striking words of St. Paul, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.” (See Note on Galatians 4:19, and comp. Introduction, p. 371.)
For the remainder of the verse, see Notes on John 7:33-34; John 8:21.