=57-59. The Judeans therefore said to him, Thou art not yet fifty years old.= No indication of his actual age. The fifty years was specified because this was the age of a perfected maturity, according to Jewish notions (Numb. 4:3, 39; 8:24--Lightfoot).--=And hast thou seen Abraham?= He did not say that he had, but that Abraham had seen him. They pervert his words, partly through stupidity, partly through wilfulness.--=Verily, verily.= The precursor of a specially solemn declaration.--=Before Abraham was born, I am= (γίγνομαι-εἰμί). Two Socinian explanations are afforded of this passage: (1) Before Abraham was born I (Christ) existed in the divine counsels, _i. e._ I was purposed by God and foretold by him; (2) Before Abram can become Abraham, a spiritual father of nations, I (Christ) must be sent forth as the Messiah. They both seem to me to be shifts devised to accommodate Scripture to a theological preconception. All independent Greek scholars (Meyer, Luthardt, Alford, Godet, Tholuck, etc.) agree substantially in their interpretation of the language. Its meaning is made clear by a consideration of the original Greek, in which the contrast is strongly marked between Abraham, who began to be, and Christ, who eternally is; by the context, in which the pre-eminence of Christ above Abraham is clearly implied; by the unexpressed but hardly doubtful reference to the appellation given by the O. T. to Jehovah as the I AM (Exod. 3:14; comp. Matt. 14:27; Mark 6:50; 14:62; John 8:24, 25); and by the interpretation which was put upon Christ’s words by his auditors, who understood them as a claim of divinity, and took up stones to stone him as a blasphemer. Christ, then, by these words, as I understand him, identifies himself, as the N. T. manifestation of the unseen God, with the I AM of the O. T., the One who had manifested the Invisible to Israel in all their history.--=Then took they up stones to cast at him.= The building of the temple was still going on, and stones were probably lying about in the temple court. Stoning was the O. T. punishment for blasphemy, but it could not be lawfully inflicted without trial and judgment.--=Jesus hid himself.= There is no good ground to suppose any miraculous escape, either here or in Luke 4:30. And there is good reason to believe that there was not a miraculous interposition, for Christ never availed himself of any miracle for his own benefit. See Matt. 4:6, note. The clause “going through the midst of them, and so passed by,” is wanting in the best MSS., and is omitted by Alford, Meyer, Godet, Luthardt. The latter traces a curious analogy between this typical expulsion and the final crucifixion of Christ. He hides himself from the eyes of those whom the God of this world has blinded; he leaves the Pharisees apparent victors and in possession of the field; in taking up stones to stone him they show themselves to be murderers at heart, as they afterward became in outward act.