John 12:41

These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(41) These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory.—The better text is, . . . because he saw His glory. (Comp. Note on the reading in John 12:17.) The result of seeing His glory was that he spake of Him. This is St. John’s interpretation of the prophecy. Isaiah himself tells us, “I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple” (John 6:1). But no man hath seen God at any time. The Word is the express image of His Person. This glory was of the pre-incarnate Word, who was in the beginning with God, and was God.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

12:37-43 Observe the method of conversion implied here. Sinners are brought to see the reality of Divine things, and to have some knowledge of them. To be converted, and truly turned from sin to Christ, as their Happiness and Portion. God will heal them, will justify and sanctify them; will pardon their sins, which are as bleeding wounds, and mortify their corruptions, which are as lurking diseases. See the power of the world in smothering convictions, from regard to the applause or censure of men. Love of the praise of men, as a by-end in that which is good, will make a man a hypocrite when religion is in fashion, and credit is to be got by it; and love of the praise of men, as a base principle in that which is evil, will make a man an apostate, when religion is in disgrace, and credit is to be lost for it.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

When he saw his glory - Isaiah 6:1-10. Isaiah saw the Lord (in Hebrew, יהוה Yahweh) sitting on a throne and surrounded with the seraphim. This is perhaps the only instance in the Bible in which Yahweh is said to have been seen by man, and for this the Jews affirm that Isaiah was put to death. God had said Exodus 33:20, "No man shall see me and live;" and as Isaiah affirmed that he had seen Yahweh, the Jews, for that and other reasons, put him to death by sawing him asunder. See Introduction to Isaiah, Section 2. In the prophecy Isaiah is said expressly to have seen Yahweh John 12:1; and in John 12:5, "Mine eyes have seen the King Yahweh of hosts." By his glory is meant the manifestation of him - the Shechinah, or visible cloud that was a representation of God, and that rested over the mercy-seat. This was regarded as equivalent to seeing God, and John here expressly applies this to the Lord Jesus Christ; for he is nor affirming that the people did not believe in God, but is assigning the reason why they believed not on Jesus Christ as the Messiah. The whole discourse has respect to the Lord Jesus, and the natural construction of the passage requires us to refer it to him. John affirms that it was the glory of the Messiah that Isaiah saw, and yet Isaiah affirms that it was Yahweh; and from this the inference is irresistible that John regarded Jesus as the Yahweh whom Isaiah saw. The name Yahweh is never, in the Scriptures, applied to a man, or an angel, or to any creature. It is the unique, incommunicable name of God. So great was the reverence of the Jews for that name that they would not even pronounce it. This passage is therefore conclusive proof that Christ is equal with the Father.

Spake of him - Of the Messiah. The connection requires this interpretation.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

41. These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him—a key of immense importance to the opening of Isaiah's vision (Isa 6:1-13), and all similar Old Testament representations. "The Son is the King Jehovah who rules in the Old Testament and appears to the elect, as in the New Testament THE Spirit, the invisible Minister of the Son, is the Director of the Church and the Revealer in the sanctuary of the heart" [Olshausen].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The evangelist saith, that these things Esaias said, when he saw his glory, and spake of him. Isaiah’s sight of God’s glory is described, Isaiah 6:1, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, &c. The evangelist expounds this of Christ, which is an evident proof of the Deity of Christ, that he is Jehovah; for it was Jehovah whom the prophet there saw: and that the revelation of that dreadful wrath of God, did not only concern that particular age in which Isaiah lived, but the successive generation of the Jews, whom the prophet saw by the eye of prophecy would tread in the same steps, and use Christ (the Heir) as their forefathers had used him, and the prophets of that age.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

These things said Esaias,.... Concerning the blinding and hardening of the Jews:

when he saw his glory, and spake of him; when he saw, in a visionary way, the glory of the Messiah in the temple, and the angels covering their faces with their wings at the sight of him; and when he spake of him as the King, the Lord of hosts, whom he had seen, Isaiah 6:1, from whence it is clear that he had respect to the Jews in the times of the Messiah. The prophet says in Isaiah 6:1 that he "saw the Lord": the Targumist renders it, "I saw", , "the glory of Jehovah"; and in Isaiah 6:5 he says, "mine eyes have seen the King", Jehovah, Zebaot, the Lord of hosts; which the Chaldee paraphrase renders, "mine eyes have seen", , "the glory" of the Shekinah, the King of the world, the Lord of hosts. Agreeably to which our Lord says here, that he saw his glory, the glory of his majesty, the glory of his divine nature, the train of his divine perfections, filling the temple of the human nature; and he spoke of him as the true Jehovah, the Lord of hosts; and which therefore is a very clear and strong proof of the proper divinity of Christ. And it may be observed from hence, that such persons who have a true, spiritual, and saving sight of Christ, of the glory of his person, and the fulness of his grace, cannot but be speaking of him to others, either in private, or in public, as Isaiah here did, and as the church in Sol 5:10; and as the apostles of Christ, John 1:1; and indeed, should they hold their peace, the stones would cry out; such must, and will speak of his glory in his temple, Psalm 29:9.

Geneva Study Bible

These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

John 12:41. Ὅτι (see the critical notes): because he saw His glory, and (in consequence of this view) spoke of Him. This was the occasion that moved him, and it led to his speaking what is contained in John 12:40.

αὐτοῦ] refers to Christ, the subject of ἰάσομαι, John 12:40, and the chief person in the whole subject under contemplation (John 12:37). According to Isaiah 6:1 ff., the prophet, indeed, beheld God’s glory, God sitting upon His throne, attended by seraphim, etc.; but in the O. T. theophanies, it is just Christ who is present as the Logos,[119] and their glory is His. See on John 1:1. Of course the glory of Christ before the incarnation is intended, the μορφὴ θεοῦ (Php 2:6), in which He was.

καὶ ἐλαλ. περὶ αὐτοῦ] still dependent on ὅτι; ἐλάλησε has the emphasis as the correlate of εἶδε.

[119] From which a conclusion can as little be drawn against the personality of the Logos (Beyschlag, p. 166 f.), as from the angelic theophanies against the personality of the angel or angels concerned (not even in Revelation 5:6). That the idea of angels in the N. T. wavers between personality and personification is not correct. Observe also, that the self-revelation of the devil does not set aside the personality of the man who is the bearer of it (as Judas). Further, the αὐτοῦ, implying the identity of Christ with the Logos, here shows clearly enough that the latter is viewed as personal. Comp. also Pfleiderer, in Hilgenfeld, ZeitsChr. 1866, p. 258.

Expositor's Greek Testament

John 12:41. John’s view of prophecy is given in the words Ταῦτα … αὐτοῦ. “The Targum renders the original words of Isaiah ‘I saw the Lord’ by ‘I saw the Lord’s glory’. St. John states the truth to which this expression points, and identifies the Divine Person seen by Isaiah with Christ.” Westcott. This involves that the Theophanies of the O.T. were mediated by the pre-existent Logos.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

41. when he saw] The better reading is, because he saw. We had a similar double reading in John 12:17, where ‘when’ is to be preferred. In the Greek the difference is only a single letter, ὅτε and ὅτι. Christ’s glory was revealed to Isaiah in a vision, and therefore he spoke of it. The glory of the Son before the Incarnation, when He was ‘in the form of God’ (Php 2:6), is to be understood.

Bengel's Gnomen

John 12:41. Ὅτε εἶδε τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, when he saw His glory) Instead of αὐτοῦ, one or two copies write τοῦ Θεοῦ from John 12:43; but with this reading the application of Isaiah’s inspired declaration to the times of Christ would be weakened.[327] Isaiah, ch. John 6:1 [In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne], saw the divine glory of Jesus: John 1:14, “We beheld His glory, the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father,” John 17:1, etc., in such a way, moreover, as it was about to be revealed in the New Testament, and as the Jews were not about to recognise it.—ΚΑῚ ἘΛΆΛΗΣΕ, and spake) There is to be understood ὅτε, when, as ὅτι, that, is understood at John 12:16. What is pointed to is that speech of the prophet, which is mentioned conjointly with the vision which he saw: Isaiah 6:5, “Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

[327] Dd read τοῦ Θεοῦ αὐτοῦ. Memph. and Theb. Versions read τοῦ Θεοῦ. But ABabc Vulg. Rec. Text and Hil. read αὐτοῦ. Note also that the oldest MSS. ABLX, the Memph. and Theb. Versions, read ὅτι. Dabc Vulg. however support the Rec. Text, ὅτε.—E. and T.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 41. - These things said Isaiah, because he saw his glory, and he spake of him. By this reference to the theophany of Isaiah 6:1, 2 the evangelist here identifies Christ with the Adonai whom the prophet saw in his vision, and thus expresses his conception of the Christ (comp. 1 Corinthians 10:4; Philippians 2:6). Because the prophet saw the glory of Christ, the unutterable majesty of the "Word of God," he delivered, as we know, this tremendous burden. Few utterances of the New Testament convey in more startling form the conviction of the apostles touching the pre-existence of the Lord, and the identification of the Divine Personality of the Christ, with the highest conception that the Hebrew prophet entertained of the Almighty One, of the eternal Godhead. John 12:41

Vincent's Word Studies

When (ὅτε)

The best texts read ὅτι, because.

His glory

In the vision in the temple, Isaiah 6:1, Isaiah 6:3, Isaiah 6:5.

Of Him

Christ.