§37 Jesus Predicts His Betrayal (John 13:21–30)
Verse 21 marks a solemn and troubling moment for both Jesus and the disciples. The words after he had said this (Gr.: tauta eipōn) terminate the mini-discourse of verses 12–20 and introduce a new sequence of events (cf. 18:1, where the same expression terminates the farewell discourses as a whole). The reference to Jesus being troubled in spirit recalls his anguish at the tomb of Lazarus (11:33) and again at the prospect of the “hour” of his death (12:27). The betrayal of which he is about to speak is a betrayal to death, and (as before) it is the nearness of death and of the devil that agitates his spirit. He makes his declaration both openly and solemnly, as one bringing a formal testimony: I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me. The narrator has kept this betrayal ever before the eyes of his readers (cf. 6:64, 71; 12:4, 6; 13:11), but to the disciples it comes as a shock: Who can the traitor be? (v. 22).
At this tense moment a new character comes into the story, a disciple never identified by name, but only as the disciple whom Jesus loved (v. 23; cf. 19:26–27; 20:2–8; 21:7, 20–24). Just as the identity of all the disciples rests on the fact that Jesus “showed them the full extent of his love” (v. 1), so this disciple’s identity as an individual rests on Jesus’ love for him. His position at the table, next to Jesus, was regarded by the disciples as a place of special honor (cf. Mark 10:35–40). Not even Simon Peter sat as close to Jesus as he (v. 24). Though the identification of this disciple with John, the son of Zebedee, is as plausible as any that has been proposed (see Introduction) the fact remains that, as the Gospel’s author (21:24), he has chosen to remain anonymous, and the commentator has no choice but to respect his anonymity.
As soon as he has been introduced, the disciple whom Jesus loved becomes the recipient of a revelation (vv. 24–30). Simon Peter asks him to find out from Jesus the traitor’s identity, and Jesus arranges a private signal for him by which to recognize who it is: It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish (v. 26). When the bread is dipped and given to Judas, the beloved disciple (but apparently no one else) knows that Judas is the betrayer. The narrator remarks that as soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him, almost as if he remembers actually seeing it happen. If the signal was indeed for him, his fascination with Judas as an instrument of Satan through much of his Gospel (cf. 6:70–71; 13:2; 17:12) is understandable.
Whether the narrator is himself the beloved disciple or whether he is drawing on eyewitness material that comes from this person, he seems to assume the beloved disciple’s place at the table and to write from his standpoint. The ignorance of the rest of the disciples is illustrated by their misunderstanding of Jesus’ last words to Judas, What you are about to do, do quickly (v. 27). The statement that No one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him (v. 28) gives evidence of being written from the beloved disciple’s point of view. The narrator seems, by making him the observer, to exclude the beloved disciple from the generalization that no one at the table knew what was going on. The narrator sees the action through the beloved disciple’s eyes. Though this does not prove the two are the same person, nothing in the narrative is inconsistent with that supposition. The beloved disciple is the one person seated at the table other than Jesus and Judas himself who understands the significance of Judas’ departure. Whether he even shared his insight with Peter, whose request first drew him into the situation, the reader is not told. As the one disciple with insight into what had just transpired, he is also the appropriate one to preserve and put in perspective Jesus’ last revelations and instructions.
Verse 30 picks up the flow of external dramatic action from verse 26, after the significant interpretive aside represented by verses 27–29. As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out, in apparent obedience to Jesus’ command in verse 27: What you are about to do, do quickly. The narrator adds that it was night, probably as a dramatic comment on Judas’ fate. In his last pronouncement to the religious authorities, Jesus had said, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going” (12:35). For Judas, the curtain of night had now fallen; having left the circle of the disciples to do his evil work, he was walking in darkness.
13:23 / Was reclining next to him: The reclining posture was characteristic of formal meals in the Greek world, and among Jews was optional (except at Passover when it was obligatory; the Jewish Passover Haggadah says, “on all other nights we eat and drink either sitting or reclining, but on this night we all recline”). John’s choice of words here suggests to some commentators that he is describing a Passover meal (other details, such as the dipping of bread in v. 26 and the mention in v. 30 that the meal took place at night also support such a theory). If it is a Passover meal, however, it is obviously a private one celebrated at least one day in advance (cf. v. 1). The author clearly does not regard it as the Passover in a literal, chronological sense. Possibly it is a solemn meal held in lieu of the Passover one precisely because “Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world” (v. 1); by the time the official meal was to be eaten, he would be gone. Yet the disciples, at any rate, were still expecting to celebrate the official Passover with him (v. 29).
The word for “next to” (lit., at Jesus’ “side,” Gr.: kolpos) is the same word used in the statement in the prologue that Jesus was “at the Father’s side” (1:18), and may have been chosen here to accent the intimacy that existed between Jesus and the disciple whom he loved.
13:25 / Leaning back against: The Greek text (at least several of the most important ancient manuscripts) has the adverb houtōs (“thus” or “like this,” left untranslated in NIV), which captures something of the storyteller’s excitement about his narrative, and perhaps also the graphic recollection of an eyewitness (i.e., the beloved disciple himself?). See note on 4:6.
13:26 / This piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish: lit., “dip the morsel.” A morsel for dipping in broth or sauce was normally a piece of bread, but according to the Passover Haggadah, a small wad of bitter herbs was used for dipping in a sauce at the Passover meal. The question whether the morsel here is bread or bitter herbs is therefore tied in with the question of whether Jesus regarded this as a Passover meal (note, however, that NIV supplies the word bread even in Mark 14:20). Some have argued from v. 18 (lit., “he who ate my bread”) that bread is meant here, but the connection is precarious. Bread is probably meant, but in any case the narrator’s emphasis is on the ritual act of dipping and giving, not on the menu.
13:27 / As soon as Judas took the bread: lit., “after the morsel.” Though Judas’ acceptance of the morsel is implied here, it is not explicit until v. 30.
Jesus told him: The untranslated Greek particle oun allows the possibility that Jesus said this as he offered the morsel of bread to Judas (v. 26). The intervening statement that “after the morsel, Satan entered him” despite being woven skillfully into the narrative as if seen by an eyewitness, is essentially a theological judgment, whether made on the spot by the beloved disciple or (more likely) in retrospect as the story was told and written down.
13:29 / To buy what was needed for the Feast, or to give something to the poor: The first of these suppositions reinforces the impression given by v. 1 that the Passover Feast had not yet begun, that the meal described in this chapter was not a proper Passover, and that the disciples still expected that they would all celebrate the Passover together (see note on 13:23). The reference to the poor recalls 12:5–6 and, in light of that exchange, strikes a note of irony: The disciples who thought Judas was collecting for the poor could hardly have been more mistaken.
13:30 / As soon as Judas had taken: The Greek particle oun is again left untranslated in NIV (cf. note on v. 27); like the oun of v. 27, it is probably meant to resume the thought of v. 26. V. 30 would follow smoothly after v. 26 with nothing in between. This resumptive oun could be appropriately translated “so.”