Verse 48
48. Answered the Jews They seem for a while silenced by the terrible words of John 8:44, in which Jesus assigns them their true dark satanic character. They now rally to assault, and reduce him to the defensive by making himself the topic of debate.
Say we not well John 7:20. Daring as we felt our words to be, were they not about true? The same misgiving as to their own fierce blasphemy appears again in Now we know, etc. Between the underlying consciousness of their own wicked falsity and their upper tone of depraved bravado, there is a struggle.
A Samaritan As a favourer of Samaritans, (see notes on Matthew 10:5;) as a reviler of us Jews, (John 8:44;) as worse than a Gentile. For Samaritan was the worst human epithet their vocabulary furnished,
Hast a devil Rather, a demon. The supernatural in him (and something supernatural they are forced to confess) is not divine but diabolical. The superhuman power of his denunciation they are glad to attribute to a devil within him. John narrates no casting out of demons; but all recognize the fact of demoniac possession.
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