If the world hate you
After our Lord had signified how much he loved his disciples and
what great things he had done for them, he faithfully acquaints
them with the world's hatred of them, and what they must expect
to meet with from that quarter, and says many things to fortify
their minds against it; his words do not imply any doubt about
it, but he rather takes it for granted, as a thing out of
question; "if", or "seeing the world hate you"; they had had some
experience of it already, and might look for more, when their
master was gone from them: wherefore, he, in order to engage
their patience under it, says,
ye know that it hated me before it hated you;
which words are an appeal of Christ to his apostles, for the
usage he had met with from the wicked and unbelieving world of
the Jews; how they had expressed their hatred, not only by words,
calling him a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a sinner, a
Samaritan, a madman, one that had a devil, yea, Beelzebub
himself, but by deeds; taking up stones to stone him more than
once, leading him to the brow of an hill, in order to cast him
down headlong, consulting by various means to take away his life,
as Herod did in his very infancy; which was done, before they
showed so much hatred to his disciples; and perhaps reference may
be had to the original enmity between the seed of the woman, and
the seed of the serpent, mentioned ( Genesis 3:15
) ; as well as to these instances. Moreover, the words
(prwton umwn) , rendered
"before you", may be translated "the first" or "chief of you",
your Lord and head; and denotes the dignity, excellency, and
superiority of Christ; wherefore it is suggested, that if he, who
was so much before them in personal worth and greatness, was
hated by the world, they should not think it hard, or any strange
thing, that this should be their case.