But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham didn’t do this.
Parallel Translations
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But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham didn’t do this.
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Ye do the dedes of youre father. Then sayde they vnto him: we were not borne of fornicacion. We have one father which is God.
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But nowe ye goe about to kill mee, a man that haue told you the trueth, which I haue heard of God: this did not Abraham.
Cross-references (12)
Passages linked to John 8:40 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- John 8:26 I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you. However he who sent me is true; and the things which I heard from him, these I say to the world.”
- Galatians 4:29 But as then, he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.
- Galatians 4:16 So then, have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?
- Psalms 37:32 The wicked watch the righteous, and seek to kill him.
- Revelation 12:12-13 Therefore rejoice, heavens, and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil has gone down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has but a short time.” When the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.
- Psalms 37:12 The wicked plots against the just, and gnashes at him with his teeth.
- John 8:37-38 I know that you are Abraham’s offspring, yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you. I say the things which I have seen with my Father; and you also do the things which you have seen with your father.”
- John 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it, and was glad.”
- Romans 4:12 He is the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had in uncircumcision.
- 1 John 3:12-15 unlike Cain, who was of the evil one, and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s righteous. Don’t be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. He who doesn’t love his brother remains in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.
- Revelation 12:4 His tail drew one third of the stars of the sky, and threw them to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.
- Revelation 12:17 The dragon grew angry with the woman, and went away to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep God’s commandments and hold Jesus’ testimony.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (9 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 40. But now you seek to kill me. He…
40. But now you seek to kill me. He proves from the effect, that they are not the children of God, as they boasted, because they oppose God. And, indeed, is there any thing in Abraham that is more highly commended than the obedience of faith? This then is the mark of distinction, whenever we are required to distinguish between his children and strangers; for empty titles, whatever estimation they may procure before the world, are of no account with God. Christ therefore concludes again, that they are the children of the devil, because they hate with deadly hatred true and sound doctrine.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 40 But now ye seek to kill me, a…
40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
Ver. 40. A man that hath told you the truth] Yea, but you tell them not toothless truth, but such as breeds hatred. He that prizeth (preacheth) truth, shall never prosper by the possession or profession thereof, saith Sir Walter Raleigh. And, truth is a good mistress, saith another; but he that followeth her too close at heels, may hap have his teeth struck out. The hearing of truth galls, as they write of some creatures, that they have fel in aure. Praedicare, nihil aliud est, quam derivare in se furorem mundi, said Luther, who had the experience of it.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain You declare by your actions that you are very…
You declare by your actions that you are very far from the spirit and temper of Abraham: I am one who, being sent of God, whom you own as your Father, have faithfully revealed the will of God to you, and have never told you any thing but the truth; and this is all my crime, for which you seek to murder me: this was none of your father Abraham’s practice; so as though you have something of Abraham’s blood, yet you have nothing of Abraham’s spirit in you.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Why do ye not understand my speech?.... Language, idiom,…
Why do ye not understand my speech?.... Language, idiom, dialect, and form of speaking, in a figurative way; for they did not know what he meant by liberty, and bondage, and by having another father than Abraham, or by his own procession and coming forth from God:
even because ye cannot hear my word; as they had no spiritual discerning and understanding of the doctrine of Christ, which showed them to be carnal, and natural men, and not regenerate ones, and the children of God; so they had an aversion to it, and could not bear to hear it.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Ye seek to kill me - See Joh 8:37.
Ye seek to kill me - See Joh 8:37.
This did not Abraham - Or such things Abraham did not do. There are two things noted here in which they differed from Abraham:
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1. In seeking to kill him, or in possessing a murderous and bloody purpose.
2. In rejecting the truth as God revealed it. Abraham was distinguished for love to man as well as God. He liberated the captives Gen 14:14-16; was distinguished for hospitality to strangers Gen 18:1-8; and received the revelations of God to him, however mysterious, or however trying their observance, Gen 12:1-4; Gen 15:4-6; 22. It was for these things that he is so much commended in the New Testament Rom 4:9; Rom 9:9; Gal 3:6; and, as the Jews sought to kill Jesus instead of treating him hospitably and kindly, they showed that they had none of the spirit of Abraham.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain this did not Abraham--In so doing ye act in…
this did not Abraham--In so doing ye act in direct opposition to him.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 40. ‘On the contrary, ye seek to commit murder,…
40. ‘On the contrary, ye seek to commit murder, and a murder of the most heinous kind. Ye would kill One who hath spoken unto you the truth, truth which He learnt from God.’
a man that hath told you] This pointed insertion of ‘man’ possibly looks forward to Joh_8:44, where they are called the children of the great man-slayer, lusting like him for blood. The Lord nowhere else uses this term of Himself.
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this did not Abraham] A litotes or understatement of the truth. Abraham’s life was utterly unlike the whole tenour of theirs. What could there be in common between ‘the Friend of God’ (Jas_2:23) and the enemies of God’s Son?
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (40) But now ye seek to kill me—i.e., As…
(40) But now ye seek to kill me—i.e., As a matter of fact, in opposition to the conduct which would characterise the true children of Abraham, ye are seeking to kill Me. (Comp. Note on Joh_8:37.)
A man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard (better, which I heard) from God.—The term “a man,” expresses His revelation, by means of human form, of the divine truth which He heard in the pre-human state (Joh_8:38). The crime of seeking to kill Him is aggravated by the fact that He was One who came to tell them truth, and that from God. They seek to destroy the human life which for the sake of humanity He has assumed.
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This did not Abraham.—It is usual to explain these words by a reference to Abraham’s receptivity of the divine truth and messengers (see Genesis 12; Genesis 14; Genesis 18; Genesis 22); but they probably point to the whole course of the patriarchal life as directly opposed to the spirit of those who claim to be his children.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain But now, as things are, ye are seeking plotting,…
But now, as things are, ye are seeking plotting, contriving, in subtle ways and by false chargesto kill me. The entire discourse is made more obvious by our Lord"s discovery of the plot of the last few days, and by his allowing his friends and opponents to know that he had penetrated the thin, subtle disguise under which this murderous plan was veiled. The excitement produced by this bold charge among his own true disciples, and those who now for the first time heard of it, by our Lord"s then and there lifting the veil from many a specious question; the look of guilt on the countenances of some, of truculent admission of the charge in the gesture of others; the loud murmurs and confused cries of the crowd, must all be realized to apprehend the tremendous crisis which had now arrived. He aggravated the charge by describing himself as a man who hath declared to you the truth which I heard from God. This is the only place where the Lord speaks of himself as a man". (cf. 1Ti_2:5) He here describes himself as One who is subject and liable to their murderous passiona man, seeing that his eternal Personality has been presented to his antagonists in the form of man. His manhood was the link of relation between the God who sent him, taught him, surrounded and enveloped him, and the consciousness of his hearers. This is the highest representation of the very conception of a Divine commission and a Divine message. They were seeking to stamp out a Divine fire, to drown a heavenly voice, to refuse and trample upon a sacred Messenger. This did not Abraham. The father of the faithful was susceptible to the heavenly voice, he heard and obeyed the voice of Jehovah with childlike docility. (Ge 12 Ge 14 Ge 18 Ge 22) The visions, the commands, the messengers, the manifestations, of God to Abraham were so readily accepted that his faith is a proverb, and his greatest name is "friend of God." The wilful, hurried, malicious treatment of both the Divine Messenger and the sacred message, both of which Jesus declared to have come directly from God, proves the lack of relation with the Life of Abraham. They might be Abraham"s "seed" (sperma) but not his (tekna) children, and he in this sense could not be their "father."
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.