Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
Neither pray I for these alone, х Ou (G3756) peri (G4012) toutoon (G5130) de (G1161) erootoo (G2065) monon (G3440).] - 'Yet not for these alone do I pray,'
But for them also which shall believe on me. The true reading here is one we should not have expected-`for them which believe on me' х pisteuontoon (G4100) - not pisteusontoon (G4100)]. But the evidence in its favour is decisive, while the received reading has but feeble support. Of course, the sense is the same; but this reading exhibits the whole company of believers as already before the eye of Jesus in that character-a present multitude already brought in and filling His mighty soul with a Redeemer's "satisfaction." How striking is it, that while all future time is here viewed as present, the present is viewed as past and gone!
Through their word. The Eleven are now regarded as the carriers of the glad tidings of His salvation "to every creature;" but of course, only as the first of a race of preachers, whose sound was to go into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world; whose beautiful feet upon the mountains, as they carried the news of salvation from land to land, were hailed even by the evangelical prophet (Isaiah 52:7).