(19) Did not Moses . . .?--The note of interrogation should be placed at the end of the first clause. The verse would then read, Did not Moses give you the Law? and none of you doeth the Law. Why seek ye to kill Me? So far from the will to do God's will, without which they could not know His teaching, they had the Law, which they all professed to accept, and yet no one kept it (John 5:45-47). This thought follows naturally on John 7:17-18, and, like the whole of this teaching, grows out of the truths of John 5; but it may be that this reference to Moses and the Law has a special fitness, as suggested by the feast. Moses had commanded that the Law should be read in every Sabbatical year at this very festival (Deuteronomy 31:10); and there is good reason for believing that the current year was a Sabbatical year. The first portion of the Law which it was customary to read was Deuteronomy 1:1 to Deuteronomy 6:3. Within this section (John 5:17) came the command, "Thou shalt not kill." They were, then, in their persecution of Him (John 5:18), breaking the Law, of which their presence at the feast was a professed obedience.

Verse 19. - Jesus was not unaware that serious charges were brought against his interpretation of the sabbatic law; that the Jews sought to kill him for his identification of his own mind and working with the Father's mind and working. On this account for a considerable time he had confined his ministry to Galilee. The old story of the sabbath healing was now rife once more, doubtless augmented with the rumors of the healing of the man with the withered hand, and other actions profoundly in harmony with the deep meaning of the sabbath rest. To the mind of the fourth evangelist; the explanation given by Christ to the authorities in Jerusalem was of prime significance in the whole sabbatic controversy; and he has recorded the defence Jesus made of his doctrine which placed him at once on the platform of the men with whom he was now beginning a life-and-death conflict. He used their methods, and, so far as the adequate grounds of connection were concerned, he was triumphant, Did not Moses give you the Law? - the whole revealed Law of God concerning moral conduct and daily ritual, a violation of the real spirit of which would be ἀδικία, and of which you accuse me - and (yet) none of you doeth the Law? Does he here call attention to the universal disobedience of mankind? Is he forestalling the declaration that "all have sinned, and come short;" that "in many things all offend"? Certainly not. He is about to show at greater length that the charge of ἀδικία stands equally against the justifiable transposition of the letter of the lower law by the incidence of a higher law. They must all know the innumerable occasions in which the letter of the law of the sabbath gave way to the law of mercy, to the law of hunger, to the exigencies of the temple services. "None of you doeth the Law," i.e. in the sense in which you are (from other motives) expecting me to do it. He said enough to strike their consciences and charge home their cherished if secret purpose. Why do ye seek to kill me? With what right, since this is the case, do ye vent your malice against me? Meyer and Godet here differ as to the emphasis laid upon the "me." The position of the enclitic με before ζητεῖτε gives it a prominence not to be overlooked. The interpretation of many - that the intention or desire to kill Jesus is the inward proof that the conscience of the Jews would admit that they were not keeping the Law which said, "Thou shalt not kill" - is very far-fetched, and weak in its force, although, according to the entire old covenant, there was much killing which was not murder. Such a reference would not correspond with the profoundly Hebrew response made by our Lord. Calvin here makes this reply of Christ a text on which to denounce, in his own day, the corruption of the papal court.

7:14-24 Every faithful minister may humbly adopt Christ's words. His doctrine is not his own finding out, but is from God's word, through the teaching of his Spirit. And amidst the disputes which disturb the world, if any man, of any nation, seeks to do the will of God, he shall know whether the doctrine is of God, or whether men speak of themselves. Only those who hate the truth shall be given up to errors which will be fatal. Surely it was as agreeable to the design of the sabbath to restore health to the afflicted, as to administer an outward rite. Jesus told them to decide on his conduct according to the spiritual import of the Divine law. We must not judge concerning any by their outward appearance, but by their worth, and by the gifts and graces of God's Spirit in them.Did not Moses give you the law,.... After Christ had vindicated himself and his doctrine, he proceeds to reprove the Jews for their breaking the law, which contained the will of God: by which it appeared, that they were no proper judges of his doctrine, though they cavilled at it: the question he puts could not be denied by them; for though, properly speaking, God was the lawgiver, yet inasmuch as it was delivered by Moses, it is ascribed to him, and said to come by him; and it was put into his hands, to be delivered by him, peculiarly to the people of Israel; and being given to the Jewish fathers, not only for themselves, but for their posterity in ages to come, is said to be given to the then present generation; and may be understood, either of the whole system of laws, moral, ceremonial, and, judicial, belonging to that people; or else of the particular law, concerning the keeping of the sabbath, which was a peculiar law of Moses, and proper to the children of Israel only:

and yet none of you keepeth the law; though they boasted of it as a singular privilege, and rested in it, and their obedience to it for life and salvation, yet daily broke it in various instances, in thought, word, or deed; yea, those that sat in Moses's chair, and taught it, did not observe and do what they taught; nor could the most holy and righteous man among them perfectly keep it: and many of them, who were most forward to censure others, for the violation of it, paid the least regard to it; and particularly to the law of the sabbath, which both priests and people transgressed, in one point or another, every sabbath day: wherefore our Lord reasons with them,

why go ye about to kill me? an harmless and innocent man, who never injured you in your persons and properties; and which is a proof of their not keeping that body of laws Moses gave them, since "thou shalt not kill" is one of them: though rather this may refer to the law of the sabbath, and the sense he, that since Moses had given them the law of the sabbath, and they did not keep it themselves, why should they seek to take away his life, for what they pretended was a breach of it? for our Lord here, as appears by what follows, refers to what they sought to do, above a year and a half ago, and still continued to seek after; namely, to kill him, because he had healed a man on the sabbath day, John 5:16.