John 7:40

40 When these words came to their ears, some of the people said, This is certainly the prophet.

John 7:40 Meaning and Commentary

John 7:40

Many of the people therefore
Of the common people, and it may be chiefly those that came out of the country:

when they heard this saying;
or discourse of Christ, on the last and great day of the feast, relating to the large measure of grace, and the effusion of the Spirit on him, that believed:

said, of a truth this is the prophet;
spoken of in ( Deuteronomy 18:15 ) , which some understood not of the Messiah, but of some extraordinary prophet distinct from him, who should come before him, or about the same time; or they imagined he was one of the old prophets raised from the dead, whom they also expected about the times of the Messiah: or their sense might only be, that he was a prophet, which was true, though not all the truth; they had some knowledge, though but small; and they spake of him, though but as children in understanding.

John 7:40 In-Context

38 He who has faith in me, out of his body, as the Writings have said, will come rivers of living water.

39 This he said of the Spirit which would be given to those who had faith in him: the Spirit had not been given then, because the glory of Jesus was still to come.

40 When these words came to their ears, some of the people said, This is certainly the prophet.

41 Others said, This is the Christ. But others said, Not so; will the Christ come from Galilee?

42 Do not the Writings say that the Christ comes of the seed of David and from Beth-lehem, the little town where David was?