John 8:33

33. They answered Many commentators refer this they, not to the many who believed, but to the Jews; the they and them in 14-28. The little episode of 30-32 is thus held as a pleasant parenthesis, and the believers are allowed to be genuine and, perhaps, permanent. But if the they refer to the many, they were already disgusted with his freedom by

truth. Never in bondage The Jewish nation was then in bondage to the Roman power. The freedom of which they speak must have been an ideal freedom, ignoring all acknowledgment of the iron fact of Roman domination. Otherwise, they must mean that they have never been slaves or personal serfs to any slaveholder.