John 7:8 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Bible Comments

Go ye up unto this feast. — This should be, rather, Go ye up unto the feast, with the stress on the pronoun “ye,” and the article instead of the demonstrative “this.”

I go not up yet unto this feast. — The “yet” is of doubtful authority, though it is found in some early MSS. and versions, and the more so because it removes an apparent difficulty. Without it, the words do not involve a change of purpose, and Porphyry’s often-repeated charge of fickleness has no real ground. He is not going up unto the feast in the sense in which they intended — openly, with the usual caravan from Galilee. Another going up publicly, as they intended, and with an issue the dark presages of which now crowd upon Him, is present to His mind. “Ye, go ye up to the feast; I go not up to this feast.” The verb is in the present, and its meaning does not exclude a going up afterwards. (See also Note on John 7:10.) They were then going; the caravan was preparing to start. I am not going up (now). The time is coming, but it has not yet fully come. (Comp. Note on Luke 9:51.)

John 7:8

8 Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come.