Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. — The immediate context speaks of His departure from them (John 14:25; John 14:28), and it is natural therefore to understand these words as suggested by the common Oriental formulas of leave-taking. Men said to each other when they met and parted, “Shalom! Shalom!” (Peace! Peace!) just as they say the “Salaam! Salaam!” in our own day. (See 1 Samuel 1:17; Luke 7:50; Acts 16:36; James 2:16; Ephesians 6:23; 1 Peter 5:14; 3 John 1:14.)
He will leave them as a legacy the gift of “peace.” And this peace is more than a meaningless sound or even than a true wish. He repeats it with the emphatic “My,” and speaks of it as an actual possession which He imparts to them. “Peace on earth” was the angels’ message when they announced His birth; “peace to you” was His own greeting when He returned victorious from the grave. “He is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14), and this peace is the farewell gift to the disciples from whom He is now departing. (Comp. John 14:27; John 16:33; John 20:19; John 20:21; John 20:26.)
Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. — The contrast is not between the emptiness of the world’s salutations and the reality of His own gift, but between His legacy to them and the legacies ordinarily left by the world. He gives them not land or houses or possessions, but “peace;” and that “His own peace,” “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.”
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. — These are in part the words of the first verse, and are now repeated as a joyous note of triumph. Possessing the peace which He gives them, having another Advocate in the person of the Holy Spirit, having the Father and the Son ever abiding in them, there cannot be, even when He is about to leave them, room for trouble or for fear.
The word here rendered “be afraid” occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It points especially to the cowardice of fear. The cognate substantive is used in 2 Timothy 1:7, and the adjective in Matthew 8:26; Mark 4:40; and Revelation 21:8.