24. Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit--The necessity of His death is here brightly expressed, and its proper operation and fruit--life springing forth out of death--imaged forth by a beautiful and deeply significant law of the vegetable kingdom. For a double reason, no doubt, this was uttered--to explain what he had said of His death, as the hour of His own glorification, and to sustain His own Spirit under the agitation which was mysteriously coming over it in the view of that death.

JFB.