Jesus spoke of going to "him that sent me" (John 7:33), but His hearers thought only of places on a map. Their first question asks where He could possibly go that they could not find Him. Their second offers a guess: perhaps He would leave the land, go to the Jews scattered among the Gentiles, and even teach the Gentiles. Gill hears scorn in this; he says they spoke "in a flouting manner," and he suggests the speakers may have been "the officers, at least some of them, that were sent to take him." The questions show that they did not understand who had sent Him or where He was going.

John records no answer to this question. Barnes notes, "It is remarkable that Jesus returned no answer to these inquiries." The Jews went on puzzling over His words (John 7:36). When Jesus spoke next, on "the last day, that great day of the feast," it was an invitation: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink" (John 7:37). Later He repeated the saying, "whither I go, ye cannot come," and the Jews were confused again (John 8:21-22).

"The dispersed" translates diaspora, which Thayer defines as "a scattering, dispersion," used of "the Israelites dispersed among foreign nations." It appears only three times in the New Testament: here, James 1:1 ("scattered abroad"), and 1 Peter 1:1 ("scattered"). Barnes explains that "there were Jews dwelling in almost every land."

The word "Gentiles" here is literally "Greeks" (Hellēnes), as the ESV shows. Barnes says, "All those who were not Jews were called Greeks." So the guess was that Jesus would leave Israel, work among the scattered Jews, and even teach non-Jews.

Jesus had already said where He was going: "unto him that sent me" (John 7:33). Barnes calls this one of the intimations that He would ascend to God, and he compares Jesus' words in John 6:62 about the Son of man ascending "up where he was before." No journey on earth could take them there. The place they could not come to was the Father's presence.

John does not comment on their guess about the Gentiles. But later in his Gospel, Greeks who came up to the feast asked, "Sir, we would see Jesus" (John 12:20-21). Those who raised the idea of Jesus teaching the nations, in scorn as Gill hears it, could not see how far His message would go.