Others were saying, “This is the Christ.” But others were saying, “Surely the Christ is not coming from Galilee, is He?
Parallel translations
- WEB Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “What, does the Christ come out of Galilee?
- KJV Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee?
- BSB Others declared, “This is the Christ.” But still others asked, “How can the Christ come from Galilee?
- NKJV Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Will the Christ come out of Galilee?
- NLT Others said, “He is the Messiah.” Still others said, “But he can’t be! Will the Messiah come from Galilee?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Others declared Jesus to be the Christ, while some objected that the Christ would not come from Galilee. The crowd is divided over His messianic identity.
Overview
Some rightly confessed Jesus as the Messiah, but others stumbled over His apparent Galilean origin, expecting the Christ to come from elsewhere. Their objection rested on incomplete knowledge, since Jesus was in fact born in Bethlehem of David's line. This division illustrates how partial understanding and wrong assumptions can keep people from recognizing the truth about Jesus.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- John 7:52They answered him, “Are you also from Galilee? Search, and see that no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.”
- John 1:46Nathanael said to him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
- John 1:49Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are King of Israel!”
- John 4:29“Come, see a man who told me everything that I did. Can this be the Christ?”
- John 1:41He first found his own brother, Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah!” (which is, being interpreted, Christ ).
- John 7:31But of the multitude, many believed in him. They said, “When the Christ comes, he won’t do more signs than those which this man has done, will he?”
- Matt 16:14–16They said, “Some say John the Baptizer, some, Elijah, and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”
- John 6:69We have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
- John 4:42They said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of your speaking; for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
- John 4:25The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah comes, he who is called Christ. When he has come, he will declare to us all things.”
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
John declares him plainly: the eternal Word made flesh, the Lamb of God, the great 'I AM' — bread, light, door, shepherd, way, truth, life, resurrection — that you may believe and have life in his name.
How John 7:41 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.