Yet a little while am I with you - It will not be long before my death. This is supposed to have been about six months before his death. This speech of Jesus is full of tenderness. They were seeking his life. He tells them that he is fully aware of it; that he will not be long with them; and implies that they should be diligent to seek him while he was yet with them. He was about to die, but they might now seek his favor and find it. When we remember that this was said to his persecutors and murderers; that it was said even while they were seeking his life, we see the special tenderness of his love. Enmity, and hate, and persecution did not prevent his offering salvation to them.

I go unto him that sent me - This is one of the intimations that he gave that he would ascend to God. Compare John 6:62.

Yet a little while am I with you - As he knew that the Pharisees had designed to take and put him to death, and that in about six months from this time, as some conjecture, he should be crucified, he took the present opportunity of giving this information to the common people, who were best disposed towards him, that they might lay their hearts to his teaching, and profit by it, while they had the privilege of enjoying it.

The word αυτοις, to them, in the beginning of this verse, is wanting in BDEGHLMS, more than eighty others, both the Syriac, later Persic, Coptic, Sahidic, Armenian, Gothic, Slavonic, Saxon, most copies of the Vulgate and the Itala. It is omitted also by Euthymius, Theophylact, Augustin, and Bede. Our Lord did not speak these words to the officers who came to apprehend him, as αυτοις here implies, but to the common people, merely to show that he was not ignorant of the designs of the Pharisees, though they had not yet been able to put them into practice.

Then said Jesus unto them,.... To the officers that were sent to take him, and other unbelieving Jews that were about him:

yet a little while am I with you; no longer than till the next passover, which was but about half a year at most: this he might say, partly to quicken the attention of the people to him, to make the best use and improvement of his ministry whilst they had it, since in a little time he would be removed from them; and partly to suggest to the officers that were sent to take him, that they, and their masters, need not have given themselves that trouble, for in a short time he should be gone from them, and till that time he should continue in spite of them.

And then I go unto him that sent me; still confirming his mission from God, expressing his death by going, and as being voluntary, and signifying his glory and happiness after it.

Unto them

Omit.

I go (ὑπάγω)

I withdraw. See on John 6:21.

Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me.

7:33 Yet a little while I am with you. Aware of the rulers, he foretells his return to heaven.

7:33 Then said Jesus - Continuing his discourse (from John 7:29) which they had interrupted.

33, 34. Yet a little while, &c.-that is, "Your desire to be rid of Me will be for you all too soon fulfilled. Yet a little while and we part company-for ever; for I go whither ye cannot come: nor, even when ye at length seek Him whom ye now despise, shall ye be able to find Him"-referring not to any penitential, but to purely selfish cries in their time of desperation.

7:31-36 The discourses of Jesus convinced many that he was the Messiah; but they had not courage to own it. It is comfort to those who are in the world, but not of it, and therefore are hated by it and weary of it, that they shall not be in it always, that they shall not be in it long. Our days being evil, it is well they are few. The days of life and of grace do not last long; and sinners, when in misery, will be glad of the help they now despise. Men dispute about such sayings, but the event will explain them.