Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 11:10

But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.

10. he stumbleth ] Christ’s night came when His hour came (Joh 17:1). Then the powers of darkness prevailed (Luk 22:53) and His enemies became a stumblingblock in His path, bringing His work to a close (Joh 19:30). The word for ‘stumble’ means literally to ‘knock the foot against’ something.

there is no light in him ] Rather, the light is not in him. This shews that the meaning has slid from the literal to the figurative. ‘The light’ in Joh 11:9 is the physical light in the heavens; here it is the spiritual light in the heart.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

And there is a night also, wherein if men walk they will be very prone to stumble, because they are in darkness, and have no light to guide their feet. So there is a set time for all the issues of men; a time for their peace and liberty, and a time for their troubles and sufferings. God rules and governs the world. While men are in their callings and places, faithfully discharging their trust, and finishing the work which God hath given them to do, and their time is not come for their glorifying of God by suffering, they shall not stumble, nor be given up to the rage of their eagerest enemies; they are in their callings and places, and God will be light unto them: but when their working time is over, and the time of their night is come, then they will stumble; because then God withdraweth his light from them; they are not then under such a special protection of God, who hath done his work by and with them. This is as much as he had said before, Joh 8:20, No man laid hands on him, for his hour was not yet come; the twelve hours of his day were not all spent. This duty digested, is of infinite use to quiet the spirits of Gods people in the worst of times; every man hath his twelve hours, his day and set time, to honour God upon the stage of the world: he shall not stumble, he shall not miscarry, while those hours are spent; he shall not die, he shall not be disabled for duty, so long as God hath aught for him to do. But every man hath his night too, when he must not expect to converse in the world without stumbling.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

7-10. Let us go into Judea againHewas now in Perea, “beyond Jordan.”

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

But if a man walk in the night,…. After the sun is set, and there is no light in the air and heavens to direct him:

he stumbleth; at everything that lies in the way,

because there is no light in him; there being none from above communicated to him. So our Lord suggests, that when the time of his death was come, he should then fall a prey into the hands of his enemies, but till then he should walk safe and secure; nor had he anything to fear from them, and therefore could go into Judea again, with intrepidity and unconcern.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

But if a man walk in the night ( ). Third condition again. It is spiritual darkness that Jesus here pictures, but the result is the same. See the same figure in 12:35 (1Jo 2:11). The ancients had poor illumination at night as indeed we did before Edison gave us electric lights. Pedestrians actually used to have little lamps fastened on the feet to light the path.

In him ( ). Spiritual darkness, the worst of all (cf. Matt 6:23; John 8:12). Man has the capacity for light, but is not the source of light. “By the application of this principle Christianity is distinguished from Neo-Platonism” (Westcott).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

1 ) “But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth,” (ean de tis peripate en te nukte proskoptei) “Yet if anyone walks around in the nighttime, he stumbles,” in the night of death, when it is too late. He then tries to walk in the ignorance of procrastination, to do good when it is too late, as the rich man in hell did, Luk 16:19-31; 2Co 4:3-4; Eph 4:18.

2) “Because there is no light in him.” (hoti to phos ouk estin en auto) “Because the light does not exist in him.” He who closes his eyes against the daily spiritual light, daily revelation of the love, mercy, goodness, and compassionate call of Jesus to salvation and service in life’s day of opportunity, calls too late for himself and others, when death’s darkness falls, Pro 1:20-31; Pro 29:1; Heb 4:7.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

(10) But if a man walk in the night . . .He passes in this verse from the material to the spiritual truth. This first clause still holds of the natural night, and the danger to men who walk in it, but it holds, too, of the darkness in which men walk who do not see, as He is seeing, the light of heaven falling upon the moral path. In the second clause the moral truth is expressed with a prominence which excludes the other.

Because there is no light in him.The light is now not that of this world, but that which is within man.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

10. In the night Opposed to this day of mission and duty there is a night-side of darkness and wandering. It is the hemisphere outside man’s true life.

No light in him A man’s divinely-assigned path is a divinely-illumined path. The light is a blended light, combining rays of reason, conscience, Scripture, providence, and the blessed Spirit. And it is not only a light around a man, but a light in him. The dark wanderer, with no light in him, stumbleth.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments