John 7:25-28 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Then said some of them, &c.— The inhabitants of Jerusalem, always Christ's bitter enemies, asked with surprize, if our Lord's boldness, and the silence of the rulers, proceeded from their having acknowledged him as the Messiah; at the same time, in derision of his pretensions they added, howbeit, we know this man whence he is, that is, we know his parents and relations, (ch. John 6:42.) but then Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is; alluding to the popular sense of Isaiah 53:8 who shall declare his generation? The Greek phrase ποθεν εστι, rendered whence he is, signifies in the Hellenistic Greek of the Old Testament, who is his father. Thus 2 Samuel 1:13. David says to the young man, Whence art thou? and he answered, I am the son of a stranger, an Amalekite. If we judge of this question by the answer, to ask whence art thou? is as much as to ask "of what father, stock, and family do you come? of whom were you born?" Take the speech of the Jews in this sense, and their confession is in point: we know this man whence he is, "who is his father?" as they said before, chap. John 6:42 but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is, that is, who is his father? How could they say then, that the Messiah was to be born at Bethlehem, and that they knew he was to be a descendant of David? David was his remote ancestor; and they knew that by father or mother Christ must descend from him; but who was his immediate father, if he was born of a virgin, they must own they were ignorant; but whatever theypretended, Jesus would not allow that they knew his Father, or whence he came; thereby intimating that they wanted not this character of the Messiah in him, John 7:28. The words should have been rendered interrogatively thus, "Do you indeed know me, and whence I am? No; ye do not,"—as Tertullian resolves the question, negatively: and then, concealing his true original, as his manner was, that they might not ground an accusation before the time on what he had said, he passes to his works which were the proofs of his divine mission; yet so as to leave room to infer from his discourse, that he was the Son of God, and not the son of Joseph: and, or yet, I came not of myself; but he is true who sent me, whom ye know not; that is, "God the Father is my true Father, whom you know not, though you say ye know whence I am, and who is my Father; and this you may be assured of, from my doing the works of God." it might be with respect to his extraordinary birth of a virgin, that the Jews at first spoke of the Messiah as the Son of God: and their asserting, that when Christ COMETH, or is born, none knoweth whence he is, might be an allusion to Isaiah 53:8 above mentioned. But be this as it may, this doctrine is expressed in the traditionary writings of the Jews to this effect, in Beresh. Rab. on Genesis 37:2. "The Messiah is the Seed that shall come from another place:" by which they mean, that he shall have another principle of generation, as appears by the different ways of their varying the phrase in other places. Thus from Rabbi Berachia, in the same book, we are told that "the birth of the Messiah alone shall be without defect;" which could not be, if he was born as other men are. Jarchi cites the following passages from the same place: "His birth shall not be like that of other creatures. None shall know the Father before he tells it. The Redeemer that shall come, shall be without father." And in Berachoth, is the following remarkable passage: "The birth of the Messiah shall be like the dew from the Lord,—as drops upon the grass, expect not labour (or action) of men." It would be endless to enumerate all that has been said by the rabbinical writers to this purpose: what has been produced is sufficient to prove, that it was a Jewish opinion that the birth of the Messiah should be extraordinary, if not miraculous; and that his Father should not be known, whatever his mother might be.