Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 10:6
This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them.
6. This parable ] Better, This allegory. The word which the Synoptists use for ‘parable’ ( parabol) is never used by S. John; and the word here used by S. John ( paroimia) is never used by the Synoptists. This should be brought out in translation; both are rendered by our translators sometimes ‘parable’ and sometimes ‘proverb.’ Paroimia occurs again Joh 16:25; Joh 16:29 and 2Pe 2:22, and nowhere else in N.T. Everywhere but here it is translated ‘proverb.’ Paroimia means something beside the way; hence, according to some, a trite ‘ way side saying;’ according to others, a figurative ‘ out-of-the-way saying.’ On parabol see on Mar 4:2.
understood not ] Did not recognise the meaning.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
This parable – See the notes at Mat 13:3.
They understood not … – They did not understand the meaning or design of the illustration.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Our Saviour was wont to instruct them in the mysteries of the kingdom of God by parables, that is, similitudes taken from reasonable actions of men, which might be, and were, proper to express spiritual things by. Wherefore he used this method in teaching, we are told, Mat 13:10-13. They well enough understood the words in which those parables were delivered; but the inward sense, the spiritual mysteries shadowed out in those similitudes, these they understood not; neither the common sort of his disciples understood them, nor did the better sort of his disciples understand them without a further explication of them. Our Lord therefore, in the following verses, comes to give them a large explication of the parable.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
This parable spake Jesus unto them,…. To the Pharisees, who were with him, Joh 9:40;
but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them; the things spoken by him being delivered in a parabolical way, though in lively figures, and in terms plain and easy to be understood; yet what through the blindness of their minds, and the hardness of their hearts, and their prejudices in favour of themselves, and against Christ, they did not understand what were meant by them; see Mt 13:13.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
This parable ( ). Old word for proverb from (beside) and , way, a wayside saying or saying by the way. As a proverb in N.T. in 2Pe 2:22 (quotation from Pr 26:11), as a symbolic or figurative saying in John 16:25; John 16:29, as an allegory in Joh 10:6. Nowhere else in the N.T. Curiously enough in the N.T. occurs only in the Synoptics outside of Heb 9:9; Heb 11:19. Both are in the LXX. is used as a proverb (Lu 4:23) just as is in 2Pe 2:22. Here clearly means an allegory which is one form of the parable. So there you are. Jesus spoke this to the Pharisees, “but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them” ( ). Second aorist active indicative of and note in indirect question as in 2:25 and both the interrogative and the relative . “Spake” (imperfect ) should be “Was speaking or had been speaking.”
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Parable [] . The word occurs but once outside of John’s writings (2Pe 2:22). The usual word for parable is parabolh, which is once rendered proverb in the A. V. (Luk 4:23, changed to parable by Rev.), and which occurs nowhere in John. For the distinction see on Mt 13:3.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “This parable spake Jesus unto them: (tauten ten pariomian eipen autois ho lesous) “Jesus told them this allegory,” v. 19, the Pharisee Jews especially, who had excluded the former blind man Jesus healed from the synagogue, Joh 9:34-35; Joh 16:2.
2) “But they understood not what things they were,” (ekeinoi de ouk egnosan tina hen) “Yet they did not know what things they were,” the picture He had painted of their moral nature, or did not understand, as described, Joh 8:43; 1Co 2:14; 2Co 4:3-4; Eph 4:18. They were spiritually blind, ignorant, did not “will” to know or do His will, Joh 7:17.
3) “Which he spake unto them.” (ha elaiei autois) “Which he spoke to them,” so directly, to their own condemnation, Joh 5:30; Joh 12:47-48.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
6. This parable. This is the reason why, proudly vaunting of their wisdom, they rejected the light of Christ; for in a matter not very obscure they are exceedingly dull of apprehension.
But they did not understand what things they were which he spoke to them. In this clause the Greek manuscripts differ. Some copies might be literally rendered, they did not understand what he said Another reading, which I have followed, is more full, though it amounts to the same meaning. The third reading is, that they did not know that he who spoke of himself was the Son of God; but this is not much approved.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(6) This parable spake Jesus unto them.Better, this allegory spake Jesus unto them. The word rendered parable is the wider word (, paroimia) which includes every kind of figurative and proverbial teaching, every kind of speech, as the etymology reminds us, which departs from the usual course (, oimos). St. John nowhere uses the word parable. The word paroimia occurs again in Joh. 16:25; Joh. 16:29, and once besides in the New Testament; this is in 2Pe. 2:22 (according to the true proverb), in a quotation from the Greek version of Pro. 26:11, where the Hebrew word is mshal. (Comp. Note on Mat. 13:3, and Trench On the Parables, pp. 8-10.) The discourse of this chapter differs from the true parable, which is a story in which the outer facts are kept wholly distinct from the ideal truths that are to be taught; whereas here the form and the idea interpenetrate each other at every point. It is so in the other so-called parable in this Gospel (John 15). Strictly speaking, neither the Good Shepherd nor the True Vine is a parable. Both are allegories, or rather, they are, as there is every reason to think, allegorical interpretations of actual events in the material world, which are thus made the vehicle of spiritual truths. It will follow from this that the interpretation of every point in the history of the material facts (e.g., the porter in Joh. 10:3) is not always to be pressed. In the parable the story is made to express the spiritual truth, and with greater or lesser fulness every point in it may have its spiritual counterpart. The outer facts which are allegorised exist independently of the spiritual truth. The fact that they express it at some central points is all that is necessary for the allegory, and greater caution should attend the use of any addition to the interpretation which is given.
But they understood not what things they were . . .They of course understood the outer facts, then passing before their eyes, or, in any case, well known to them. What they did not understand was the spiritual truths underlying these phenomena. They must have known His words had some spiritual meaning. They were accustomed to every form of allegorical teaching, and they could not have thought that He was simply describing to them the everyday events of the shepherds life. But they who think that they see (Joh. 9:41) are spiritually blind, and cannot understand the elements of divine truth.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
6. Parable Our Lord here uses the ordinary Greek not for parable, but for any allegorical composition. See remarks on page 227. The present passage might easily be made a parable by being put into a narrative form.
They understood not The simile of a shepherd was common in the Old Testament; but our Lord had put the case so indefinitely that they were able to overlook its suitableness to their own persons. Jesus proceeds to apply by avowing himself to be the door; but still leaves them to infer who are the thieves and robbers.
‘This mysterious saying Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what things they were that he spoke to them.”
The people did not have centuries of understanding behind them, and so they were puzzled. They did not know what He meant. We can understand this. The total uniqueness of Jesus had not yet dawned on them. They still thought in terms of the Law as expounded by the religious teachers. But that was Jesus’ point. Many of those teachers were simply ‘thieves and robbers’, stealing the truth from them.
Joh 10:6-7 . ] Every species of discourse that deviates from the common course ( ); hence in the classical writers especially proverb (Plat. Soph . p. 261 B; Soph. Aj . 649; Ael. N. H . 12. 22; Lucian, Nigr . 1. 37; comp. 2Pe 2:22 ). It denotes here, as corresponding to the Hebrew , if we define the conception more exactly, not parable (because it is not a history), but allegory (see Wilke, Rhetor. p. 109). Suidas: .
The Pharisees do not understand the meaning of what He thus allegorically delivered to them, and therefore ( , Joh 10:7 ) Jesus sees Himself compelled to begin again ( ), and to explain to them, first of all, the main point on which the understanding of the whole depended, namely, how the door in Joh 10:1 is to be understood. It is incorrect, accordingly, with most recent commentators (also Hengstenberg and Godet), to say that we have a second parable with a different turn; if Christ had not intended even in Joh 10:1 to describe Himself as the , He would only have confused His hearers in Joh 10:7 , instead of clearing matters up.
] with great emphasis.
] to the sheep, as is required by Joh 10:1 ; not, through which the sheep enter into the fold (Chrysostom, Euth. Zigabenus, Wolf, Lampe, Fritzsche, Ebrard, Hengstenberg, Baeumlein, Godet, and others), so that Jesus characterizes Himself as the tutorem ac nutritorem of the sheep (Fritzsche). Christ, however, is the door to the sheep, so far as the true spiritual leaders of the people of God receive through Him the qualification and appointment to their vocation. See on Joh 10:1 .
6 This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them.
Ver. 6. But they understood not ] So thick brained and incapable we are, till that vail be rent, Isa 25:7 . Those that have a blemish in their eye, the more wishly they look into anything the less they see of it, as Vives hath it. So it is here. Lusciosi, si quando oculorum aciem intendunt, minus vident. (Vives in Aug. Civ. Dei. lxxxi. 6.)
6. ] is not = , as so generally set down. This is not properly a parable: but rather a parabolic allegory. The parable requires narrative to set it forth; and John relates no such . The right word for would be allegory: etymologically it is, any saying diverging from the common way of speech ( ): cf. Meyer. We have other examples in ch. Joh 15:1 ff. and in Mat 9:37-38 .
Joh 10:6 . The application of the parable was sufficiently obvious; but . [ , , out of the way or wayside] seems more properly to denote “a proverb”; and the Book of Proverbs is named in the Sept [73] or ; and Aristotle, Rhetor. , 3, 11, defines , as . But and came to be convertible terms, both meaning a longer or shorter utterance whose meaning did not lie on the surface or proverbial sayings: the former term is never found in the Synoptic Gospels, the latter never found in John. [Further see Hatch, Essays in Bibl. Greek , p. 64; and Abbot’s Essays , p. 82.] This parable the Pharisees did not understand. They might have understood it, for the terms used were familiar O.T. terms; see Eze 34 , Psa 80 . But as it had been spoken for their instruction as well as for the encouragement of the man whom they had cast out of the fold, (Joh 10:7 ) , Jesus therefore began afresh and explained it to them. . I, and no other, am the door of the sheep. [ Cf. the Persian reformer who proclaimed himself the “Bb,” the gate of life.] Through me alone can the sheep find access to the fold. Primarily uttered for the excommnuicated man, these words conveyed the assurance that instead of being outcast by his attachment to Jesus he had gained admittance to the fellowship of God and all good men. Not the Pharisees but Jesus could admit to or reject from the fold of God.
[73] Septuagint.
This parable. See note on “and we”, &c. (Joh 1:14).
parable = wayside saying. Greek paroimia. Not parable, which is parabole. Paroimia Occurs in John here; and translated “proverb” in Joh 16:25, Joh 16:25, Joh 16:29, and 2Pe 2:22. Parabole occurs fifty times, but is not used in John. Paroimia is the Septuagint word for mashal = proverb in Pro 1:1. See note there.
Jesus. App-98.
understood not = did not get to know. Greek. ginosko. App-132. See note on Joh 1:10.
what things they were = what it was, or what it meant.
6.] is not = , as so generally set down. This is not properly a parable: but rather a parabolic allegory. The parable requires narrative to set it forth; and John relates no such. The right word for would be allegory: etymologically it is, any saying diverging from the common way of speech ( ): cf. Meyer. We have other examples in ch. Joh 15:1 ff. and in Mat 9:37-38.
Joh 10:6. , they understood not) Thus they might have perceived, that they were blind; ch. Joh 9:41, Now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.
Joh 10:6
Joh 10:6
This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them.-This was a completed parable that the people did not understand what he meant to teach. They had not understood and believed those who had gone before him.
they understood not: Joh 6:52, Joh 6:60, Joh 7:36, Joh 8:27, Joh 8:43, Psa 82:5, Psa 106:7, Pro 28:5, Isa 6:9, Isa 6:10, Isa 56:11, Dan 12:10, Mat 13:13, Mat 13:14, Mat 13:51, 1Co 2:14, 1Jo 5:20
Reciprocal: Mar 14:22 – this Luk 18:34 – General
6
Parable is not from the same Greek word that is generally used for the English term, but its practical purpose is the same. It means an illustration that is expressed in figurative language, where the comparison is to be discovered in the facts and truths that pertain to the subject. Since the Jews were not informed in all those facts, it is stated that they understood not what Jesus spake. With the record of the case as we have it in the work of John and Jesus, we should be able to see the comparison implied in this group of verses. The fold is the ones John prepared for Jesus as explained at verse 1. John is the porter, and he opened the door into the confidence of his disciples when he introduced Jesus as the “Lamb of God” in chapter 1:29. The door does not apply to that through which the sheep were to pass, but it was the shepherd who was to enter it. That door is the prophecies that had described him, and as soon as John learned the truths about Jesus he knew He was the one predicted, and then he opened the door to his disciples by the statement in chapter 1:29.
Joh 10:6. This parable said Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them. The word here used is not that which occurs so frequently in the other gospels in the sense of parable. It is found but four times in the New Testamentin 2Pe 2:22, and in three verses of this Gospel (here and chap. Joh 16:25; Joh 16:29). In 2Pe 2:22 the word has its ordinary signification proverb: in chap. Joh 16:29 it is opposed to speaking in a way the most direct,the highest and best for the attainment of the speakers end (comp. on Joh 16:25). The derivation of the word suggests that the primary meaning was a saying beside or out of the common way which had not the direct plain bearing of an ordinary saying, but either was intended to have many applications (as a proverb), or was in some degree circuitous in the method by which it effected its purpose,enigmatical or difficult. In this latter sense John seems to use the word, which does not therefore differ essentially from the parable, as that word is used by the other Evangelists (see Mat 13:11-15). It seems certain that had any one of them related the comparison of this chapter he would have employed the more familiar name. The Septuagint uses the two words with little difference of sense. On the present occasion it cannot be said that the language of Jesus was in itself difficult to understand; His description was faithful in all its parts; but His words as said to them the Pharisees could not comprehend.
Joh 10:6-8. This parable spake Jesus: but they understood not, &c. In this symbolical way Jesus taught the Pharisees the difference between true and false teachers; but they did not understand the meaning of what he said: therefore he added, by way of explication, Verily, verily, I say unto you I solemnly assure you of it, as an undoubted and most momentous truth; I am the door of the sheep That is, the door by which the sheep- fold is entered. Or his meaning may be, I am not only the door by which the shepherds must enter; not only the person whose right alone it is to admit men to the office of shepherds, and who alone can qualify them for that office and dignity, but I am also the door of the sheep; it is by the knowledge of, and faith in me, by an interest in my merits, and by a participation of my Spirit, and in no other way, that men must or can enter into the truly spiritual enclosure of my church. All that ever came before me Assuming the character of the Messiah, or any part thereof, or pretending, like your elders and rabbis, to a power over the consciences of men, attempting to make laws in and for the church, and teaching their own traditions as necessary to be observed, or other methods of obtaining salvation than by me; all those, who in former times assumed the character of teachers of religion, without a commission from me, and all those teachers and preachers of Gods word that enter not by the door into the sheep-fold, but run before I send them by my Spirit, and before they themselves are my true disciples, subjects, and servants, or are in me new creatures; (our Lord seems in particular to speak of those that had undertaken this office since he began his ministry;) are thieves and robbers Persons influenced by improper motives, who had and have no warrant from above for assuming any such character, pretending to any such power, or undertaking any such office, and whatsoever their pretences have been or are, the administration of such persons had, and always will have, a tendency to destroy the souls they should watch over and feed: for they are not only thieves, stealing temporal profit to themselves, but robbers, plundering and murdering the sheep. But the sheep My true people; did not hear them Did not attend upon, relish or regard their doctrine.
Ver. 6. Jesus spoke this similitude to them; but they did not understand what that meant which he spoke to them.
The word, , similitude, properly designates a by-path, hence an enigmatical discourse. It is sometimes used in the translation of the LXX. to render maschal; it is taken in the sense of proverb in 2Pe 2:22. The idea of a comparison is not so expressly brought out in this term as in the term (see Westcott). The forcible expression , what was, for what meant, is derived from the fact that the true essence of a word is its meaning. They did not understand; because it was morally impossible for them to apply to the Pharisees the figure of thieves and robbers.
10:6 This {b} parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them.
(b) This word “parable”, which the evangelist uses here, signifies a hidden type of speech, when words are not used with their natural meaning, but are used to signify another thing to us.
Many of the Jews who heard these words did not understand what Jesus was talking about. They did not respond to the Shepherd’s voice. They could hardly have failed to understand the relationship between shepherds and sheep that was so common in their culture. Nevertheless they did not grasp Jesus’ analogy of Himself as Israel’s true Shepherd.
The Greek word paroimia ("figure of speech") occurs elsewhere in John’s Gospel (Joh 16:25; Joh 16:29) but never in the Synoptics.
"It suggests the notion of a mysterious saying full of compressed thought, rather than that of a simple comparison." [Note: B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John: The Authorised Version with Introduction and Notes, p. 152.]
A similar word, parabole ("parable"), appears often in the Synoptics but never in the fourth Gospel. Both words, however, have quite a wide range of meanings encompassing many kinds of figurative language.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)