John 7:49 - Exposition

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 hitter outburst of their pent-up spite.