These local people were puzzled by what they saw. They knew the rulers wanted Jesus dead (John 7:25), yet here He was speaking "boldly," and "they say nothing unto him." So they wondered aloud whether the rulers had quietly changed their minds. Barnes says they seem to have supposed the rulers were convinced Jesus was the Messiah, but "from some cause they were not willing yet to make it known to the people." Matthew Henry hears something less innocent: he says they "slyly and maliciously insinuate two things," to stir the rulers up against Him: that by allowing His preaching the rulers brought their authority into contempt, and that their silence gave people occasion to think the rulers believed He was the Christ. Henry calls that second question ironic. Either way, it was not a question of faith. They went straight on to answer it with an objection of their own (John 7:27).

The speakers answered themselves with doubt: "Howbeit we know this man whence he is: but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is" (John 7:27). Then Jesus "cried... in the temple": "Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not" (John 7:28). He did not say what the rulers thought. He pointed them to the One who sent Him. They tried to take Him, "but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come" (John 7:30). The rulers' true mind soon showed: they "sent officers to take him" (John 7:32).

Jesus had stayed away from Judea because "the Jews sought to kill him" (John 7:1), and at the start of the feast "no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews" (John 7:13). The word "boldly" in John 7:26 is the same Greek word as "openly" in John 7:13: parrēsia, which Thayer defines as "freedom in speaking, unreservedness in speech." The crowd was afraid to speak of Him openly, but Jesus spoke openly Himself.

In the Textus Receptus, the Greek text behind the KJV, the word alēthōs (truly) appears twice: "Do the rulers truly know that this is truly the Christ?" That is why the KJV reads "know indeed" and "the very Christ." Barnes explains the objection that follows (John 7:27): many held a tradition that after His birth the Messiah would be hidden or taken away in some mysterious manner and appear again from some unexpected quarter, so no one would know where He came from.

This question waits to see what the leaders think. Jesus answers by turning the question to God. The real issue was not where He grew up or what the rulers had decided, but who sent Him: "I am from him, and he hath sent me" (John 7:29). Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary sums it up: "Christ proclaimed aloud, that they were in error in their thoughts about his origin."

The passage also shows God's protection over His Son. The people tried to seize Him, but no one could, "because his hour was not yet come" (John 7:30). Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary adds, "God can tie men's hands, though he does not turn their hearts."