Charles Ellicott Commentary John 11:51

"Now this he said not of himself: but, being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation;" — John 11:51 (ASV)

And this spake he not of himself.—There is a moral beauty in the Words, in spite of the diabolical intent with which they are uttered; and St. John adds the explanation that they had an origin higher than him who spoke them. Writing after the events, he has seen them fulfilled, and regards them as an unconscious prophecy. Like another Balaam, Caiaphas was the oracle of God in spite of himself, and there is in his words a meaning far beyond any that he had intended.

Being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation.—He stood, therefore, in a relation that made him the official representative of God to the people, and gave him an official capacity to convey God’s truth. This was represented in the days of Samuel by the Urim and Thummim; and John, himself a Jew, still thinks of the high priest’s breast as bearing the oracle that declared the will of God, whatever unworthy human thoughts may have filled the heart beneath.

It may be that another reference to the high priest’s office is present in these thrice-written words. It was the high priest’s duty to enter within the veil, and make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year (Leviticus 16:0).

In that year the veil was torn, and the first step was taken by which the holy place was destroyed, and the high priest’s office ceased to exist. With the destruction of the holy place the Jewish day of Atonement lost its significance, but the high priest that year, by his counsel and action in the Sanhedrin, was causing the sacrifice that would be presented by another high priest, in the Holy of Holies as an Atonement for the world—Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:11–12).