He was speaking about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
39. But this he spoke of the Spirit. The word water is sometimes applied to the Spirit on account of its purity, because it is his office to cleanse our pollutions; but in this and similar passages this term is employed in a different acceptation, which is, that we are destitute of all the sap and moisture of life, unless when the Spirit of God...
In these verses we have, I. Christ's discourse, with the explication of it, Joh 7:37-39. It is probable that these are only short hints of what he enlarged upon, but they have in them the substance of the whole gospel; here is a gospel invitation to come to Christ, and a gospel promise of comfort and happiness in him. Now observe, 1.
Commenting on John 7:37-44
Many of the people therefore,.... Of the common people, and it may be chiefly those that came out of the country: when they heard this saying; or discourse of Christ, on the last and great day of the feast, relating to the large measure of grace, and the effusion of the Spirit on him, that believed: said, of a truth this is the prophet; spoken...