They answered him, “We are Abraham’s seed, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How do you say, ‘You will be made free’?”
If the Son therefore shall make you free,.... Alluding to the custom of adoption by the sons or brethren in the family, which obtained in Greece, called "the adoption of brethren", as Grotius, and others have observed; or rather to a custom among the Romans, of a son's making free after his Father's death, such as were born slaves in his house.
Observe here, How these carnal Jews understand all that our Saviour said, to be spoken in and after a carnal manner; when he spoke to them before, of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, they understood it grossly of his natural body.
They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? (h) Some of the multitude, not they that believed: for this is not the speech of men that agree with him, but of men that are against him. (i) Born and begotten of Abraham.