Biblion Bible Commentary
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No One Snatches Them
John 10:19-31
19 Therefore a division arose again among the Jews because of these words. · WEB
At a winter feast they ask him to say plainly whether he is the Christ, and the answer is about hands.
Therefore a division arose again among the Jews because of these words John 10:19.
The verdicts are the two available: he has a demon and is insane, and it isn't possible for a demon to open the eyes of the blind, is it? John 10:20–21. The second party is arguing from the last chapter's healing, which is how this book keeps the signs working.
It was the Feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter John 10:22–23.
The setting is chosen. Dedication remembered the cleansing of a temple that had been defiled and the rekindling of its lamps — a feast about a sanctuary restored and about a people delivered from a foreign king. Two months have passed since chapter nine.
It was winter is the sort of thing a man says when he remembers the weather, and this Gospel has a habit of noting the hour and the season.
"How long will you hold us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly" John 10:24.
The demand sounds fair and it is not quite honest, since the whole of the last two chapters has been plain enough to get him nearly stoned. What they want is a formulation they can use.
"I told you, and you don't believe. The works that I do in my Father's name, these testify about me. But you don't believe, because you are not of my sheep" John 10:25–26.
The answer says the problem was never the clarity, and it inverts what they would expect. Not you are not my sheep because you do not believe — the other way round. Belonging comes first in this book, and belief is how it shows.
"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand" John 10:27–28.
The promise is stated with the strongest negative the language has, and it repays reading slowly. Never perish — the same verb as in the third chapter's should not perish John 3:16. No one will snatch — the verb is the wolf's from verse twelve, and it is now said to be impossible.
What secures the sheep is not their grip. It is whose hand they are in, which is the only comfort available to animals that are famously prone to wandering.
"My Father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one" John 10:29–30.
The argument builds a second hand around the first and then says the two are one thing. And the last sentence is precise in the Greek: one is neuter, not masculine — one thing, not one person. It is not a collapse of Father and Son into a single figure, which the prologue ruled out in its first verse John 1:1; it is a unity of being and action, and the context is a grip on the same sheep.
Therefore the Jews took up stones again to stone him John 10:31.
For the second time in three chapters John 8:59. Whatever the sentence means, they did not hear it as a modest claim about cooperation.
settled What this mark means