Pharisees

What tipped “Pharisees and the chief priests” (John 7:32) into action?
The crowd starting to murmur if Jesus is the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah.

What “officers” (John 7:32) did the Pharisees and chief priests send?
The Hebrew temple guards under their control, not the Roman soldiers.

Who were the Pharisees?
The Pharisees were the strictest sect of Judaism. The other Jews respected the Pharisees as their religious teachers and defenders of Judaism, and trusted them more than they trusted the chief priests, whom they considered colluding with and compromised by the occupying Roman overlords.

How many Pharisees were there at this time?
Only a few thousand but they wielded religious, social and political power far greater than their numbers. A large proportion of the seventy or so seats in the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of Israel, were occupied by the Pharisees.

Why were the Pharisees so opposed to Jesus?
Ever since God led the Jews out of Egypt, He spoke to them through judges, kings and prophets until about 400 BC, when His voice fell silent after the Jews kept on disobeying Him. The Jews became alarmed and tried to fill the void by fleshing out the Ten Commandments to cover every aspect of daily life. This effort was led by the Pharisees and driven by their desire to protect their Jewish identity from the occupying foreigners who tried to force them to assimilate into the Greek culture (The Pharisees' aversion to assimilation is reflected in Φαρισαιοι (Pharisaioi), the original Greek word translated "Pharisees" and derived from פְּרִישַׁיָּא‬ (Pərīšayyā), an Aramaic word which means "(those) set apart"). By the first century AD, the Jews' man-made laws had taken on a life of their own and veered far from the letter and the intent of God's Commandments. For example, the Sixth Commandment forbade work on the Sabbath. By the time of Jesus' earthly ministry, they had no fewer than thirty-nine different categories of “work” and a dizzying array of prohibitions on the Sabbath. For instance, you could carry olive oil on the Sabbath but not enough to have a meal with it. You couldn't spit on the ground on the Sabbath because your spit will create a small indentation in the soil into which a seed may fall in and grow, making you guilty of having planted - i.e., worked - on the Sabbath. If you were cut on the Sabbath, you could bandage the wound to stop the bleeding but had to wait until the next day to re-open the wound and put ointment in it so that it doesn't get infected. The Pharisees, who had concocted the bulk of such laws, tried to adhere to them, or at least maintain the appearance of it. In so doing, they lost sight of God’s original intent behind the laws given through Moses, became proud, judgmental and hypocritical. As we will see, they could handle neither Jesus' teaching nor His condemnation of their hypocrisy and erroneous theology, and sought to kill Him with increasing fervor.

How much longer is “a little while longer” (John 7:33)?
Jesus will be on the cross at the next Passover, which is six months after this Feast of Tabernacles.

Where will Jesus go thereafter?
He will return to God the Father, who sent Him.

Where do the Jews speculate He may go?
To the Jewish communities dispersed in the Greek-speaking world outside Israel.