Jesus spoke to them using this illustration, but they did not understand what He was telling them.
6. This parable. This is the reason why, proudly vaunting of their wisdom, they rejected the light of Christ; for in a matter not very obscure they are exceedingly dull of apprehension. But they did not understand what things they were which he spoke to them. In this clause the Greek manuscripts differ.
It is not certain whether this discourse was at the feast of dedication in the winter (spoken of Joh 10:22), which may be taken as the date, not only of what follows, but of what goes before (that which countenances this is, that Christ, in his discourse there, carries on the metaphor of the sheep, Joh 10:26, Joh 10:27, whence it seems that that discourse...
Commenting on John 10:1-18
This parable spake Jesus unto them,.... To the Pharisees, who were with him, Joh 9:40; but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them; the things spoken by him being delivered in a parabolical way, though in lively figures, and in terms plain and easy to be understood; yet what through the blindness of their minds, and the hardness of their...