What Does John 7:19 Mean?

(19) **Did not Moses** **. . .?**—The note of interrogation should be placed at the end of the first clause. The verse would then read, *Did not Moses give you the Law? and none of you doeth the Law. Why seek ye to kill Me?* So far from the will to do God’s will, without which they could not know His teaching, they had the Law, which they all professed to accept, and yet no one kept it (John 5:45-47). This thought follows naturally on John 7:17-18, and, like the whole of this teaching, grows out of the truths of John 5; but it may be that this reference to Moses and the Law has a special fitness, as suggested by the feast. Moses had commanded that the Law should be read in every Sabbatical year at this very festival (Deuteronomy 31:10); and there is good reason for believing that the current year was a Sabbatical year. The first portion of the Law which it was customary to read was Deuteronomy 1:1 to Deuteronomy 6:3. Within this section (John 5:17) came the command, “Thou shalt not kill.” They were, then, in their persecution of Him (John 5:18), breaking the Law, of which their presence at the feast was a professed obedience.