What Does John 12:38 Mean?

(38) **That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled.**—This is the first instance in this Gospel of a phrase familiar to us already from its frequent occurrence in St. Matthew. We shall find it again in John 13:18; John 15:25; John 17:12; John 18:9; John 18:32; John 19:24; John 19:36. Its frequency is one of the characteristics of the two Gospels which are most allied to Hebrew modes of thought. St. Matthew and St. John both regard the events of our Lord’s life as fulfilling the prophecies of the Old Testament Scriptures. These prophecies foretold what in the divine plan was destined to occur, and therefore the events are regarded as occurring, in order that the will of God, as expressed in the prophecy, may be fulfilled. (Comp. Note on Matthew 1:22.) **Lord, who hath believed our report? . . .**—The quotation is from the Greek version of Isaiah 53:1. That prophecy was by all understood of the Messiah. The prophet’s lamentation of the neglect of the prophetic message by the people is here placed by the Evangelist, in his interpretation of it, in the lips of the Messiah Himself, as He, in the fuller meaning, addresses the Father with the words, “Who hath believed our report?” (Comp. the words as quoted by St. Paul in Romans 10:16.) Here the “our report” means the “truth which we have declared unto them.” (So Jeremiah 10:22, Galatians 3:2.) **And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?**—Comp. Notes on Luke 1:51, and Acts 13:17. The phrase was used, as in Isaiah 51:9; Isaiah 52:10, to express the power of the Lord, and here refers especially to the power of the Lord manifested in the whole life of Christ. The signs which were revelations of this power are, of course, prominent in the thought, and the question strongly expresses the negative of the previous verse.