Bible Strands
John 7:36
What does He mean by saying, ‘You will look for Me, but you will not find Me,’ and, ‘Where I am, you cannot come’?”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jewish listeners in the temple question Jesus after He declares He will go away. They wonder where He intends to go that they cannot find Him.
The words — ζητἥσετε (zētēsete) translates literally as "you will seek" or "you will look for." The future tense projects a completed action of searching that will ultimately yield no result.
The thread — Jesus repeats this declaration in John 7:34. The inability to perceive divine reality parallels the condition described in 1 Corinthians 2:14.
Why it lands — The text states that human pursuit cannot locate Christ or access His destination. A reader must abandon self-directed searching and respond to the call to come to Him.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
What manner of saying is this that he said, Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come?
Cross-references
- John 3:9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
- John 7:34 You will look for Me, but you will not find Me; and where I am, you cannot come.”
- 1 Corinthians 2:14 The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
- John 3:4 “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born?”
- John 6:41 At this, the Jews began to grumble about Jesus because He had said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”
- John 6:52 At this, the Jews began to argue among themselves, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”
- John 6:60 On hearing it, many of His disciples said, “This is a difficult teaching. Who can accept it?”
- John 12:34 The crowd replied, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ will remain forever. So how can You say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?”
- John 16:17 Then some of His disciples asked one another, “Why is He telling us, ‘In a little while you will not see Me, and then after a little while you will see Me’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?”