Charles Ellicott Commentary John 5:39

"Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me;" — John 5:39 (ASV)

Search the scriptures.—Better, You search the Scriptures. The question of whether the mood is imperative or indicative—whether we have here a command to examine the writings of the Old Testament canon, or a reference to their habit of doing so—is one that has been discussed throughout the entire history of New Testament exposition. It is also one on which the opinion of those best qualified to judge has been, and still is, almost equally divided.

It is not a question of the form of the Greek word, as it may certainly be either. The English reader, therefore, is in a position to form his own opinion and is in possession of almost all the evidence. He should observe that all the parallel verbs in the context are in the indicative—You have neither heard... nor have seen (John 5:37); You have not His Word... you believe not (John 5:38); You think that... you have (John 5:39); You will not... you might have (John 5:40). Why should there be a sudden change of construction in this instance only?

We find, then, this order of thought:

1. God has witnessed of Me in the Old Testament, but you, with unreceptive hearts, have never heard a voice nor seen a shape of God (John 5:37).
2. You do not have His word dwelling in you, or it would have witnessed of Me (John 5:38).
3. Instead of receiving the Scriptures as a living power within you, you search and explain their letter from without (John 5:39).
4. You think they contain eternal life, and hence your reverence for them (John 5:39).
5. They really are witnesses of Me, and yet you, seeking eternal life in them, are not willing to come to Me that you may have this life.

It is believed that this is the most natural interpretation of the words and that it gives a fuller meaning than any other to the teaching of Christ.
The only weighty objection to it is that the Greek word for “search” (ἐρευνᾶτε) is one that would not have implied blame. It means to search after, track, inquire after ; but surely, this is just the expression for the literal spirit in which the Rabbis treated their Scriptures. Moreover, it is not the searching that is a matter for blame, but the fact of searching and not finding, which is a matter for wonder.

Here, too, as elsewhere, the argument from the meaning of a Greek word must be pressed only within strict limits, when we remember that in translation it represents a late Hebrew original. The Hebrew language had a word that was frequently on every Rabbi’s lips at that time and that exactly corresponds to it.

As early as the Book of Chronicles, we find mention of the Midrashim, or Commentaries, in the sense in which this word is used, for example, in “Cæsar’s Commentaries.” The rest of the Acts of Abijah are written in the Midrash of the prophet Iddo (2 Chronicles 13:22).

More than we now know of the history of Joash is written in the Midrash of the Book of Kings (2 Chronicles 24:27). In both cases, our Authorized Version renders the word as “story;” but this was at a time when its connection with “history,” as involving “inquiry,” was not forgotten. (Compare The Translators to the Reader: “This will be easily granted by as many as know story, or have any experience.”)

These Midrashim sprang up after the Captivity, when the people had lost the older language of the Law and the Prophets. Paraphrases, expositions, and homilies became necessary at first, but they grew into a vast and intricate system with “Secrets,” “Precepts,” “Fences,” and Traditions of Elders (Matthew 15:2; Mark 7:3), which gave abundant room for human learning and pride but made the word of God of none effect (Matthew 15:6; Mark 7:13).

Now, the period of the arrangement of the Midrashim of the Law commenced half a century before the ministry of Christ. Hillel the First succeeded to the presidency of the Sanhedrin in 30 B.C., and Akiba, his successor in the compilation of the Mishna, was a boy when these words were spoken.

The influence of the former was all-powerful among those who now accused Jesus of breaking what the Law did not contain but the Midrash did. Those who now listened to Christ were disciples or assistants of the great Rabbi whose school of a thousand pupils left eighty names of note.

May it not be, then, that the true meaning of these words is to be found in their bearing upon these Rabbinic lives and works: “You make your Midrashim on the Scriptures; you explain, and comment, and seek for hidden mystic meaning; you do all this because you think they contain eternal life. Their true meaning is not hidden; they tell of life, and you who seek it do not hear them, and will not come to Me that you might have life.”