John 7 - CSB Study Bible for Women

7:1–9:41 Chapters 7–9 are intended to show Jesus as the fulfillment of the Festival of Shelters or Festival of Ingathering or Festival of Tabernacles, celebrated “on the fifteenth day of this seventh month” (Lv 23:34) and beginning five days after the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur ), and lasting for seven days (Lv 23:33-36; Dt 16:13-17). Each family gathered in Jerusalem and built temporary shelters or booths in which they would live during the entire festival. This temporary housing was symbolic of the years the Israelites spent wandering in the desert after leaving slavery in Egypt before entering Canaan, and these dwellings represented shelter and protection. The festival was a time of thanksgiving for the harvest that marked their transition from nomadic living to more permanent housing in their own land. John’s allusion to the festivals highlighted the way Jesus fulfilled the OT celebration and added to them ongoing spiritual significance.

7:1-9 John begins this section by juxtaposing the true belief of the disciples (6:68-71) with the unbelief of Jesus’s own brothers (7:1-5). The perpetual virginity of Mary advocated by some is certainly challenged in the references to Jesus’s brothers—other sons of Mary and Joseph (v. 3; 2:12; Mk 3:21,31-35; 6:3). A similar scene is recorded in Mk 3:20-35, in which Jesus’s family members came to silence Him because they believed He was out of His mind. In John’s narrative, this contrast between belief and unbelief, displayed respectively by the Twelve and by Jesus’s brothers, foreshadows similar things to come as Jesus later went alone to the festival (Jn 7:10).

7:10-24 Jesus responded to the question concerning the origin of His teachings (vv. 15-16). The Jewish leaders could not understand how Jesus could know the Scripture so thoroughly, teach with clarity, and speak with authority without formal training in rabbinical schools.

Jesus responded quickly and decisively that His teaching was vested in the authority of the Father who sent Him (v. 16; cp. 6:44,57; 8:18; 12:49; 14:24). Jesus also placed squarely upon His accusers the responsibility for determining “the work of God” (6:29), which if they had done would have revealed that indeed His teaching was from God (7:17-18). In so doing Jesus reached to the heart of their challenging His teaching by raising His own counter-questions concerning their understanding of the law and their willingness to manipulate it. He used their desire to kill Him (v. 19), which did not accord with the prohibition of murder in the Decalogue (Ex 20:13), as placing them contra their own standard. Jesus also noted that the law forbade all but emergency medical attention; however, the religious leaders allowed circumcision but not healing on the Sabbath (vv. 21-24).

7:37-52 Rituals accompanying the feasts often included the pouring out of water to picture God’s provision of water to the people during their wandering in the wilderness (Ex 17:6) and in times of drought in the land (1Kg 18:45). This provision of water was temporary relief to their thirst. Therefore, considering their life in an arid, desert terrain, the people would understand the metaphor of Jesus’s offer of thirst-quenching water as ultimate sustenance and satisfaction. Living water was imagery Jesus took from the OT (cp. Is 32:15; 44:3; Ezk 39:29; Jl 2:28-32) to use as a metaphor for the gift of the Holy Spirit to be poured out on the disciples after Jesus’s death and resurrection. Obviously the people were ignorant of the fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Jn 7:41-42).

Nicodemus appeared again and attempted to protect Jesus from His accusers (vv. 50-52), which probably indicated that he had indeed been converted in his earlier encounter with Jesus (3:1-3). Nicodemus here intervened openly in behalf of Jesus even in the midst of the hostile religious establishment of which he had been a part.

7:53–8:11 This is an incomparable example of how Jesus dealt with the legalistic critics who were testing His commitment to the law and attempting to entrap Him while reaching out to the sinful woman in her need. He never glossed over moral standards but graciously extended mercy. No one could bring together what seemed to be polar opposites as did Jesus.

Only the woman is presented (8:4) in this account; whereas in the Torah both the man and the woman (if betrothed or engaged) were to be put to death by stoning (Dt 22:23-24) and by an unspecified method if the woman were married (Lv 20:10; Dt 22:22). Jesus’s conclusion was not what they expected but continued to confound them (Jn 8:7). Jesus in no way ignored sin and its consequences, but here He saw the hearts and motivations of these self-righteous accusers who were using a woman to accomplish their own purpose of seeking to entrap Him. In Jewish law the witness was to cast the first stone when capital punishment was involved (Dt 17:5-7). The accusing group slowly departed, beginning with the most revered members and the older men (Gk presbuterōn, Jn 8:9). Surely this woman must have been shocked and overwhelmed to meet a man who, instead of exploiting and using her for his own lustful and selfish purposes, showed loving concern and extended forgiving grace. Jesus not only refused to condemn her, but He redeemed and restored her. Only Jesus as the sinless One could forgive her sin (1:29).