John 7:1 Commentary and Bible Study

‘After these things’ does not mean immediately after the things that are recorded in chapter 6, but just subsequently. As a matter of fact, the evidence from the chapters is that the events of chapter 7 occurred at least six months after the events of chapter 6. There is a gap. Christ had been engaged in a retirement ministry during this time with his disciples, recorded here in this first verse. He spoke to them and prepared them to some extent for Calvary, and he preached all around Galilee. But in the six months just referred to here, in chapter 7, he did not walk in Judaea or in Jerusalem because of the intensity of the plot to take his life. Not that he was afraid of death; that he is what he had come for, to suffer and to die, to go eventually to Calvary, six months from this point, to go to Calvary, and there to bear away the sins of his people and to die an atoning death. But it would be according to his own timetable, the timetable fixed before the foundation of the world. It was not yet time for that, and so it was his purpose to preach through Galilee, through Decapolis, Caesarea of Philippi, such regions, until the time to go to Jerusalem. So after these things, Jesus walked in Galilee, not in Jewry, in Judaea and Jerusalem, because the Jews sought to kill him. The plots are mentioned frequently in the Gospel of John.