37-44. The water of life. last day. The eighth. On each of the seven days water was solemnly poured on the altar, but not, apparently, on the additional eighth day. Originally this was connected with prayer for rain at the end of the dry season as light (8:12) was with the shortening days. It is often said that by this cry Jesus supplied what was lacking, the reality of which the ceremony was a symbol. But there is no suggestion of a libation, rather of water to drink. The primary reference is to the water of 4:13f, which comes again in 19:34, water from the side of Christ as a result of the Crucifixion.

The difficult scripture will then be the general sense of the O.T. or the water from the rock in the wilderness, identified with Christ in I Cor. 10:1f, or the stream flowing from Jerusalem, which was regarded as the navel of the world, of Ezek. 47:1; Zech. 14:8.

Literally, the Spirit was not yet, i.e. the Spirit proceeding from the glorified Christ, bestowed in 20:22.

the prophet. Of Dt. 18:15. Identified with Messiah in 6:14 , distinguished from him in 1:21.

Bethlehem. See vv.21, 22 . Taken in two ways. Either John rejects the tradition of the Birth stories of Matthew-Luke, which he must have known, or he knows them and lets opponents testify unwittingly to their truth. The latter view is to be preferred, for, though he thinks mainly of Christ's heavenly origin, it is improbable that he means to contradict the Christian fulfilment of Mic. 5:2.