Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, Why have ye not brought him?
Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees - who had sent them to seize Him (John 7:32), and who would appear from the sequel to have been sitting in Council when the officers returned.
And they said unto them, Why have ye not brought him? - already thirsting for their Victim, and thinking it an easy matter to seize and bring Him.
The officers answered, Never man spake like this man - Noble testimony of unsophisticated men! Doubtless they were strangers to the profound intent of Christ's teaching, but there was that in it which, by its mysterious grandeur and transparent purity and grace, held them spell-bound. No doubt it was of God that they should so feel, that their arm might be paralyzed, as Christ's "hour was not come;" but even in human teaching there has sometimes been felt such a divine power, that men who came to kill the speaker have confessed to all that they were unmanned.