Heard him speak ( ). First active indicative of and present active participle of in genitive case agreeing with , object of . “Heard him speaking” (kind of indirect discourse). John had disciples (, learners, from , to learn).

They followed Jesus ( ). Associative instrumental case after verb (first aorist active indicative, ingressive aorist, of ). These two disciples of the Baptist (Andrew and John) took him at his word and acted on it. John the Baptist had predicted and portrayed the Messiah, had baptized him, had interpreted him, and now for the second time had identified him.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

1) “And the two disciples heard him speak,” (kai ekousan hoi duo mathetai lalountos) “And the two disciples heard him speaking,” the two, Andrew and probably John, the writer of this Gospel, who here recounted the event, Joh 1:40-41.

2) “And they followed Jesus.” (kai ekolouthesan to lesou) “And they followed (pursued) Jesus,” leaving their walk with John the Baptist, to finish their ministry as disciples and later apostles of Jesus Christ, early disciples of the ministry of Jesus, and members of His New Covenant company fellowship which He called His church, Light of the world, Salt of the earth, Kingdom of Heaven, His house, and His fold, Mat 10:2; Act 1:21-22; Mat 3:2; Mat 5:13-16; Mat 13:11; Mat 13:24; Mat 13:31; Mat 13:33; Mat 13:44-45; Mat 13:47; Mat 16:18; Mar 13:34-37; 1Ti 3:15; Joh 10:1-18.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

(37) The disciples understand the words as the teacher meant them. There is no word cutting the link between himself and them; that would have been hard to speak, hard to hear. There is no word bidding them follow Jesus; that cannot be needed.

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

Joh 1:37-39. And they followed Jesus, &c. As Jesus was a person who had no attendants, and was a stranger, as it were, in this country, we may conclude that he had only some obscure and private lodging here, which must have been at no great distance from the place where John baptized, as may be gathered from his appearing there from day to day: by this means he did an honour to John’s ministry, and had an opportunity of receiving his testimony. Jesus, knowing the intentions of the two disciples who followed him, gave them an invitation to his lodging, Joh 1:38 for they had asked him, “Rabbi, , where dost thou lodge?” intimating their inclination to converse with Jesus. Their calling him rabbi, which was a title of great honour and respect, given to men famous for their abilities and instructions, intimates, that they had been informed of this part of his character from John the Baptist. It was about the tenth hour, that is to say, ten in the morning, when they came to him; for this evangelist uses the Roman method of reckoning the hours of the day in his gospel; wherefore the two disciples conversed with Jesus almost a whole day, and no doubt were highly edified and instructed by our Lord’s discourses to them.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Joh 1:37-40 . And the two disciples heard ( observed ) him speak . For he had not addressed the words . directly to them , but in general (comp. Joh 1:29 ) to those round about him.

] not the following of discipleship, nor in a “sens profondment symbolique” (Godet), but simply: “ they went after Him ” ( , Nonnus), in order to know Him more intimately ( , Euthymius Zigabenus). Nevertheless Bengel rightly says: primae origines ecclesiae Christianae .

] for He heard the footsteps of those following Him.

] what do you desire? He anticipates them by engaging in conversation with them, not exactly because they were shy and timid (Euthymius Zigabenus). But no doubt the significant , . . . ( intuitus ), was accompanied by a glance into their hearts, Joh 2:25 .

] correlative to the , Joh 1:36 ; therefore: “ where dost thou sojourn? ” Polyb. xxx. 4. 10; Strabo, iii. p. 147. They regarded Him as a travelling Rabbi, who was lodging in the neighbourhood at the house of some friend.

. (see the critical notes); a friendly invitation to accompany Him at once. [121] They had sought only to know where the place was, so that they might afterwards seek Him out, and converse with Him undisturbed. We have not here the Rabbinical form of calling attention, (Buxt. Lex. Talm . p. 248; Lightfoot, p. 968), nor an imitation of Rev 6:1 (Weisse), nor yet an allusion to Psa 66:5 ; Psa 66:9 , and a gentle reference on the part of Jesus to His Godhead (Hengstenberg), for which there was no occasion, and which He could not expect to be understood.

, . . .] shows the simplicity of the narrative.

] instance of insertion of the direct address, common in dependent clauses. Khner, II. 594; Winer, p. 251 [E. T. p. 335].

. .] i.e . the remaining part of that day, not at once from that day onwards (Credner, against whom is Ebrard).

] that is, at the beginning of their stay with Him. We have no reason to suppose in John, as Rettig does in the Stud. u. Krit. 1830, p. 106, as also Tholuck, Ebrard, Ewald, the Roman mode of counting the hours (from midnight to midnight, therefore ten o’clock in the morning) instead of the Jewish , which is followed elsewhere in the N. T. and by Josephus (even Vit . 54), i.e . four o’clock in the afternoon; because there is time enough from 4 P.M. till late in the evening to justify the popular expression . .; because, moreover, in Joh 11:9 it is plainly the Jewish method which is followed; and because even in Joh 4:6 the same method best suits the context, and is not excluded in Joh 4:52 , while in Joh 19:14 it is with a harmonistic view that the Roman method of reckoning is resorted to. The Romans themselves, moreover, frequently measured the day after the Babylonian computation of the hours, according to the twelve hours from sunrise to sunset; and the tenth hour especially is often named, as in our text, as the hour of return from walking, and mention of it occurs as a late hour in the day, when e.g . the soldiers were allowed to rest (Liv. ix. 37), or when they went to table (Martial, vii. 1), etc. See Wetstein.

The great significance of this hour for John (it was the first of his Christian life ) had indelibly impressed it on his grateful recollection, and hence the express mention of it here. This consideration forbids our giving, with Hilgenfeld and Lichtenstein, to the statement of time an onward reference to the incident next mentioned, the finding by Andrew of his brother Simon. Brckner, too, imports something that is foreign into this statement of time, when he says that it indicates, in close connection with Joh 1:41 ff., how rapidly faith developed itself in these disciples.

[121] There is nothing to indicate whether the place where He was lodging was near or at a distance, although Ewald would infer the latter from the reading .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

37 And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.

Ver. 37. And they followed Jesus ] So powerful is a word or two (many times) touching Christ and his cross to change the heart. Paul showeth that the very report of his bonds did a great deal of good in Caesar’s court, Phi 1:13 . Bilney’s confession converted Latimer. Galeacius Caracciolus (that Italian marquis) was wrought upon by a similitude used by Peter Martyr, reading on the 1st Epist. to the Corinthians. So were Earl Martinengus and Hieronymus Zanchius (both of them Canonici Lateranenses ) by some seasonable truth falling from the same mouth. Luther having heard Staupicius say that it is kind repentance which begins from the love of God, ever after that time the practice of repentance was sweeter to him. Also this speech of his took well with Luther, “The doctrine of predestination begins at the wounds of Christ.” (Melch. Adam. in Vita Luther.)

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

37. ] We must not understand . in the narrower sense which it bears when they left all and followed Him; but here only of mechanical going after Him, , Euthym [33]

[33] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Joh 1:37 . . “And the two disciples heard him speaking” possibly implying that the day before they had not heard him “and they followed Jesus”; the Baptist does not bid them follow, but they feel that attraction which so often since has been felt.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

John

THE FIRST DISCIPLES: I. JOHN AND ANDREW

Joh 1:37 – Joh 1:39 .

In these verses we see the head waters of a great river, for we have before us nothing less than the beginnings of the Christian Church. So simply were the first disciples made. The great society of believers was born like its Master, unostentatiously and in a corner.

Jesus has come back from His conflict in the wilderness after His baptism, and has presented Himself before John the Baptist for his final attestation. It was a great historical moment when the last of the Prophets stood face to face with the Fulfilment of all prophecy. In his words, ‘Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world!’ Jewish prophecy sang its swan-song, uttered its last rejoicing, ‘Eureka! I have found Him!’ and died as it spoke.

We do not sufficiently estimate the magnificent self-suppression and unselfishness of the Baptist, in that he, with his own lips, here repeats his testimony in order to point his disciples away from himself, and to attach them to Jesus. If he could have been touched by envy he would not so gladly have recognised it as his lot to decrease while Jesus increased. Bare magnanimity that in a teacher! The two who hear John’s words are Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, and an anonymous man. The latter is probably the Evangelist. For it is remarkable that we never find the names of James and John in this Gospel though from the other Gospels we know how closely they were associated with our Lord, and that we only find them referred to as ‘the sons of Zebedee,’ once near the close of the book. That fact points, I think, in the direction of John’s authorship of this Gospel.

These two, then, follow behind Jesus, fancying themselves unobserved, not desiring to speak to Him, and probably with some notion of tracking Him to His home, in order that they may seek an interview at a later period. But He who notices the first beginnings of return to Him, and always comes to meet men, and is better to them than their wishes, will not let them steal behind Him uncheered, nor leave them to struggle with diffidence and delay. So He turns to them, and the events ensue which I have read in the verses that follow as my text.

We have, I think, three things especially to notice here. First, the Master’s question to the whole world, ‘What seek ye?’ Second, the Master’s invitation to the whole world, ‘Come and see!’ Lastly, the personal communion which brings men’s hearts to Him, ‘They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day.’

I. So, then, first look at this question of Christ to the whole world, ‘What seek ye?’

As it stands, on its surface, and in its primary application, it is the most natural of questions. Our Lord hears footsteps behind Him, and, as any one would do, turns about, with the question which any one would ask, ‘What is it that you want?’ That question would derive all its meaning from the look with which it was accompanied, and the tone in which it was spoken. It might mean either annoyance and rude repulsion of a request, even before it was presented, or it might mean a glad wish to draw out the petition, and more than half a pledge to bestow it. All depends on the smile with which it was asked and the intonation of voice which carried it to their ears. And if we had been there we should have felt, as these two evidently felt, that though in form a question, it was in reality a promise, and that it drew out their shy wishes, made them conscious to themselves of what they desired, and gave them confidence that their desire would be granted. Clearly it had sunk very deep into the Evangelist’s mind; and now, at the end of his life, when his course is nearly run, the never-to-be-forgotten voice sounds still in his memory, and he sees again, in sunny clearness, all the scene that had transpired on that day by the fords of the Jordan. The first words and the last words of those whom we have learned to love are cut deep on our hearts.

It was not an accident that the first words which the Master spoke in His Messianic office were this profoundly significant question, ‘What seek ye?’ He asks it of us all, He asks it of us to-day. Well for them who can answer, ‘Rabbi! where dwellest Thou?’ ‘It is Thou whom we seek!’ So, venturing to take the words in that somewhat wider application, let me just suggest to you two or three directions in which they seem to point.

First, the question suggests to us this: the need of having a clear consciousness of what is our object in life. The most of men have never answered that question. They live from hand to mouth, driven by circumstances, guided by accidents, impelled by unreflecting passions and desires, knowing what they want for the moment, but never having tried to shape the course of their lives into a consistent whole, so as to stand up before God in Christ when He puts the question to them, ‘What seek ye?’ and to answer the question.

These incoherent, instinctive, unreflective lives that so many of you are living are a shame to your manhood, to say nothing more. God has made us for something else than that we should thus be the sport of circumstances. It is a disgrace to any of us that our lives should be like some little fishing-boat, with an unskilful or feeble hand at the tiller, yawing from one point of the compass to another, and not keeping a straight and direct course. I pray you, dear brethren, to front this question: ‘After all, and at bottom, what is it I am living for? Can I formulate the aims and purposes of my life in any intelligible statement of which I should not be ashamed?’ Some of you are not ashamed to do what you would be very much ashamed to say, and you practically answer the question, ‘What are you seeking?’ by pursuits that you durst not call by their own ugly names.

There may be many of us who are living for our lusts, for our passions, for our ambitions, for avarice, who are living in all uncleanness and godlessness. I do not know. There are plenty of shabby, low aims in all of us which do not bear being dragged out into the light of day. I beseech you to try and get hold of the ugly things and bring them up to the surface, however much they may seek to hide in the congenial obscurity and twist their slimy coils round something in the dark. If you dare not put your life’s object into words, bethink yourselves whether it ought to be your life’s object at all.

Ah, brethren! if we would ask ourselves this question, and answer it with any thoroughness, we should not make so many mistakes as to the places where we look for the things for which we are seeking. If we knew what we were really seeking, we should know where to go to look for it. Let me tell you what you are seeking, whether you know it or not. You are seeking for rest for your heart, a home for your spirits; you are seeking for perfect truth for your understandings, perfect beauty for your affections, perfect goodness for your conscience. You are seeking for all these three, gathered into one white beam of light, and you are seeking for it all in a Person. Many of you do not know this, and so you go hunting in all manner of impossible places for that which you can only find in one. To the question, ‘What seek ye?’ the deepest of all answers, the only real answer, is, ‘My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.’ If you know that, you know where to look for what you need! ‘Do men gather grapes of thorns?’ If these are really the things that you are seeking after, in all your mistaken search-oh! how mistaken is the search! Do men look for pearls in cockle-shells, or for gold in coal-pits; and why should you look for rest of heart, mind, conscience, spirit, anywhere and in anything short of God? ‘What seek ye?’-the only answer is, ‘We seek Thee!’

And then, still further, let me remind you how these words are not only a question, but are really a veiled and implied promise. The question, ‘What do you want of Me?’ may either strike an intending suppliant like a blow, and drive him away with his prayer sticking in his throat unspoken, or it may sound like a merciful invitation, ‘What is thy petition, and what is thy request, and it shall be granted unto thee?’ We know which of the two it was here. Christ asks all such questions as this and there are many of them in the New Testament, not for His information, but for our strengthening. He asks people, not because He does not know before they answer, but that, on the one hand, their own minds may be clear as to their wishes, and so they may wish the more earnestly because of the clearness; and that, on the other hand, their desires being expressed, they may be the more able to receive the gift which He is willing to bestow. So He here turns to these men, whose purpose He knew well enough, and says to them, ‘What seek ye?’ Herein He is doing the very same thing on a lower level, and in an outer sphere, as is done when He appoints that we shall pray for the blessings which He is yearning to bestow, but which He makes conditional on our supplications, only because by these supplications our hearts are opened to a capacity for receiving them.

We have, then, in the words before us, thus understood, our Lord’s gracious promise to give what is desired on the simple condition that the suppliant is conscious of his own wants, and turns to Him for the supply of them. ‘What seek ye?’ It is a blank cheque that He puts into their hands to fill up. It is the key of His treasure-house which He offers to us all, with the assured confidence that if we open it we shall find all that we need.

Who is He that thus stands up before a whole world of seeking, restless spirits, and fronts them with the question which is a pledge, conscious of His capacity to give to each of them what each of them requires? Who is this that professes to be able to give all these men and women and children bread here in the wilderness? There is only one answer-the Christ of God.

And He has done what He promises. No man or woman ever went to Him, and answered this question, and presented their petition for any real good, and was refused. No man can ask from Christ what Christ cannot bestow. No man can ask from Christ what Christ will not bestow. In the loftiest region, the region of inward and spiritual gifts, which are the best gifts, we can get everything that we want, and our only limit is, not His boundless omnipotence and willingness, but our own poor, narrow, and shrivelled desires. ‘Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find.’

Christ stands before us, if I may so say, like some of those fountains erected at some great national festival, out of which pour for all the multitude every variety of draught which they desire, and each man that goes with his empty cup gets it filled, and gets it filled with that which he wishes. ‘What seek ye?’ Wisdom? You students, you thinkers, you young men that are fighting with intellectual difficulties and perplexities, ‘What seek ye?’ Truth? He gives us that. You others, ‘What seek ye?’ Love, peace, victory, self-control, hope, anodyne for sorrow? Whatever you desire, you will find in Jesus Christ. The first words with which He broke the silence when He spake to men as the Messias, were at once a searching question, probing their aims and purposes, and a gracious promise pledging Him to a task not beyond His power, however far beyond that of all others, even the task of giving to each man his heart’s desire. ‘What seek ye?’ ‘Seek, and ye shall find.’

II. Then, still further, notice how, in a similar fashion, we may regard here the second words which our Lord speaks as being His merciful invitation to the world. ‘Come and see.’

The disciples’ answer was simple and timid. They did not venture to say, ‘May we talk to you?’ ‘Will you take us to be your disciples?’ All they can muster courage to ask now is, ‘Where dwellest Thou?’ At another time, perhaps, we will go to this Rabbi and speak with Him. His answer is, ‘Come, come now; come, and by intercourse with Me learn to know Me.’ His temporary home was probably nothing more than some selected place on the river’s bank, for ‘He had not where to lay His head’; but such as it was, He welcomes them to it. ‘Come and see!’

Take a plain, simple truth out of that. Christ is always glad when people resort to Him. When He was here in the world, no hour was inconvenient or inopportune; no moment was too much occupied; no physical wants of hunger, or thirst, or slumber were ever permitted to come between Him and seeking hearts. He was never impatient. He was never wearied of speaking, though He was often wearied in speaking. He never denied Himself to any one or said, ‘I have something else to do than to attend to you.’ And just as in literal fact, whilst He was here upon earth, nothing was ever permitted to hinder His drawing near to any man who wanted to draw near to Him, so nothing now hinders it; and He is glad when any of us resort to Him and ask Him to let us speak to Him and be with Him. His weariness or occupation never shut men out from Him then. His glory does not shut them out now.

Then there is another thought here. This invitation of the Master is also a very distinct call to a firsthand knowledge of Jesus Christ. Andrew and John had heard from the Baptist about Him, and now what He bids them to do is to come and hear Himself. That is what He calls you, dear brethren, to do. Do not listen to us, let the Master Himself speak to you. Many who reject Christianity reject it through not having listened to Jesus Himself teaching them, but only to theologians and other human representations of the truth. Go and ask Christ to speak to you with His own lips of truth, and take Him as the Expositor of His own system. Do not be contented with traditional talk and second-hand information. Go to Christ, and hear what He Himself has to say to you.

Then, still further, in this ‘Come and see’ there is a distinct call to the personal act of faith. Both of these words, ‘come’ and ‘ see,’ are used in the New Testament as standing emblems of faith. Coming to Christ is trusting Him; trusting Him is seeing Him, looking unto Him. ‘Come unto Me, and I will give you rest,’ ‘Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth.’ There are two metaphors, both of them pointing to one thing, and that one thing is the invitation from the dear lips of the loving Lord to every man, woman, and child in this congregation. ‘Come and see!’ ‘Put your trust in Me, draw near to Me by desire and penitence, draw near to Me in the fixed thought of your mind, in the devotion of your will, in the trust of your whole being. Come to Me, and see Me by faith; and then-and then-your hearts will have found what they seek, and your weary quest will be over, and, like the dove, you will fold your wings and nestle at the foot of the Cross, and rest for evermore. Come! “Come and see!”‘

III. So, lastly, we have in these words a parable of the blessed experience which binds men’s hearts to Jesus for ever. ‘They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.’

‘Dwelt’ and ‘abode’ are the same words in the original. It is one of John’s favourite words, and in its deepest meaning expresses the close, still communion which the soul may have with Jesus Christ, which communion, on that never-to-be-forgotten day, when he and Andrew sat with Him in the quiet, confidential fellowship that disclosed Christ’s glory ‘full of grace and truth’ to their hearts, made them His for ever.

If the reckoning of time here is made according to the Hebrew fashion, the ‘tenth hour’ will be ten o’clock in the morning. So, one long day of talk! If it be according to the Roman legal fashion, the hour will be four o’clock in the afternoon, which would only give time for a brief conversation before the night fell. But, in any case, sacred reserve is observed as to what passed in that interview. A lesson for a great deal of blatant talk, in this present day, about conversion and the details thereof!

‘Not easily forgiven

Are those, who setting wide the doors, that bar

The secret bridal chambers of the heart.

Let in the day.’

John had nothing to say to the world about what the Master said to him and his brother in that long day of communion.

One plain conclusion from this last part of our narrative is that the impression of Christ’s own personality is the strongest force to make disciples. The character of Jesus Christ is, after all, the central and standing evidence and the mightiest credential of Christianity. It bears upon its face the proof of its own truthfulness. If such a character was not lived, how did it ever come to be described, and described by such people? And if it was lived, how did it come to be so? The historical veracity of the character of Jesus Christ is guaranteed by its very uniqueness. And the divine origin of Jesus Christ is forced upon us as the only adequate explanation of His historical character. ‘Truly this man was the Son of God.’

I believe that to lift Him up is the work of all Christian preachers and teachers; as far as they can to hide themselves behind Jesus Christ, or at the most to let themselves appear, just as the old painters used to let their own likenesses appear in their great altar-pieces-a little kneeling figure there, away in a dark corner of the background. Present Christ, and He will vindicate His own character; He will vindicate His own nature; He will vindicate His own gospel. ‘They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him,’ and the end of it was that they abode with Him for evermore. And so it will always be.

Once more, personal experience of the grace and sweetness of this Saviour binds men to Him as nothing else will:

‘He must be loved ere that to you

He will seem worthy of your love.’

The deepest and sweetest and most precious part of His character and of His gifts can only be known on condition of possessing Him and them, and they can be possessed only on condition of holding fellowship with Him. I do not say to any man: ‘Try trust in order to be sure that Jesus Christ is worthy to be trusted,’ for by its very nature faith cannot be an experiment or provisional. I do not say that my experience is evidence to you, but at the same time I do say that it is worth any man’s while to reflect upon this, that none who ever trusted in Him have been put to shame. No man has looked to Jesus and has said: ‘Ah! I have found Him out! His help is vain, His promises empty.’ Many men have fallen away from Him, I know, but not because they have proved Him untruthful, but because they have become unfaithful.

And so, dear brethren, I come to you with the old message, ‘Oh! taste,’ and thus you will ‘see that the Lord is good.’ There must be the faith first, and then there will be the experience, which will make anything seem to you more credible than that He whom you have loved and trusted, and who has answered your love and your trust, should be anything else than the Son of God, the Saviour of mankind. Come to Him and you will see. The impregnable argument will be put into your mouth-’Whether this man be a sinner or no, I know not. One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.’ Look to Him, listen to Him, and when He asks you, ‘What seek ye?’ answer, ‘Rabbi, where dwellest Thou? It is Thou whom I seek.’ He will welcome you to close blessed intercourse with Him, which will knit you to Him with cords that cannot be broken, and with His loving voice making music in memory and heart, you will be able triumphantly to confess-’Now we believe, not because of any man’s saying, for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

speak = speaking. Greek. laleo.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

37.] We must not understand . in the narrower sense which it bears when they left all and followed Him; but here only of mechanical going after Him, , Euthym[33]

[33] Euthymius Zigabenus, 1116

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Joh 1:37. , followed) of their own accord from behind. [Here were] the first commencements of the Christian Church. At the beginning Jesus invited disciples with a kind of milk-like [lacte, alluring] sweetness. [You will not find that He appointed certain hours for instructing disciples; but all His conversation presented [the aspect of one] continued instruction and lasting training, at one time the handle [for instruction] being given by a marriage; at another time, in overwhelming straits on the water; at another time in a case of household need; at another time when some one was sick; at another time, on the occasion of some lapse on the part of the disciples. Immediately, as it were, on the highway (before the public, and on the spot in trivio) He taught, reproved, bent, bore with, admonished, tried, strengthened, established them, and opened out to them one part of the truth after another, and freed them from one false conception after another, commencing from these first [earliest] times all along to His ascension.-Harm., p. 157.]

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Joh 1:37

Joh 1:37

And the two disciples heard him speak,-Some of the disciples of John were jealous that Jesus gathered followers at the expense of John, but John had none of this feeling. He came to make ready a people for Jesus, bear testimony to his claims, and direct his disciples to Jesus as the Lord, and rejoiced to see him increase, while he himself decreased in followers.

and they followed Jesus.-Again at a later date he with two of Us disciples saw Jesus walking and again bore witness that he was the Son of God and his disciples thus assured left John and followed Jesus.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

and they: Joh 1:43, Joh 4:39-42, Pro 15:23, Zec 8:21, Rom 10:17, Eph 4:29, Rev 22:17

Reciprocal: Joh 1:41 – first

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

7

The two disciples were the ones mentioned in verse 35, to whom John repeated his presentation phrase in verse 36.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Joh 1:37. And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. The witness of the Baptist has its proper effect,an effect, we cannot doubt, foreseen and designed by himself (chap. Joh 3:27-30). Those who listen to it turn from him, and follow Jesus.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

This latter part of the chapter acquaints us with the calling of five disciples; not to the apostleship, for that was afterwards; nor yet simply by conversion, for some of them were John’s disciples already, and believed in the Messiah to come; but they are here called to own and acknowledge Jesus Christ to be the true and promsied Messiah.

The disciples here called were Andrew, Peter, and Philip, mean and obscure persons, poor fishermen, not any of the learned rabbies and doctors among the Jews. Hereby Christ showed at once the freeness of his grace, in passing by the knowing men of the age; the greatness of his power, who by such weak instruments could effect such mighty things; and the glory of his wisdom, in choosing such instruments as should not carry away the glory of the work from him; but cause the entire honour and glory of all their great successes to redound to Christ. As Christ can do, so he chooses to do, great things by weak means, knowing the weakness of the instrument redounds to the greater honour of the ages; for these persons now called to be disciples, were afterwards sent forth by Christ as his apostles, to convert the world to Christianity.

Observe farther, The order according to which the disciples were called: first, Andrew, then Peter; (which may make the church of Rome ashamed of the weakness of their argument for Peter’s supremacy, that he was first called; whereas Andrew was before him, and Peter was brought to Jesus by him.) Andrew findeth his own brother Simon, and brought him to Jesus. Such as have gotten any knowledge of Christ themselves, and are let into acquaintance with him, will be very diligent to invite and industrious to bring in, others to him. Peter being brought to Christ, our Saviour names him Cephas, which signifies a stone, a rock; to intimate to him his duty to be firm and steady in the Christian profession, full of courage and constancy. Thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Ver. 37. And the two disciples heard him speak thus, and they followed Jesus.

John’s word, which was an exclamation, was understood. It is very evident that, in the thought of the evangelist, these words: And they followed Jesus, conceal, under their literal sense, a richer meaning. This first step in following Jesus decided their whole life; the bond, apparently accidental, which was formed at that hour, was, in reality, an eternal bond.

The Testimonies of the Forerunner.

We have still to examine three questions which criticism has raised in regard to these testimonies.

I. Baur and Keim maintain that the narrative of the fourth Gospel denies, by its silence, the fact of the Baptism of Jesus by John; and this for the dogmatic reason, that it would have been contrary to the dignity of the Logos to receive the Holy Spirit. Hilgenfeld himself rejects this view (Einl. pp. 702 and 719): The baptism of Jesus, he says, is supposed, not related. The second testimony of John Joh 1:31 f., mentions it as an accomplished fact, and Joh 1:32-33 imply it, since their meaning can only be this: Among the Israelites who shall come to thy baptism, there shall be found one on whom, when thou shalt baptize him, thou shalt see the Spirit descend…. Holtzmann has recognized the indisputable bearing of this passage. But if the fact is not related, it is simply, because, as we have discovered, the starting point of the narrative is chosen subsequently to the baptism. If the Logos-theory in our Gospel were to play the part which, in this case, Baur and Keim attribute to it, it would exclude from the history of Jesus many other facts which are related at full length by our evangelist.

II. It has been regarded as inconceivable, that, after such a sign and such declarations, the Baptist could have addressed to Jesus, from the depths of his prison, this question: Art thou he that should come, or are we to look for another (Mat 11:3)? Strauss has derived from this proceeding of John, a ground for denying the whole scene of the baptism. Some of the Fathers supposed that the forerunner wished thereby only to strengthen the faith of his disciples by calling forth a positive declaration, on Jesus’ part, respecting His Messianic character. But the terms of the Synoptical account do not allow this meaning. Two circumstances may be alleged which must have exercised an unfavorable influence upon John’s faith; first, his imprisonment (Meyer), then the malevolent disposition of his disciples with regard to Jesus (Joh 3:26), which might have reacted at length on the already depressed spirit of their master.

These two circumstances undoubtedly prepared the way for the shaking of faith produced in John; but they cannot suffice to explain it; we must add, withBaumlein, the fact that there was in John, besides the prophet, the natural man who was by no means secure from falling. This is what Jesus gives us to understand when, in His reply, He said, evidently thinking of John: Blessed is he who is not offended in me (Mat 11:6 comp. with Joh 1:11). Lucke has explained this fall by the striking contrast between the expectation, which John had expressed, of a powerful and judicial activity of the Messiah in order to purify the theocracy, and the humble and patient labor of Jesus. A comparison of the reply of the latter to the messengers of John (Mat 11:4-6) with the proclamations of John (Mat 3:10; Mat 3:12) is enough to convince us of the justice of this observation. But to all this we must still add a last and more decisive fact. It is this: John did not for an instant doubt concerning the divine mission of Jesus and concerning this mission as higher than his own. This follows, first, from the fact that it is to Jesus Himself that he addresses himself in order to be enlightened, and then, from the very meaning of his question: Art thou he that should come or are we to look for another (literally, a second)? We must recall to mind here the prevailing doubt, at that time, in relation to the prophet, like to Moses, whose coming was to prepare the way for that of the Messiah (according to Deu 18:18). Some identified him with the Messiah himself; comp. Joh 6:14-15 : It is of a truth the prophet….They were going to take him by force, tomake him king. Others, on the contrary, distinguished this prophet par excellence, from the Messiah properly so-called; comp. Joh 7:40-41.

They attributed, probably, to the first of these personages the spiritual side of the expected transformation, and to the Messiah, as King descended from David, the political side of this renovation. John the Baptist had, at first, united these two offices in the single person of Jesus. But learning in his prison that the work of Jesus limited itself to working miracles of healing, to giving forth the preachings of a purely prophetic character, he asks himself whether this anointed one of the Holy Spirit would not have as His part in the Messianic work only the spiritual office, and whether the political restoration and the outward judgment announced by him would not be devolved upon a subsequent messenger; to the divine prophet, the work of pardon and regeneration; to the King of a Davidic race, the acts of power which were destined to realize the external triumph of the Kingdom of God.

This is precisely what the form of the question in Matthew expresses: , not : a second (Messiah); not: another(as Messiah): this expression really ascribes to Jesus the Messianic character, only not exclusively. At the foundation, this distinction which was floating before the eyes of the Baptist had in it nothing erroneous. It answers quite simply to the two offices of Jesus, at His first and second coming. At the first coming, pardon and the Spirit; at the second, judgment and royalty. The Jewish learned men were led by the apparently contradictory prophecies of the Old Testament, to an analogous distinction. Buxtorf (Lexic. Chaldaic. p. 1273) and Eisenmenger (Entdeckt, Judenth. pp. 744f.) cite a mass of rabbinical passages which distinguish two Messiahs,the one, whom they call the son of Joseph, or of Ephraim, to whom they ascribe the humiliations foretold respecting the Messiah; the other, whom they name the son of David, to whom they apply the prophecies of glory. The first will make war, and will perish; for him the sufferings; the second will raise the first to life again and will live eternally. Those who shall escape from the sword of the first, will fall under that of the second. The one shall not bear envy against the other, juxta fidem nostram, says Jarchi (ad. Jes. 11.13). These last words attest the high antiquity of this idea.

III. Renan (Vie de Jesus, pp. 108f.) draws a poetic picture of the relation between these two young enthusiasts, full of the same hopes and the same hates, who were able to make common cause and mutually to support each other. He describes Jesus arriving from Galilee with a little school already formed, and John fully welcoming this swarm of young Galileans, even though they do not attach themselves to him but form a separate band around Jesus. We have not many examples, it is true, observes Renan, of the head of a school eagerly welcoming the one who is to succeed him; but is not youth capable of all self-abnegations? Behold the romance: the history shows us Jesus arriving alone and receiving from John himself these young Galileans who are for the future to accompany Him. We can understand how there is in this story a troublesome fact for those who are unwilling to explain the history except by natural causes.

The manner in which John the Baptist, at the height of his ascendant and his glory, throws himself immediately and voluntarily into the shade that he may leave the field free for one younger than himself, who until then was completely obscure, cannot be explained by the natural generosity of youth. Conscious, as he was, of the divinity of his mission, John could not thus retire into the shade except before a divine demonstration of the higher mission of Jesus. The conduct of John the Baptist, as attested by our four evangelists, remains for the historian, who does not recognize here the work of God, an insoluble problem. Before closing, one word more on a fancy of Keim. This scholar alleges (I., p 525) that, in opposition to the Synoptical account (comp. especially Luk 3:21), our Gospel makes Jesus the first of all the people to come to the baptism of John. Where do we find in John’s narrative a word which justifies this assertion? But: sic volo, sic jubeo!

IV. We are now able to embrace the Messianic testimony of the Baptist in its totality. First, the calling of the people to repentance and baptism, with the vague announcement of the nearness of the Messiah. He comes! (See the Synoptics.) Then, the three days which form the beginning of the narrative of John: He is present! Behold Him! Follow Him! Finally, the last summons: Woe unto you, if you refuse to follow Him! (Joh 3:28-36.) This totality is so much the more remarkable as the particular elements of it are scattered in several writings and different narratives.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

1:37 {17} And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.

(17) In this first gathering of the disciples we have shown to us that the beginning of salvation is from God, who calls us unto his Son by the ministry of his servants: whom, as he guides us, we must also hear, and follow him home, so that being instructed by him we may also instruct others.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Two of John the Baptist’s disciples started following Jesus because of John’s witness. This was perfectly proper since John’s ministry was to point others to Jesus. They were not abandoning the Baptist for a more popular teacher. They were simply doing what John urged his hearers to do. They began following Jesus physically to learn from Him. They also took the first steps toward genuine discipleship. This was no tentative inquiry but a giving of themselves to Him as disciples. [Note: Morris, p. 137.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)