The Jews therefore came around him and said to him, “How long will you hold us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
24. The Jews therefore surrounded him. This was undoubtedly a cunning attack on Christ, at least on the part of those with whom the scheme originated. For the common people might, without any fraud, desire that Christ would openly declare that God had sent him to be a deliverer; but a few persons, by trick and stratagem, wished to draw this word from him amidst...
The Feast of Dedication commemorates Judas Maccabaeus's purification of the temple after Antiochus Epiphanes defiled it in 165 B.C., celebrated eight days from the twenty-fifth of Chisleu. That it was winter matters: it marks the setting and hints at the coldness of the Jews' hearts against Him.
AI summary
Commenting on John 10:22-42
Then came the Jews--the rulers. (See on Joh 1:19). How long dost thou make us to doubt?--"hold us in suspense" (Margin). If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly--But when the plainest evidence of it was resisted, what weight could a mere assertion of it have?