John Chapter 8 verse 48 Holy Bible

ASV John 8:48

The Jews answered and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a demon?
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BBE John 8:48

The Jews said to him in answer, Are we not right in saying that you are of Samaria and have an evil spirit?
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DARBY John 8:48

The Jews answered and said to him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan and hast a demon?
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KJV John 8:48

Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?
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WBT John 8:48


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WEB John 8:48

Then the Jews answered him, "Don't we say well that you are a Samaritan, and have a demon?"
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YLT John 8:48

The Jews, therefore, answered and said to him, `Do we not say well, that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a demon?'
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Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 48. - But it brought from them a shout of derision and a burst of scornful mockery. The Jews answered and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a daemon? They imagine that the bare charge that they, the leaders of Israel, are "not of God," and that they reveal the fact by their inability to hear the words of God then sounding in their ears, was flat heresy, a gross lack of patriotism, and proved that, in his lofty self-assertion, he was no better than a Samaritan - the most hated of their neighbours. They return a harsh tu-quoque to our Lord's refusal to admit their Abrahamic descent, and his condemnation of their utter moral dissimilarity from their putative father. The sentence, "a Samaritan art thou!" is singularly insulting in its tone and form. We cannot measure the exact amount of insult they condensed into this word, whether it be of heresy, or alienation from Israel, or accusation of impure descent. It is remarkable that our Lord had shown special kindness to Samaritans (ch. 4.), and had made in his parable "the good Samaritan" the type of neighbourly love; but these very Jews had, in the height of this controversy, accused him of being a "Galilaean," and it is not probable that they used the term otherwise than as a soubriquet of scorn. Edersheim (loc. cit., 2:174, 175) would translate into Aramaic the language here cited, and finds in its form Shomroni the real interpretation of its meaning. Shomron is, according to him, used in rabbinical writing for Ashmedai, and in the cabbalists is used for Sammael or Satan. Arabian traditions are brought in to confirm this interpretation of the speech, which he regards as equivalent to "Thou art a child of the devil," thus retorting upon Jesus the charge that they were doing the works of their father, the devil. The one expression is thought by Edersheim equivalent to that which follows, thou hast a daemon; and his explanation is thought to cover our Lord's silence respecting it. In our opinion this is far-fetched and unnatural. Christ's silence is better justified by his refusal to regard such a term as conveying opprobrium, tic had risen above the distinction of race, and could afford to despise the taunt. In John 7:20 (see note) a similar charge had been made by the angry Jews. The Lord is accused of being mastered by some daemon, who is perverting his mind and confusing his speech. Some further force is added to the charge from the language of the Talmud, 'Jebamoth,' fol. 47, a: "R. Nachman, son of Isaac, said to a Samaritan, 'Thou art a Cuthite, and testimony from thy mouth has no validity.'"

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(48) Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?--The words imply that the saying was customary among the Pharisees. The knowledge of this, and the simple way in which the fact is told, is one of many instances of the writer's minute acquaintance with what was said and done by the leaders of the Jerusalem party. There is no instance given of the term "Samaritan" being applied to our Lord, but the term itself is frequently used by the Rabbis as one of opprobrium. The history of the fourth chapter is at once suggested to our minds, and was probably not absent from theirs. (Comp. Note on John 7:35.) There may have been facts more immediately connected with this very Feast of Tabernacles present to their minds, which are unknown to us. The going up secretly of John 7:10, must almost certainly have been through Samaria. He had kept the last Passover in the despised Galilee (John 6:4). Had He kept Tabernacles in the hated Samaria? It is worth noting that the word Samaritan, in the singular, as applied to an individual, occurs but twice, except here and in John 4. One instance is in the parable spoken at no long interval after the present discourse (Luke 10:25-37). The other tells us that the only one of the ten lepers who turned back to glorify God "was a Samaritan" (Luke 17:16).The rendering, "and hast a devil," is one which, probably, cannot now be improved. Wiclif's word here is "fiend," which in this sense is obsolete. But every reader of the Greek must feel how little our English word can represent the two distinct ideas, represented by two distinct words here and in John 8:44. "Demon," used originally for the lower divinities, and not unfrequently for the gods, passed in the Scriptures, which taught the knowledge of the true God, into the sense of an evil spirit. Thus the word which could represent the attendant genius of Socrates came to express what we speak of as demoniacal possession, and the supposed power of witchcraft and sorcery. Socrates is made to say, "For this reason, therefore, rather than for any other, he calls them demons, because they were prudent and knowing" (da?mones, Plato, Cratylus, xxiii.). The history of Simon Magus reminds us that the people of Samaria, from the least to the greatest, had been for a long time under the influence of his sorceries (Acts 8:9 et seq.), and it is probable that there is a special connection in the words here, "Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a demon." (Comp. Excursus III. on Notes to St. Matthew's Gospel, p. 185.) . . .