A Study of John 7:1-9

“After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” For not even his brothers believed in him. Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” After saying this, he remained in Galilee.”

John 7:1–9 (ESV)

Observation/Summary (short explanation of what the passage says in your own words):

In this chapter we are told Jesus traveled about in Galilee, but not in Judea because the Jewish religious leaders were seeking to kill Him. Also, the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand at this time. Because of this His brothers, meaning His family, the children of Mary and Joseph who were born after Him and which He grew up with, told Jesus He should go to Jerusalem publicly with the crowd, so that more people could see the miraculous works He had been doing. They did not say this because they believed Him though. Jesus told them His time had not yet come, and also that the world could not hate them, but it hated Him because He testified that the world’s works are evil. Then He told them to go up to the feast, and also said again that He would not go because His time had not yet fully come. After He said this, He stayed in His home region Galilee (Jerusalem is in Judea).

Implication (what does this mean to us):

In the previous chapter, Jesus miraculously fed 5,000 men plus thousands more women and children with only 5 barley loaves and two fish. Then, as the people began to respond with a sort of political fervor, and it became apparent they might try to rise up against the Romans and make Jesus king by force, He ended the gathering and told His disciples to cross the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum while He remained and withdrew further into the hills to pray. During their night crossing, a strong wind rose up and they made very little progress even after hours of rowing into the wind. Though they struggled in the storm Jesus had sent them into, He was also watching them from the hilltop He had withdrawn to. In the middle of the night, Jesus walked to them on the water, told them not to be afraid, got into the boat, and then the wind and sea calmed, and they immediately arrived at the shore of Capernaum.

Upon arriving in Capernaum, Jesus healed people who came to meet Him (Matt. 14:34-36), and then went to the synagogue to teach. While He was there He explained the need for all to believe in Him to be saved and to truly follow God. He also used graphic, metaphorical imagery saying that similar to the way a person eats food to sustain their physical body, one must metaphorically eat His flesh and drink His blood to be reconciled to God and receive eternal life. By this He spoke of having faith in Him, and pointed forward to the future need to believe that His sacrifice on the cross paid our debt for sin. As He said this He made it clear He was greater than Moses and also made it clear that He was one with God the Father; making it known He was equal with God, for He is Yahweh (the one true God) incarnate.

This kind of talk was offensive to the people who gathered to hear Him, and it was met with much grumbling. After His discourse in chapter 6 many of His disciples stopped following Him, but not all of them. When Jesus asked those who stayed if they wanted to leave too, Peter spoke for those who remained saying, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68–69). So, while the truth of His words offended the sensibilities of people who wanted a Savior of their own making, some still received and believed Him.

In verse 1 of John chapter 7 we are told Jesus had stayed in Galilee and not gone to Judea because the Jewish religious leaders were seeking to kill him. Jesus had ministered in Judea previously when, among other things, He healed a man on the Sabbath in Jerusalem and claimed to be both Messiah and equal with God the Father, and it was because of things like this that the religious leaders wanted to kill Jesus (John 5). These leaders were, by and large, not true servants of God, but instead were only interested in preserving their earthly power and influence propped up by their man made institution which masqueraded as God’s religious order and priesthood. The proper time had not yet come for Jesus to face these leaders again, so he remained in Galilee where His ministry continued.

A note on the timeline of John’s gospel: The events of chapter 6 took place around the time of the Passover Feast, but the events of chapter 7 are set in the time around the Feast of Booths. The timeline in John’s gospel is one of sequential order, but not immediacy. This means we are not meant to think chapter 7 takes place immediately after chapter six. Because of the event mentioned in verse 2, the Feast of Booths, we are to understand that after chapter 6, Jesus went about in Galilee for a few months, and now the Feast of Booths is at hand and John is going to resume his narrative of Jesus’ life.

The Feast of Booths mentioned in verse 2 is also called the Feast of Tabernacles or simply “Succoth.” This was one of 3 pilgrimage feasts when the Jewish people would travel to Jerusalem if possible. Interestingly, according to the ancient Jewish historian Josephus, this feast was the most popular of the three main pilgrimage feasts. This feast took place in either September or October, which was the end of the autumn harvest. This was not the harvest of grain, which took place earlier in the year, but instead, was the time of the olive and grape harvests. More importantly though, this feast was established in Leviticus 23:33-43, as a way to commemorate or remember Israel’s journey through the wilderness after Yahweh delivered them from slavery in Egypt, but before they had come to the promised land. During this time the people of Israel lived in temporary shelters and tents, so during this Feast of Booths or Tabernacles, the people would build temporary shelters on their roofs or in their courtyards and live in them for 7 days as part of this festival of remembrance and celebration.

At the beginning of verse 3 we are told Jesus’ brothers came to Him. This is one of several plain, straight-forward statements that Jesus had younger siblings; the sons and daughters of Mary and Joseph. And from the textual evidence the “brothers” or “brothers and sisters” of Jesus are presented as distinct from His disciples. In fact, they are mentioned separately from His disciples, and at least most of them did not believe in Him until after His resurrection. For example, John 2:12 and Matthew 12:46-47 mentions Jesus’ mother and brothers. And Matthew 13:55-56 mentions Jesus’ brothers by name along with His sisters as well. From this straight-forward reading of the text we can conclude that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virgin when Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but then, as we might expect, after giving birth to Jesus she was soon no longer a virgin as she and her husband Joseph had a number of other children: the younger brothers and sisters of Jesus.

In verses 3-4 Jesus’ brothers tell Him to leave Galilee and go to Judea so that His disciples can see the works He is doing, because if someone seeks to be known they should not work in secret, but rather, reveal themselves to the world. Essentially, they told Him He should make a grand public journey and appearance in Jerusalem.

As we examine this, the first thing to understand is that Galilee was Jesus’ home region, and while it did contain certain cities, such as Capernaum, Judea was the the region where Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, was located, and was therefore a more populated region. Also, in light of the mass apostasy at the end of chapter 6, Jesus’ brothers may have been thinking now was a good time to go and gather more followers by displays of power. This was also the time of the Feast of Booths, the most popular pilgrimage festival on the Jewish calendar, so Jerusalem and the region  of Judea would have been packed full of people. This would present an opportunity to speak to massive crowds.

Jerusalem also held a significance for the Jewish people that is perhaps difficult for most of us Gentiles (non-Jews) to grasp today. It was not only the center of Israel’s political and economic power. It was the location of the temple, and as such it was the center of religious life for faithful Jews and worshippers of Yahweh, the one true God. The temple represented Yahweh’s presence among His people, and it was the place where they would worship Him and make sacrifices of various kinds, including offerings to atone for sins. This being the case, Jesus’ brothers presented Him with worldly wisdom when they told Him to go to Jerusalem for the feast so that He could make a greater name for Himself.

John the gospel writer is also careful to use the word “world” when Jesus’ brothers tell Him to show Himself “to the world.” This is a clue to the reader that their intentions are not pure. From reading this gospel account to this point we have already seen that raw displays of power do produce real faith for some, but overall they garner a superficial type of attention from most people. They can easily excite corrupt motivations in people such as those in John 6:14, 15 & 26 where the people were not willing to listen to Jesus’ message about how He came to give eternal spiritual rescue. When they saw Him perform miracles, they only wanted more miraculous food to satisfy their temporary physical appetites, and also to overthrow the Romans and establish Jesus as the head of an earthly kingdom. But Jesus came to meet our far greater and eternal spiritual needs. He came to save us from the condemnation we are all already under for our sin. He came to give us eternal life with Him in the new heavens and the new earth. This world is passing away. We desperately need to be rescued from this world. He will return one day to fully establish His kingdom and make all things new (Revelation 21), but in this age there can be no eternal thriving here.

In verse 5 John gives us the reason for the misunderstanding and worldly wise advice from Jesus’ brothers when he says, “For not even his brothers believed in him.” Evidently, despite the miracles of Jesus and all of His teaching, His brothers did not believe in Him until after His resurrection (Acts 1:14). In fact according to Mark 3:21, while His brothers never denied that Jesus did miraculous works, when they heard what He said they thought He was out of His mind. This means they saw and believed He could do miracles, but they, like many people from the crowds we’ve read about so far, did not accept Him as the Messiah.

In verses 6-8 Jesus’ response to His brothers is bracketed by the statements, “My time has not yet come…” and “…for my time has not yet fully come.” First of all this should remind us of what Jesus said to His mother Mary when she asked Him to do something about the lack of wine at the  wedding in Cana in chapter 2. She wanted Him to do something miraculous to solve that problem which would have meant much embarrassment for the young married couple who did not have enough wine for their wedding celebration, which was a grievous faux pas in that culture. At that time Jesus respectfully, but also authoritatively told Mary no, but then He did change water into wine and the celebration continued (He’s the Lord of the Feast! Isaiah 25:6-9). The key is, while there were some witnesses, He performed the miracle quietly with minimal fanfare. In fact the host of the feast praised the family hosting the feast for saving the best wine until later. Most were unaware of the fact that the top quality wine they were tasting had been water only moments earlier.

Here again, we see Jesus say no, and also that His time had not come, but then reading on we will see that He does go to Judea. So what is going on here? Did Jesus lie? The answer is no, Jesus did not lie. In chapter 2 Jesus said no to performing a large public display of power, and here He is saying no to a grand public procession and appearance in Judea and Jerusalem, but He is not saying no to going quietly. When Jesus does eventually make a grand arrival in Jerusalem later, it will prompt a violent response from the  Jewish religious leaders resulting in His eventual arrest and crucifixion, but the time for that has not yet come. That is what He means. John uses the “time has not yet come” motif multiple times to speak of Jesus’ eventual crucifixion. So, this will be Jesus’ third trip to Jerusalem in John’s gospel account (first two occur in John chapters 2 and 5), and He will stay there for a few months as we will see in chapters 7-10 as the tension leading up to the “time [that] has not yet come” builds.

Jesus tells His brothers that while His time has not yet come, their time is always here. The word used for time in this verse is “kairos” which defines an opportunity or the best time to do something. Jesus was and is completely submitted to God the Father’s will, and the appointed, opportune time for His crucifixion and glorification had not yet come. I should mention it is also possible Jesus meant simply that the opportune time to go to the Feast of Booths had not yet come while also not denying that it would come soon. In other words, it is possible He may not have been referring to the crucifixion at this moment. Personally, I think it is possible He meant both things, but either way, the brothers of Jesus did not believe in Him, and therefore their will was not submitted to the Father. At best they were thinking about how to increase His following from a worldly perspective, and at worst they may have been mocking Him. Whatever the case, to hear Jesus say that in contrast to Him their “time is always here” would likely have put them off a bit. It would not have been unclear to them that Jesus was saying their will was not aligned with the Father’s like His was.

As we contemplate this we should also ask why such a public arrival might prompt a violent response. For, as we read in verse 1, Jesus had been avoiding Judea because the Jewish religious leaders were seeking to kill Him. In verse 7 Jesus gives a good reason for why His brothers cannot discern the opportune, appointed time and why the religious leaders were trying to kill Him. It is because He testifies that the world’s works are evil. Jesus’ brothers and the religious leaders in Judea belong to the “world.” In John 3:16-21 Jesus told Nicodemus, a religious leader and teacher in Jerusalem who sought Him out by night to learn more, that He loves and came to save the world. And He also said that He, “the light” had come into the world, but people loved darkness rather than light, “for everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light…”. So, Jesus came to tell us all about the condemnation we face for the evil things we have done, and our natural, sinful response is to hate Him for exposing our wickedness even though He does so for the purpose of saving and redeeming us out of it. For, the wages of our sin is death, but His desire is that we should be saved from this punishment for eternal life with Him in full and overflowing joy.

The world hates when its evil is exposed. Jesus is not of the world but His brothers were, and this is why the advice from Jesus’ brothers is wrong. His brothers are not thinking about what God is thinking about. And the leaders in Jerusalem did not want someone coming in and disrupting their corrupt power structure; not even the God they claimed to worship. It was God the Father’s will for Jesus to go to Judea, but it was not yet the proper time.

Lastly for this passage, in verse 8 Jesus tells them to go to the Feast, but also that He would not go to the Feast because His time had not yet fully come. And in verse 9 we are told He remained in Galilee. However, in the study of what happens next, Jesus does go to the Feast, except He goes privately and quietly instead of loudly and publicly. Again, Jesus was not saying earlier that He would stay in Galilee and never go to Judea again. He was saying the proper time for Him to go had not yet come.

Response (How does this change how I think, act and pray?):

This passage should cause us to think about God’s will in terms of both “what” and “when.” God is not only concerned with what needs to be done, but also when the best time to do it is. He knows what the best course of action is, how it should be done, and when it should be done. The knowledge that He is good, all-powerful, all-knowing, infinitely loving and wise, should give us confidence to trust Him when we do not understand why He has or has not acted in a certain way in response to our earnest requests.

The fact that Jesus’ own brothers did not believe Him until after His resurrection should give us pause as well. Jesus knows what it is like to not be believed by even His closest family members. He knows what it is like to faithfully proclaim the truth and be met with mocking from not only strangers, but His own brothers and sisters who He grew up with. But He faced this kind of rejection with grace and love. He did not compromise the truth of the message He came to give, but He always communicated it with grace.

As we seek to fulfill the mission Jesus has given us in declaring the good news of salvation and the forgiveness of sin for all who believe in Him, we should endeavor to exhibit the same kind of love, grace and patience towards those who reject us because they reject the message of our Lord. As we do so, His Spirit is ever present with us, continually pouring His love into our hearts so that it may overflow to others around us.

Self Reflection:

1. Jesus showed in this passage that He works in ways I will not understand sometimes. Am I willing to be patient and faithful in the middle of what I do not understand?

2. What are some of the many reasons I have to trust Jesus when He does or does not do things in the way I think would be best? (Deuteronomy 32:4)

3. What does this passage tell me to expect when declaring the truth of the gospel? (verse 7) How has Jesus told me to respond to this kind of hostility? (Luke 6:22-23)

Definitions of the original language in the context of this passage:

-Jesus: “Ἰησοῦς”, “Iēsous”; noun, nominative, singular, masculine | proper name – Jesus = Yeshua = “Yahweh is salvation”; Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior of mankind, God incarnate.

-Galilee: “Γαλιλαίᾳ”, “Galilaia”; noun, dative, singular, feminine | proper name – Galilee  “circuit”; the name of a region of northern Palestine, bounded on the north by Syria, on the west by Sidon, Tyre, Ptolemais and their territories and the promontory of Carmel, on the south by Samaria and on the east by the Jordan. It was divided into Upper Galilee and Lower Galilee.

-Judea: “Ἰουδαίᾳ”, “Ioudaia”; noun, dative, singular, feminine | proper name – Judaea = “he shall be praised”; in a narrower sense, to the southern portion of Palestine lying on this side of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, to distinguish it from Samaria, Galilee, Peraea, and Idumaea.

-[The] Jews: “Ἰουδαῖοι”, “Ioudaioi”; adjective, nominative, plural, masculine | substantival adjective – Jewish as respects to birth, origin, religion; those who (not only at Jerusalem, but also in Galilee, cf. John 6:41, 52) opposed [John’s] divine Master and his Master’s cause — especially the rulers, priests, members of the Sanhedrin, Pharisees — [John] does not hesitate to style οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, since the hatred of these leaders exhibits the hatred of the whole nation toward Jesus.

-Feast: “ἑορτὴ”, “heortē”; noun, nominative, singular, feminine | subject – festival, a feast day.

-[Feast] Of Booths: “σκηνοπηγία”, “skēnopēgia”; noun, nominative, singular, feminine | appositive – The Feast of Tabernacles (or “Booths” or “Succoth”) began on the 15th day of the seventh month (see Lev 23:33–43). The autumn festival was a celebration of the harvest that also commemorated Israel’s years of wandering in the wilderness when they lived in temporary shelters. The people were to spend seven days living in sukkoth or “booths.” The OT sometimes refers to this sacred time as simply “the feast” or “the appointed feast” (1 Kgs 8:65; Hos 12:9), so the unspecified festival in John 5:1 could also be the Feast of Tabernacles. If that is the case, this is at least a year after the events in ch. 5 that Jesus alludes to as the cause for His persecution (v. 23). (John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Jn 7:2).

-Brothers: “ἀδελφοὶ”, “adelphoi”; noun, nominative, plural, masculine | subject – a brother (whether born of the same two parents, or only of the same father or the same mother); In John 7:3, this refers to the brothers and sisters of Jesus born of Mary and Joseph.

-Disciples: “μαθηταί”, “mathētai”; noun, nominative, plural, masculine | subject of the dependent clause – learner, pupil, disciple;  of Jesus — in a wide sense, in the Gospels, those among the Jews who favored him, joined his party, became his adherents, but especially the twelve apostles.

-[The] Works (verse 3): “ἔργα”, “erga”; noun, accusative, plural, neuter | direct object of the dependent clause – an act, deed, thing done; of sundry signal acts of Christ, to rouse men to believe in him and to accomplish their salvation.

-Secret: “κρυπτῷ”, “kryptō”; adjective, dative, singular, neuter | substantival adjective – secret, hidden, concealed.

-Known Openly: “παρρησίᾳ”, “parrēsia”; noun, dative, singular, feminine | prepositional object – the deportment by which one becomes conspicuous or secures publicity.

-Show [Yourself]: “φανέρωσον”, “phanerōson”; verb, aorist, active, imperative, second person, singular | finite verb – with an accusative of the person, to expose to view, make manifest, show one; of Christ coming forth from his retirement in Galilee and showing himself publicly at Jerusalem.

-Time: “καιρὸς”, “kairos”; noun, nominative, singular, masculine | subject – time, season, occasion; a fixed and definite time; the time for appearing in public, appointed (by God) for me, for you.

-Hate: “μισεῖν”, “misein”; verb, present, active, infinitive | complementary infinitive – to hate, pursue with hatred, detest; passive: to be hated, detested.

-Testify: “μαρτυρῶ”, “martyrō”; verb, present, active, indicative, first person, singular | finite verb – in general; absolutely, to give (not to keep back) testimony.
-Evil: “πονηρά”, “ponēra”; adjective, nominative, plural, neuter | predicate adjective – evil, wicked, bad, of a bad nature or condition.