Then Jesus said unto them
Not directly answering to their questions, but suggests to them
their ignorance and stupidity, amidst so much light, that was
about them:
yet a little while is the light with you:
meaning either himself, the light of the world, ( John 8:12 ) ( 12:46 ) , who was to be
but a very little while longer with them, a few days more, and he
was to go away from them by death, and be seen and heard no more
by them: or the Gospel, which, though that was to continue
somewhat longer, it being, after Christ's death, resurrection,
and ascension, to be preached to the Jews, both in Judea, and in
other parts of the world; yet that would be but for a little
while, as the event has shown; for the Jews rejecting the Gospel,
and putting it away from them, the apostles, as they were
ordered, turned to the Gentiles, ( Acts 13:46 Acts 13:47 ) ;
walk while ye have the light:
that is, as it is explained in ( John 12:36 ) , "believe
ye in the light": which the Persic version adds here, and leaves
out there: and the sense is, believe in the Messiah, and in his
Gospel; embrace him and that, and walk on in him, and worthy of
him and of his Gospel, as children of the light:
lest darkness come upon you;
suddenly, at an unawares; either a greater degree of the darkness
of ignorance and unbelief; even a judicial blindness and
stupidity, which did seize on that people, and continues upon
them to this day; or the darkness of afflictions, calamities, and
distress, and which have come upon them to the uttermost, to the
destruction of their temple, city, and nation; or else a worse
darkness, even blackness of darkness, outer darkness in hell,
where are weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.
For he that walketh in darkness, knoweth not whither he
goeth;
he cannot see his way, nor the stumbling blocks that lie in it,
and the dangers he is exposed unto; nor does he know where it
leads, and what is the end of it; and just so it is with a man in
a state of unregeneracy, and more especially under judicial
blindness: he is not aware of the pits and snares that lie in his
way, or of the dark mountains on which he stumbles; and though
destruction and misery are in his ways, he knows not that he is
going thereunto.