By night. — This has impressed itself upon the writer’s mind, so that it becomes part of the description of Nicodemus in John 19:39, and in some MSS. in John 7:50. We have to think of him as having heard the answer of the messengers sent to the Baptist (John 1:20 et seq.), as present at the cleansing of the Temple, as the witness of miracles in Jerusalem, as by these means convinced that this Teacher had a message from God, and resolved to hear it. But the Sanhedrin had officially taken a hostile position, and an individual member of it dare not openly take any other. His own conviction is expressed by his coming to Jesus at all; his fear of public opinion and of the possible exclusion from the synagogue by his coming at night. (Comp. John 12:42-43.)
Rabbi. — The customary title of reverence for a teacher (comp. Note on John 1:38), but given here by a technically trained Rabbi to One who had no formal title to it (John 7:15).
We know that thou art a teacher come from God. — This explains the title he has used. He does not go beyond this. There has been, -as in the case of John the Baptist, sufficient to prove a more than human mission, but with this there has been nothing to meet the common Messianic expectation. Still, if this is a Prophet, working miracles like those of old, and evidently sent from God, He will be able to solve all doubts, and answer the questions pressing on the hearts of men. The plural pronoun expresses nothing more than the general conviction that the power to work miracles was a divine attestation of the teaching (John 9:16; John 9:33). There were, indeed, others in the same mental position as Nicodemus, but none accompanied him; and it is not probable that his visit was known to any of them. The “we” occurs again in our Lord’s reply in John 3:11, and it may be that both find their true explanation in the fact that this interview took place in the house, and in the presence of John, who had led Nicodemus to come, as he himself had gone, with doubting heart, to the place where Jesus was dwelling (John 1:38).
(2) The word for “bloweth,” “breatheth,” is of the same root as πνεῦμα. It is used in the New Testament with “wind,” but naturally has the meaning of its cognate substantive. The Vulgate can exactly render it by “Spiritus ubi vult spirat,” but we have in English no verb cognate with “Spirit.”