Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, х eegalliasato (G21) hina (G2443) idee (G1492)] - 'exulted,' or 'exceedingly rejoiced that he should see;' that is, exulted to see it by anticipation;
And he saw it, and was glad - he actually beheld it to his joy. If this mean no more than that he had a prophetic foresight of the Gospel Day-the second clause just repeating the first-how could the Jews understand our Lord to mean that He "had seen Abraham?" And if it mean that Abraham was then beholding, in his disembodied spirit, the incarnate Messiah, as Stier, Tholuck, Alford, etc., understand it, the words seem very unsuitable to express it. Plainly it speaks of something past-he saw my day, and was glad-that is, surely, while he lived. We understand it therefore to refer to the familiar conversation which Abraham had with that "Angel of the Lord" who in the History is repeatedly called "The Lord" or Yahweh-the Angel of the covenant, with whom Christ here identifies Himself. On those occasions, says our Lord, Abraham "saw ME." Such is the view of Olshausen; but we need not suppose it, with him, to refer to some unrecorded scene. Taking the words in this sense, all that follows will, we think, be quite natural.