John 16:2 - Clarke's commentary and critical notes on the Bible

Bible Comments

They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. They shall put you out of the synagogues - They will excommunicate you, and consider you as execrable, and utterly unworthy to hold any commerce with God by religion; or with man by civil fellowship. See on John 9:22 (note). In these excommunications they were spoiled of all their substance, see Ezra 10:8, and see also Hebrews 10:34, and deprived of their character, their influence, and every necessary of life. Though the Jewish people had the most humane laws, yet they were a most vindictive and cruel people.

That whosoever killeth you, etc. - This Paul found; for more than forty Jews bound themselves under a curse that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed him, Acts 23:12, Acts 23:13; and agreeably to this, it is said, in that Tract of the Talmud which is entitled Bammidbar, R. xxi. ad. Numbers 25:13 : "He who sheds the blood of the ungodly, is equal to him who brings an offering to God." What the Zealots did is notorious in history. They butchered any person, in cold blood, who, they pretended to believe, was an enemy to God, to the law, or to Moses; and thought they were fulfilling the will of God by these human sacrifices. We had the same kind of sacrifices here in the time of our Popish Queen Mary. May God ever save our state from the Stuarts!

John 16:2

2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.