‘And Jesus was walking in the Temple, in Solomon's porch. The Judaisers therefore came round about him and said to him, “How long will you take away our life? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly”.'
When the Judaisers found Jesus walking in the Temple area in Solomon's collonade (the detail confirming the memory of an eyewitness) they gathered round Him, saying ‘How long will you keep us in suspense?' or, literally, ‘How long will you take away our life?' The idea behind ‘taking away their lives' is that He was withholding from them what was their very life, ‘the breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord' (Lamentations 4:20), that is, the opportunity of following the Messiah, bys keeping them in suspense. Their request was not genuine, they were trying to get Him to condemn Himself. It is significant that in fact it was the other way round. It was they who were seeking to take away His life. Yet in the end they were right, for it was true that they might in the end lose their very souls at His hands.
What their full intentions were we do not know. Perhaps there were some who were becoming convinced that He was a man sent from God of some kind or other, without actually committing themselves to Him. These were probably ready to commit themselves if He proved to be the kind of Messiah they were looking for, and demonstrated His status by acts of spectacular power. But there were others who inwardly hated Him and were seeking to bring about His downfall. These were trying to get Him to claim to be the Messiah and thus cause unrest to spring up among the people, a sure way to ensure He was arrested and put to death.
It is interesting that here these Judaisers confirm the fact of the ‘Messianic secret', the fact that Jesus did not portray Himself openly under the name of ‘the Messiah'.
Possibly, in the excitement stirred up by the feast, if He had made the claim to be the Messiah firmly and clearly, some of them would have sided with Him against the Romans. There were, as we know, many who were impressed by Him. And others would follow other leaders who gave that impression to the death. But however that may be, way this was not what Jesus had come to do.