JESUS AND JUDAISM.
John 7:19-24.
JOHN 7:19a. “Did not Moses give you the law…?”
Once every seven years, during the feast of tabernacles, the law was to be read (cf. Deuteronomy 31:10-13). Jesus reminds His hearers that the law was given by Moses, the servant of God.
JOHN 7:19b. “yet none of you keepeth (literally, ‘doeth’) the law? Why go ye about to kill me?”
The word translated here as “go about” is translated ‘seek’ in John 7:1 which reads ‘the Jews (meaning the Jewish leadership) sought to kill Him.’
Yet the law is clear: ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ meaning, ‘do not murder’ (Exodus 20:13).
JOHN 7:20. “The people answered and said, Thou hast a devil; who goeth about to kill thee?”
It is evidently the common people who asked this question, not the Jewish leadership. They maybe thought that He was quite mad to be talking about somebody seeking to kill Him.
JOHN 7:21. “Jesus answered and said, I have done one work, and ye all marvel.”
The work to which Jesus was referring was the healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda, within the temple complex, at an earlier feast (cf. John 5:1-9). This had given rise to a dispute with the Jewish authorities because Jesus did this work of healing on the sabbath (cf. John 5:10-18).
“Ye all marvel” speaks of a people who are still wondering, still indignant that Jesus did this thing on the sabbath day.
JOHN 7:22a. “Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers;)…”
The word “therefore” seems to connect with the fact that “Moses gave you the law” (John 7:19a).
Here is an example of the law as given by Moses: he “gave unto you circumcision” – a statute that already existed from the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
JOHN 7:22b. “and ye on the sabbath day circumcise a man.”
The law was, that a man child should be circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. But what if the eighth day for that man child was a sabbath?
Works of necessity, piety, and mercy are all permitted by the Lord of the sabbath (cf. Mark 2:27-28).
JOHN 7:23a. “If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken;…”
This particular small matter comes under the bracket of a work of piety.
JOHN 7:23b. “are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day?”
This particular much larger matter comes under the bracket of a work of necessity and of mercy.
JOHN 7:24. “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”
Jesus was being judged as unrighteous because He had done this great healing work on the sabbath day. According to the Jewish leaders, He had thus broken the sabbath. That was “the appearance” according to them
Now, Jesus was not denying that He had done this work on such a day: but what a work it was! He had made the man “every whit whole” (John 7:23b).
So He exhorts His accusers not to make such hasty judgments, but to look beyond the action done, and to weigh out the facts in a just manner. That is what we do when we ‘Behold’ the Lamb of God (John 1:29).
