John 7:40

40 On hearing his words, some people in the crowd said, "Surely this man is `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 Whoever puts his trust in me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from his inmost being!"

39 (Now he said this about the Spirit, whom those who trusted in him were to receive later -- the Spirit had not yet been given, because Yeshua had not yet been glorified.)

40 On hearing his words, some people in the crowd said, "Surely this man is `the prophet'";

41 others said, "This is the Messiah." But others said, "How can the Messiah come from the Galil?

42 Doesn't the Tanakh say that the Messiah is from the seed of Davidf and comes from Beit-Lechem,g the village where David lived?"