27. Many authorities omit the words: “The same is,” and also: “who is preferred before me,” and then connect with the preceding thus: “But there hath stood One in the midst of you whom you know not, even He that shall come (rather, that cometh) after me, the latchet of whose shoe I am [pg 037] not worthy to loose.” So Tisch., Treg., Westcott, and Hort, and the Rev. Vers. It is not easy to explain why the words are wanting in so many MSS., if they were written by St. John; certainly it is easier to believe that they were inserted by some scribe to bring the verse into closer resemblance to 15 and 30.
In the latter part of the verse, the Baptist declares himself unworthy to perform the lowest menial service for Christ. To loose the sandals of their masters was the business of slaves; yet for even such service to Christ the great Prophet confesses himself unfit.
| 28. Haec in Bethania facta sunt trans Iordanem, ubi erat Ioannes baptizans. | 28. These things were done in Bethania beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. |
28. Bethania, here mentioned, was situated in Peraea, east of the Jordan, and must be carefully distinguished from the town of the same name, in which Lazarus lived, about two miles east of Jerusalem, but west of the Jordan. Many ancient authorities read Bethabara, instead of Bethania. Origen, though admitting that nearly all the MSS. of his time read Bethania, changed it, on topographical grounds, for Bethabara, in his edition of our Gospel. Bethania, according to some, means the house of a ship (בית אניה), while Bethabara means the house of a ferry-boat (בית עברה); so that, perhaps, they may have been different names for the same place on the Jordan.
| 29. Altera die vidit Ioannes Iesum venientem ad se, et ait: Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccatum mundi. | 29. The next day John saw Jesus coming to him, and he saith: Behold the lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world. |
29. On the day after that on which the Baptist bore the preceding testimony, he saw Jesus coming towards him. This is the first time that the mention of the Holy Name occurs in our Gospel. Jesus (Gr. Ἰησοῦς) is the same as the Hebrew ישׂוע, which is itself a contraction for יהושׂוע, meaning God the Saviour. That our Lord was so called, to show that He was to be the Saviour of men, is clear from the words of the angel to St. Joseph: “And she shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matt. i. 21). We cannot be certain whence Jesus was now coming; but it seems very probable that He was coming from the desert after His forty days' fast. We know from [pg 038] St. Mark (i. 12) that as soon as He was baptized, “immediately the spirit drove Him out into the desert, and He was in the desert forty days and forty nights.” Since, then, the present occasion was subsequent to His baptism, as we learn from a comparison of verse 33 with St. Matthew iii. 16 (for the Baptist alludes, on the present occasion, to what took place at the baptism), it follows that it must have been at least forty days subsequent. Christ seems too to have been absent when, on the day before this, the Baptist bore witness to Him, else the Baptist would have probably pointed Him out as present, just as he does on this occasion. All things considered, then, it is likely Jesus is now returning, and that the Baptist here takes the first opportunity of again commending Him to the people.
Behold the lamb (ὁ ἀμνός) of God. The Baptist, in these words, points out Jesus as the Messias, for there is evident allusion to Isaias liii. 7-12, where the Messias is compared to a lamb before his shearers, bearing the sins of many. In referring to Jesus as a lamb, the Baptist recalled this prophecy, insinuated Christ's innocence, and perhaps suggested that he was to be sacrificed. Lamb of God, because offered by God for the sins of men, as we speak of the sacrifice of Abraham, meaning the sacrifice offered by him; or it may mean simply the Divine Lamb. But the first opinion seems more probable.
Who taketh away the sin of the world. Every word is emphatic. Christ not merely covers up, or abstains from imputing sin, but He takes it away altogether, as far as in Him lies. And it is not merely legal impurities that the sacrifice of this Divine Lamb will remove, but sin; and not merely the sin of one race, like the Jewish, but the sin of the whole world. “Sin,” in the singular number, designates as one collective whole every sin of every kind.
| 30. Hic est de quo dixi: Post me venit vir qui ante me factus est, quia prior me erat: | 30. This is he of whom I said: After me there cometh a man, who is preferred before me: because he was before me. |
30. The Baptist goes on to say that Jesus is that very Person of whom he had said [pg 039] on a previous occasion: After me, &c. Some take the reference here to be to the testimony of the preceding day, when the Baptist bore witnesses in verse 27; others think the reference is to the occasion spoken of in verse 15, and regard that testimony as distinct from the one recorded in verse 27. We prefer the latter view, and distinguish in all six testimonies of the Baptist recorded in the Gospels. The first, before Christ's Baptism, as in Matt. iii. 11; Mark i. 7; Luke iii. 16; the second, as in John i. 15; the third, as in John i. 19-27; the fourth, as in John i. 29-34; the fifth, as in John i. 35-36; and the sixth and last, as in John iii. 27-36.