Attributed commentary excerpt
John Gill's Exposition on John 7:49
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Exposition of the Old and New Testament
John Gill (1697–1771) · 18th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.] With great contempt they style the followers of Jesus “this people”; the common people, the dregs of them, the refuse of the earth; and whom they call, U ah µ[, “the people of the earth”, in distinction from the wise men, and r their disciples: and when they speak the best of them, their account is this f349 ; “one of the people of the earth is one that has moral excellencies, but not intellectual ones; that is, there is in him common civility, but the law is not in him;” as here, “who knoweth not the law”: they always reckon them very ignorant. Says one f350 of their writers, “they that are without knowledge are the multitude.” And elsewhere it is said f351, “the old men of the people of the earth, when they grow old their knowledge is disturbed (or is lost), as it is said, (<181220>Job 12:20), but so it is not with the old men of the law, when they grow old, their knowledge rests upon them, as it is said, (<181212>Job 12:12), “with the ancient is wisdom”.” Upon which one of the commentators f352 has this gloss; “these are the disciples of the wise men; for the people of the earth, what wisdom is there in them?” By the “law” here, is meant either the written law of Moses, which the Pharisees boasted of, and of their knowledge of it, as having the key of knowledge to open it; as understanding the true sense, and capable of giving a right interpretation of it, to the people; though they themselves were wretchedly ignorant of it, as appears by their false glosses on it, refuted by our Lord in (<400517>Matthew 5:17-48); or else the oral law is here intended, which they pretended was given by word of mouth to Moses, and handed down to posterity from one to another; and this lay among the doctors: they tell us f353, that Moses received it at Sinai, and delivered it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the men of the great synagogue (Ezra’s), the last of which was Simeon the just: Antigonus, a man of Socho, received it from him; and Jose ben Joezer, and Jose ben Jochanan, received it from him; and Joshua ben Perachia, (whom they sometimes say was the master of Jesus of Nazareth,) and Nittai the Arbelite, received it from them; by whom it was delivered to Judah ben Tabia, and Simeon ben Shetach; and from them it was received by Shemaiah, and Abtalion, who delivered it to Hillell, and Shammai; who, or whose scholars, were, at this time, when these words were spoken, the present possessors of it, and taught it their disciples in their schools: and thus it was handed down from one to another, until the times of R. Judah, who collected the whole of the traditions of the elders together, and published it under the title of the Misna; and then, as Maimonides says f354, it was revealed to all Israel; whereas before it was but in a few hands, who instructed others in it; but as for the common people, they knew little of it, especially of the nice distinctions and decisions of it; and these people were always had in great contempt by the wise men: they would not receive a testimony from them, nor give one for them, nor deliver a secret to them, nor proclaim anything of theirs that was lost, nor walk with them in the way, nor make a guardian of any of them f355. The people of the earth were not reckoned holy or religious f356, but generally profane and wicked; that they were abandoned to sin, rejected of God, and to be cast off by men; yea, they w…
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