John 11:50 - Exposition

Nor £ consider ; or, nor do ye take account . Hengstenberg shows that where this verb ( λογίζεσθε ) elsewhere occurs, it is used intransitively, and with this Godet agrees; then they take ὅτι , as "because" or for it is expedient for you (the text ὑμῖν is preferred by Meyer, Godet, Westcott and Herr, and the Revised. The chief difference in thought is that it makes the language somewhat more dogmatic, Caiaphas hardly classing himself for the moment with such irresolute companions) that one man should die for ("on behalf of" amounting to "instead of") the people —i.e. for the theocratic organization, whose were the promises, to whom was given the dominion— and not that the entire nation (the political aggregation) perish . Some have supposed (like Lange) Divine purpose lurking in the ἵνα ; but it was rather the maxim of worldly expediency of half-paganized superstition allied in this form to the sacrifice of Codrus, or of Iphigenia, viz. that the extinction of guiltless and innocent victims may be demanded by political necessity, and must be determined upon at once, by the chief court of equity and criminal judicature in the nation. If, thought he, the multitudes accept this Sabbath-breaker, this Worker of miracles, this religious Enthusiast, this moral Reformer, for their Messiah, the Romans will crush the movement, will stamp out the entire religious order; "we" shall be annihilated as a power, the "nation" will be abolished as such. It is more expedient that this one man should suffer than that the whole of our position should be sacrificed.