John Chapter 7 verse 49 Holy Bible
But this multitude that knoweth not the law are accursed.
read chapter 7 in ASV
But these people who have no knowledge of the law are cursed.
read chapter 7 in BBE
But this crowd, which does not know the law, are accursed.
read chapter 7 in DARBY
But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.
read chapter 7 in KJV
read chapter 7 in WBT
But this multitude that doesn't know the law is accursed."
read chapter 7 in WEB
but this multitude, that is not knowing the law, is accursed.'
read chapter 7 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 49. - But this multitude, which knoweth not the Law, are accursed. This is a most contemptuous expression - am-ha-'arez, equivalent to "this scum of the earth," "the unlettered rabble." The Pharisees were accustomed to show sovereign contempt for those who had no admission to their own culture and methods of knowledge. Edersheim and Wunsche quote 'Pes.,' 49, b; 'Baba,' B. 8, b; and 'Chetub.,' 3:6 in proof of the utter inhumanity of their judgments. This language did not endorse a formal excommunication of the multitude - a supposition in its own nature impossible and absurd - but it expressed the brusque and harsh contempt with which the Pharisees then present wished to correct the weak compliance of their own servants. Lange presses the utterance too far. We cannot see in it more than the bitter outburst of their pent-up spite.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(49) But this people who knoweth not the law . . .--The words express "Those people there, among whom you have been, and with whose opinion you have been coinciding, instead of holding the authoritative opinion which we have declared, and which we alone can declare. We are the interpreters of the Law, and have the key of knowledge. That ignorant rabble uninstructed in the Law are cursed."Are cursed.--The writings of the Rabbis are full of scorn and contempt for the untutored multitude, whom they called 'am h??retz, "people of the earth," as opposed to those instructed in the Law, whom they called '?m k?desh, "holy people." These words are an expression of this contempt. Some have supposed that they are meant to express the ban of excommunication, which they use as a weapon of compulsion in John 9:22, but this is quite out of the question as applied here to the multitude.
