Authorship. For the purposes of interpretation, the specific author’s name is less important than that the Gospel appeals to eyewitness testimony; there is wider agreement on the latter point than on the former. Early tradition is almost unanimous that “John” wrote the Fourth Gospel, although scholars debate which John. The Gospel itself claims to come from an eyewitness (19:35), whom the internal evidence suggests is the “beloved disciple,” whose role most closely fits that of John, son of Zebedee, in the other Gospels. This perspective fits the respect that classicists often accord to external attestation, although it is a minority view among *New Testament scholars today. (One mediating solution has been the proposal that a Johannine “school” composed the Gospel using traditions that the beloved disciple had passed on to them; most famous teachers had *disciples to pass on their teachings in such settings.)
The two strongest objections to Johannine authorship of this Gospel today are its date and its differences from the other extant Gospels. The argument based on date objects that an original disciple of Jesus would have been in his eighties or nineties when the Gospel was written. This challenge is of limited weight, however; although most people did not live that long, mortality was highest in early childhood; typical disciples were in their teens; and we know of other ancient thinkers in their eighties with sharp memories and wit. That one of the Twelve (or another close disciple) should have survived into his nineties and would then be pressed to record his experience of Jesus is not implausible. The other objection, based on differences from Matthew, Mark and Luke, is more persuasive but would lose most of its force if John represents an independent tradition or witness to Jesus, writing in his own style and with his own interests (see the discussion of *genre). Flexibility in the ways ancient biographies were written allow John to pursue a distinctly different approach from Mark and those that followed him.
Although pseudonymous works existed in antiquity, they stated their purported author rather than implied him; unless we want to argue for the author’s implicit pseudonymity (implying that he was one of Jesus’ disciples), the internal evidence supporting an eyewitness author should be allowed to stand. For this reason, the Fourth Gospel’s claim to authorship by an eyewitness is significant. We would accept this claim in most other ancient biographies or histories.
Date. Tradition holds that the Gospel was written in the 90s of the first century; that it could not have been written much later than this date (against some nineteenth-century scholars’ views) has been confirmed by a manuscript fragment of the Gospel dating to the early second century. A date in the 60s has also been proposed, but most scholars hold to the mid-90s, which best fits the setting described below and the probable setting of the book of Revelation, which stems from the same Christian circles as the Fourth Gospel.
Where John Was Written. Because John focuses (even more than Matthew) on the *Pharisees as opponents, it is plausible that his Gospel is written in Galilee or Syria, where conflicts with the Judean Pharisees would be most easily felt in the 90s of the first century.
Tradition strongly holds, however, that John lived in Ephesus in Asia Minor, although he had originally come from Palestine and probably maintained awareness of issues in Palestine through contacts there. In this case the material may have taken shape in retellings in Palestine before massive numbers of Palestinian Jews settled elsewhere (including Asia Minor) in the wake of the war of 66–73. Two of the seven *churches in the book of Revelation grapple with precisely the issues that his Gospel addresses: Smyrna (Rev 2:9-10) and Philadelphia (3:7-9). Smyrna became a center of Johannine tradition in the next generation and faced the sort of situation most scholars find in this Gospel.
Setting. Archaeological discoveries have demonstrated the appropriateness of the Fourth Gospel’s traditions to a Palestinian Jewish milieu—that is, the place where both Jesus and the beloved disciple had lived. The Gospel applies these traditions to a new situation. The temple’s destruction in A.D. 70 and the scattering of many Judeans afterward fit the emphasis on the new temple in John.
John also expresses concern for conflict with *synagogues (16:2; cf. 9:22; 12:42). After A.D. 70, the strength of many Jewish religious groups in Palestine was broken; the Pharisees began to take more leadership in religious matters. Jewish Christians may have provided their main competition, and many scholars argue that Judean leaders even added a line to a standard prayer that cursed sectarians, among whom they included the Jewish Christians. (Scholars are not, however, unanimous regarding the precise date and object of the curse.) John’s specialized concern with the Pharisees in his Gospel (other groups are mostly limited to his passion narrative) may suggest that their opposition is somehow related to the opponents his readers face in their own communities.
After the war of A.D. 70, many Jews in the Roman Empire wanted to distance themselves from sects emphasizing messiahs, the *kingdom and *prophecy. Some believers were made unwelcome by local synagogue authorities, treated as if their very Jewishness was held in question because they believed in Jesus as *Messiah and kingdom-bringer (cf. perhaps another response in Rev 2:9; 3:9, also addressing western Asia Minor). The Roman authorities were also suspicious of people who did not worship the emperor but were not Jewish (see the discussion of setting in the introduction to Revelation). John writes his Gospel to encourage these Jewish Christians that their faith in Jesus is genuinely Jewish and that it is their opponents who have misrepresented biblical Judaism.
Genre. For the *genre of Gospels in general, see the introduction to the Gospels. Although all four Gospels fall into the general ancient category of biography, that genre was broad enough to allow considerable differences of style. For instance, Luke writes like an ancient Greek historian; Matthew’s heavy use of the *Old Testament shows his interest in interpreting such history. But John seems to be the most interpretive of all, as has been recognized since the early church fathers.
Jesus’ discourses in this Gospel also require special comment. The style of Jesus’ speaking in John differs from his words in the first three Gospels; it may be helpful to observe that ancient writers were trained to practice paraphrasing speeches in their own words. Some scholars have also argued that John applies Jesus’ words to his readers’ situation under the *Spirit’s guidance; Jewish teachers and (more thoroughly) storytellers often developed different kinds of Old Testament *narratives by describing them in terms most relevant to their audience. Most of Jesus’ discourses in John 3–12 are conflicts with the Jewish authorities and could bear some resemblances to the briefer rabbinic accounts of arguments with opponents. Others compare John’s lengthy speeches to the interpretive speeches often found in ancient historiography. In any case, John remains a Gospel—an ancient biography of Jesus.
Message. One emphasis in the Fourth Gospel concerns God’s *law and word. The Pharisees claimed that God’s law supported their positions; but John emphasizes that Jesus himself is the Word (1:1-18) and the appointed messenger of the Father, and that to reject him is thus to reject the Father.
Another area of emphasis is the Spirit. The Pharisees did not believe that the Spirit, which they associated especially with the ability to prophesy, was active in biblical ways in their own day; thus they did not claim to have the Spirit. In contrast, John encourages the believers to argue not only from the law but also from their possession of the Spirit. The Pharisees claimed to know the law through their interpretations and traditions; the Christians claimed to know God personally and therefore claimed to understand the law’s point better than their opponents did.
One recurrent set of characters in the Gospel, identified with these opponents of Jesus, is “the Jews.” Although Jesus and the disciples are clearly Jewish, John usually uses the term “Jews” in a negative sense for the Judean authorities in Jerusalem, whom he sometimes identifies (perhaps to update for the language of his own day) with “the Pharisees.” Anti-Semites have sometimes abused the Gospel of John to deny Jesus’ Jewishness, ignoring the situation in which John writes. But John often uses irony (a common ancient literary technique), and by calling the Judean authorities “Jews” he may ironically answer these authorities who say that the Jewish Christians were no longer faithful to Israel. He concedes the title to them, but everything else in his Gospel is meant to argue just the opposite: that the genuine heirs of Israel’s ancestral faith are the Jewish Christians, even though they have been expelled from their Jewish communities.
John uses many images common in his culture, especially contrasts between light and darkness (common in the *Dead Sea Scrolls), above and below (common in Jewish *apocalyptic literature), and so on.
Commentaries. For background, some of the most useful commentaries are the multivolume commentaries by Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols., AB 29 and 29A (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966–1970); Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003); and Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 3 vols. (New York: Herder & Herder/Seabury/Crossroad, 1968–1982); and the single-volume commentary on the Greek text by C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978). On a less technical level, useful works for background include, among others, Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles (New York: Crossroad, 1992); Jo-Ann A. Brant, John, Paideia (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011); Jey J. Kanagaraj, John, NCC (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2013); on a mediating but still one-volume level, see George R. Beasley-Murray, John, 2nd ed., WBC (Nashville: Nelson, 1999); Andreas J. Köstenberger, John, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004). Helpful specialized studies abound, e.g., Paul N. Anderson, The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus: Modern Foundations Reconsidered, LNTS 321 (New York: T & T Clark, 2006); Craig R. Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995); John Christopher Thomas, Footwashing in John 13 and the Johannine Community, JSNTSup 61 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, Sheffield Academic Press, 1991).
The Greek term translated “word” was also used by many philosophers to mean “reason,” the force that structured the universe; *Philo combined this image with Jewish conceptions of the “word.” Although Greek conceptions undoubtedly did have some influence on how John’s hearers understood his phrase, they were not philosophically trained. (Statistically it is likely that most could not even read.) The most relevant background is background that all of them shared, at the very least from what they heard read in *synagogues or *churches each week: God’s “Word” was Scripture. The personification of this “Word” makes sense. The *Old Testament had personified Wisdom (Prov 8), and ancient Judaism eventually identified personified Wisdom, the Word and the Law (the Torah), sometimes identifying them with each other (e.g., Sirach 24:1, 23; Baruch 3:28–4:1).
By calling Jesus “the Word,” John calls him the embodiment of all God’s revelation in the Scriptures and thus encourages his Jewish Christian hearers, marginalized from some of their synagogues, that only those who accept Jesus truly honor the law fully (1:17). Jewish people considered Wisdom/Word divine yet distinct from God the Father, so it was the closest available term John had to describe Jesus; to communicate, we normally take the best available language and then adjust it as needed (e.g., the Greek and English words for “God” were applied to other deities before being applied to the true God).
1:1-2. Beginning like Genesis 1:1, John alludes to the Old Testament and Jewish picture of God creating through his preexistent wisdom or word. According to standard Jewish doctrine in his day, this wisdom existed before the rest of creation but was itself created. By declaring that the Word “was” in the beginning and especially by calling the Word “God” (v. 1; also the most likely reading of 1:18), John goes beyond the common Jewish conception to imply that Jesus is not created (cf. Is 43:10-11).
1:3. Developing Old Testament ideas (e.g., Ps 33:6; Prov 8:30), Jewish teachers emphasized that God had created all things through his Wisdom/Word/Law and sustained them because the righteous practiced the law. (Some even pointed out that Gen 1 declared “And God said” ten times when he was creating, and this meant that God created all things with his Ten Commandments.) Ancient Jewish teachers would have agreed with verse 3. Influenced by Platonic thought, *Philo also believed that God created the world through his logos (“word”), which he viewed as a sort of pattern in God’s mind; but the background for creation through God’s word is already present in the Old Testament.
1:4. Developing Old Testament promises of long life in the land if Israel obeyed God (e.g., Ex 20:12; Deut 5:16; 8:1; 11:9), Jewish teachers emphasized that the reward for obeying God’s word was *eternal life. John declares that this life had always been available through God’s word, which is the same word that he identifies (in 1:14) with Jesus. Jewish teachers called many things “light” (e.g., the righteous, the patriarchs, Israel, God), but this title was most commonly applied to God’s law (a figure also in the Old Testament, e.g., Ps 119:105).
1:5. That darkness did not “apprehend” the light may be a play on words (it could mean “understand” or “overcome” [NRSV]). Similarly, in the *Dead Sea Scrolls, the forces of light and darkness were engaged in mortal combat, but light was predestined to triumph.
1:6-8. “Witness” was traditionally a legal concept in the Greco-Roman world and in Jewish circles. Isaiah used it in relation to the end time, when the people God delivered would testify to the nations about him before his tribunal (43:10; 44:8). This image recurs throughout this Gospel; although people in this period used the term widely enough that it did not always retain legal connotations, many scholars envision a legal metaphor in this Gospel (in view of expulsions from the synagogue in 9:22; 12:42; 16:2; cf. comment on 14:16; 16:8). On John the Baptist himself, see 1:15.
1:9-10. Jewish people expected that the *Gentiles were unenlightened. A later Jewish tradition even declared that God had offered the law to all seventy nations at Mount Sinai but lamented that they had all chosen to reject his word; only Israel had accepted it. In the same way, the world of John’s day has failed to recognize God’s Word among them.
1:11. Here John breaks with the image in Jewish tradition, according to which Israel alone of all nations had received the law. Jewish people expected that the faithful of Israel would likewise accept the revelation when God gave forth the law again in the end time (Is 2:3; Jer 31:31-34). (In most Jewish tradition, the law would, if changed at all, be more stringent in the world to come.) They realized, of course, that in many generations even Israel disobeyed God.
1:12-13. The emphasis is thus not on ethnic descent (v. 11) but on spiritual rebirth; see comment on 3:3, 5 for details on how ancient Judaism might hear the language of rebirth. Jewish tradition applied the title “children of God” to Israel (cf. Ex 4:22; Deut 32:19-20).
Table 3. Parallels Between Exodus 33–34 and John 1:14-18
| Exodus 33–34 | John 1:14-18 |
|---|---|
| The revelation of God’s word, the Torah | The revelation of God’s Word, Jesus |
| God dwelt among his people in the tabernacle (33:10); Moses pleaded that God would continue to dwell with them (33:14-16) | The Word “tabernacled” (literally, in 1:14) among people |
| Moses beheld God’s glory | The disciples beheld Jesus’ glory (1:14) |
| The glory was full of grace and truth (34:6) | The glory was full of grace and truth (1:14) |
| The law was given through Moses | The law was given through Moses (1:17) |
| No one could see all of God’s glory (33:20) | No one could see all of God’s glory (1:18a), but it is fully revealed in Jesus (1:18b) |
1:14. Neither Greek philosophers nor Jewish teachers could conceive of the Word becoming flesh. Since the time of *Plato, Greek philosophers had emphasized that the ideal was what was invisible and eternal; most Jews so heavily emphasized that a human being could not become a god that they never considered that God might become human.
That John had in mind one particular passage, which addresses God giving the law to Israel, is confirmed by the accumulation of multiple allusions. When God revealed his glory to Moses in Exodus 33–34, he revealed not just dramatic splendor but his character (Ex 33:19). Particularly relevant here, his glory was “abounding in covenant love and covenant faithfulness” (Ex 34:6), which could also be translated “full of *grace and truth.” Like Moses of old (see 2 Cor 3:6-18), the *disciples saw God’s glory, now revealed in Jesus. As the Gospel unfolds, Jesus’ glory is revealed in his signs (e.g., Jn 2:11) but especially in the cross, his ultimate act of love and the ultimate expression of God’s heart for people (12:23-33). The Jewish people were expecting God to reveal his glory in something like a cosmic spectacle of fireworks; but for the first coming, Jesus reveals the same side of God’s character that was emphasized to Moses: his covenant love.
“Dwelt” (KJV, NASB) here is literally “tabernacled,” which means that as God tabernacled with his people in the wilderness, so had the Word tabernacled among his people in Jesus. In Jewish literature Wisdom also appeared on earth and “lived among” people (Baruch 3:37-38), although there was no thought of Wisdom becoming human.
1:15. Scholars have suggested that some people may have thought too highly of John the Baptist, a mere prophet, at the expense of Jesus the *Messiah (cf. Acts 19:3-5); such a situation would invite the writer to put John in his place. Others see John as merely the prototypical witness here, modeling the Gospel’s larger theme. In any case, in the Fourth Gospel, John always defers to Jesus, as a proper prophet should.
1:16-17. Grace and truth were clearly present in the law (Ex 34:6), but Moses could not witness their fulness because he could see only part of God’s glory (Ex 33:20-23). Their ultimate expression would come in the Word/law enfleshed.
1:18. Even Moses could see only part of God’s glory (Ex 33:20), but in the person of Jesus God’s whole heart is fleshed out for the world to see. “In the Father’s bosom” (KJV, NASB; cf. “side”—ESV) means that Jesus was in the position of greatest possible intimacy (cf. Jn 13:23; cf. “in closest relationship with the Father,” NIV; “near to the Father’s heart,” NLT). Jewish people often viewed personified Wisdom as the image of God (Wisdom of Solomon 7:26), so that seeing Wisdom was seeing God (see Jn 14:9). Ancient writers often framed a *narrative by beginning and ending it with the same phrase or statement; this framing device is called inclusio. In John 1:1 and (according to the most likely reading of the text) 1:18, John calls Jesus “God.”
1:19. Although a few priests were *Pharisees in Jesus’ day, there was generally little cooperation between them, and the Pharisees (1:24) certainly had never had power to send priests on missions from Jerusalem. A minority belonged to the ruling aristocracy, but a larger number of the members of the ruling elite were *Sadducees. By the time John writes, however, the Pharisees probably represent Palestinian Christians’ main opposition. It was within the tradition of Jewish writing John follows to update the language, the way preachers often do today to bring home the point of the text. John thus focuses on the Pharisaic element of Jesus’ opposition.
1:20-21. Elijah had been caught up to heaven alive, and Jewish people anticipated his return, which was predicted in Malachi 4:5. (The later *rabbis thought of him as a master of Jewish *law who would sometimes show up to settle rabbinic disputes or be sent on angelic errands to deliver rabbis in trouble. They expected him to settle legal issues when he returned; others expected him to perform great miracles or to introduce the Messiah.) “The Prophet” undoubtedly means the promised prophet like Moses (Deut 18:15-18).
1:22-23. Applying Isaiah 40:3 to himself means that he is the herald of a new exodus, announcing that God is about to redeem his people from captivity, as he had in the days of Moses. This theme appears in many of the *Old Testament prophets and was part of Jewish expectation in Jesus’ day. Indeed, would-be prophetic leaders usually gained followings in the “wilderness.” *Qumran sectarians, who (according to the most common view) lived in the wilderness, applied the verse to their own mission.
1:24-25. Of the many kinds of ceremonial washings in Jesus’ day, the most significant once-for-all kind of washing was *proselyte *baptism. *Gentiles were usually baptized when they converted to Judaism; this was widely known and is even mentioned by the Greek philosopher *Epictetus. By reporting that John asks Jews to be baptized in an act of conversion, the Gospel writers suggest that John treats Jews as if they are pagans, which was unheard-of (see comment on 3:3-5). The Fourth Gospel often contrasts water rituals and the *Spirit (3:5; see comment on 4:7-26).
1:26. John probably employs the common ancient technique of irony: that they do not “know” the coming one speaks ill of them spiritually (1:10, 33-34).
1:27. Slaves carried their master’s sandals (the one servile activity that was too demeaning for rabbis’ *disciples to duplicate); John claims that he is not worthy to be even Christ’s slave. Prophets were often called God’s servants in the Old Testament (e.g., 2 Kings 18:12; 19:34; 20:6; 24:2; Jer 35:15; 44:4).
1:28. “Beyond the Jordan” means Perea, one of the territories controlled by Herod Antipas. Because *Josephus tells us that John was later imprisoned in the fortress Machaerus in the same region (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.116-119), it makes sense that this is where he ministers and is later arrested.
1:29. John’s saying probably alludes to the Passover lamb (19:36), likely with the *Old Testament image of sacrificial lambs blended in. (By this period, Passover lambs seem to be viewed as sacrificial; cf. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 3.248, 294; 11.110; Jewish War 6.423.) John may also allude to Isaiah 53:7, 11. “Taking up” sin might allude to the scapegoat (Lev 16:21-22), but it also suits a sacrificial lamb.
1:30-31. The whole purpose of John’s *baptism is to “prepare the way” (cf. v. 23). To “come after” a person sometimes meant to be his *disciple, so some scholars propose that Jesus actually followed John for a time, as well as being baptized by him; others interpret “come after” in this passage only chronologically.
1:32. The dove might evoke, if anything in particular, God’s promise of a new era (Gen 8:10-12).
1:33-34. In Old Testament *prophecy, God pours out his own *Spirit (Is 32:15; 44:3; Ezek 39:29; Joel 2:28-29), a role here assumed by Jesus. Most Jewish groups believed that the Spirit was not as active in prophetic inspiration as in the Old Testament period. The emerging rabbinic movement and many of their allies, who linked the Spirit almost exclusively with prophecy, emphasized that the direct prophetic endowments of the Spirit had ceased when the last Old Testament prophets (Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi) died. Many others believed that prophecy continued, yet without major prophets; some, like the Qumran sectarians, believed that the Spirit worked among them as the end-time remnant of Israel. For many of John’s hearers, a claim that the Spirit is being restored would be a claim that the messianic era is at hand. In the Old Testament, the Spirit often was said to come “on” people temporarily rather than explicitly remaining (e.g., Judg 11:29; 2 Chron 20:14).
1:35-37. See comment on 1:29. Teachers normally trained *disciples, who then went out to teach others. To recommend disciples to a greater teacher was rare, required great humility and denoted confidence in the other teacher’s superiority. Conflict sometimes arose between disciples of rival teachers, though we do have reports of exceptional cases where a teacher, very impressed with another sage, referred his students to him.
1:38-39. Asking such indirect questions (they want to come home with him) was characteristic of ancient politeness and hospitality. The “tenth hour” by usual reckonings would be about 4 p.m., possibly too late in the afternoon to walk a long way home before dark and thus implying that a hospitable person would invite them to spend the night. (By another system of time reckoning, unlikely here, the “tenth hour” could mean 10 a.m.; this system fits 19:14 better but not 4:6.) Rabbis also could lecture disciples while traveling.
Like John the Baptist, the disciples learn that the best witness is simply to introduce people to Jesus and let him do the rest.
1:40-41. Given close kinship ties, the testimony of a brother would count significantly. Of the four Gospels, only John uses the Hebrew or *Aramaic title, *Messiah, although he also translates it into Greek because that is the language of his Jewish readers. (Outside Palestine, most Jews in the Roman Empire spoke Greek.)
1:42. “Cephas” is Aramaic and “Peter” Greek for “rock.” Nicknames were common, and *rabbis sometimes gave characterizing nicknames to their disciples. In the *Old Testament, God often changed names to describe some new characteristic of a person (Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Joshua; as a negative declaration, see Jer 20:3).
Greeks and Romans would attribute supernatural knowledge (like knowing the name of a person one had never met, as Jesus does here) to miracle workers (usually magicians); Jewish people would attribute it to prophets or prophetically endowed teachers; but see especially comment on 2:24-25 for John’s emphasis.
1:43. Some radical Greek teachers were said to have called disciples to follow them (e.g., Socrates reportedly called Xenophon), but normally ancient students or their parents chose their own teachers. As often in Matthew and John, “following” could mean “becoming a disciple,” because disciples could show respect to masters of Torah (*law) by walking behind them. In the Fourth Gospel, however, this term also has greater significance (see 10:4).
1:44. Bethsaida’s name suggests its association with the fishing industry; the town was not well known outside Galilee. Its name was apparently changed to Julia in A.D. 30 (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.28), but the Gospels retain its name from the time of Jesus’ ministry. Mark says that Simon and Andrew were from Capernaum (1:21, 29; 2:1), and excavations confirm that many early Christians thought that Peter’s home was there. It is not unlikely that as fishermen in a fishing cooperative with James and John (Mk 1:19) they took their boats back and forth between Capernaum and Bethsaida; perhaps the latter had a regional market or the family had moved from the latter to the former.
1:45. By the one predicted in “the Law and the Prophets” (a common Jewish designation for the Old Testament), Philip no doubt means the Messiah (e.g., Deut 18:15-18; Is 9; 11; 53).
1:46. Some suggest local village rivalry as a factor in Nathanael’s question. Nazareth seems to have been a very traditional, orthodox town; priests later considered it ritually clean enough to move there. But Nazareth was relatively small and obscure; some early estimates of the population are about sixteen hundred to two thousand inhabitants, with some more recent estimates even below five hundred within the village itself. (Then again, many Galilean villages probably had fewer than three hundred residents.) Yet people often expected important figures to hail from important places, and Nazareth was no Jerusalem (or Bethlehem). It lay about four miles from the large city of Sepphoris, which rivaled Tiberias (6:23) for its urban Greek character in Jewish Galilee.
1:47. Jesus here makes a wordplay on the Old Testament Jacob, or “Israel,” who was a man of guile (Gen 27:35; 31:26); see Jn 1:51.
1:48-49. Teachers often taught disciples under trees, which were popular for this and a wide variety of other purposes because of their shade (too many purposes for us to be certain what Nathanael was doing under the tree). But Jesus’ knowing which tree Nathanael had sat under is a demonstration of genuine supernatural knowledge (cf. Susanna 54, 58). On this knowledge, see comments on 1:42 and 2:24-25.
1:50-51. The opening of the heavens indicated a major revelation (e.g., Ezek 1:1). Jesus’ words allude to Genesis 28:12: Jesus is the new way between heaven and earth (Jacob’s ladder) on whom angels ascend and descend; like Jacob of old, this “genuine Israelite” Nathanael (Jn 1:47) would receive this new revelation.
Jesus values the groom’s honor above the demands of ritual purity.
2:1. “Third day” here does not refer to the third day of the week, because virgins were married on the fourth day (Wednesday) and widows on the fifth; nor does it seem to fit the count of days in 1:29, 35, 43. Presumably it simply means (as it normally did) “the third day after the event just narrated” (counting the days inclusively, so that it was the day after the next day). But ancient writers often bracketed off segments of their work by starting and ending on the same note (a practice called inclusio); thus John may use this designation to point toward 2:19 and link this story (2:1-11) with the prediction of Jesus’ death and *resurrection (see on 2:4).
“Cana” may be Kefar Kanna (over three miles from Nazareth), but most scholars prefer Khirbet Kana (over eight miles from Nazareth). Either site would be a long walk, close enough to Nazareth to explain how the host knows Jesus’ family.
2:2. Weddings ideally lasted seven days, and hosts invited as many people as possible, especially distinguished guests like prominent teachers. Many guests would come for only part of the time, however, making the requisite resources harder to predict.
2:3. To run out of wine at a wedding was a social faux pas that could become the subject of this village’s jests for years; the host was responsible to provide his guests with adequate wine even if the feast lasted seven days.
Women were often closer to where the wine and food were prepared; thus Mary learns of the shortage of wine before word reaches Jesus and the other men. Her words may be a polite Middle Eastern way of implying that he should do something; guests were to help defray the expense of the wedding with their gifts, and it seems that their friend needs some extra gifts now.
2:4. “Woman” was a respectful address (like “Ma’am”) but hardly a customary address for one’s mother. Jesus’ statement here establishes further polite distance (though “What have I to do with you” is usually a harsh, not a polite, expression in biblical language). One’s “hour” could refer to the time of one’s death. Because Jesus’ “hour” in John refers especially to the cross, here Jesus is saying, “Once I begin doing miracles, I begin the road to the cross.”
2:5. Like many *Old Testament seekers of God who would not take no for an answer (Gen 32:26-30; Ex 33:12–34:9; 1 Kings 18:36-37; 2 Kings 2:2, 4, 6, 9; 4:14-28), Mary acts in confidence that Jesus will hear her entreaty. Ancient Jewish readers, who told stories of miracle workers who insisted that God would send rain, would read Mary’s action as demonstrating strong faith. Her words may evoke Pharaoh’s similar words concerning Joseph, a God-empowered provider (Gen 41:55).
2:6. The description of the stone jars indicates that they contained enough water to fill a Jewish immersion pool used for ceremonial purification. Although *Pharisees forbade storing such water in jars (and *Essenes and *Sadducees also avoided this), some Jews were probably less strict. Jewish people also poured water over their hands to purify them, but such large jars would not have been suitable for direct pouring, though water could be drawn from them. In any case, these large jars were being reserved for ritual purposes. To employ waterpots set aside for purification for non-ritual purposes violated custom; Jesus here values the host’s honor above ritual purity customs. Stone jars were common because they were less likely to contract ritual uncleanness than those made of other substances.
2:7. The jars were consecrated for sacred use; Jesus shows more concern for his friend’s wedding than for contemporary ritual.
2:8. “Master of the banquet” was a position of honor (Sirach 32:1-2); one of his primary duties was to regulate the distribution of wine to prevent excess that would (especially in a Jewish context) ruin the party. At least in Greek banquets, guests sometimes elected this person; at other times the host would select him or he would be chosen by lot. His role included presiding over the entertainment and controlling the level of dilution for the wine; thus some observers might have held him partly responsible for the host’s running out of wine prematurely.
2:9-10. Soon after the grape vintage, all wine would contain some alcohol (neither refrigeration nor hermetic sealing existed). But the alcohol level of the wine was not increased artificially (distillation was not in use); rather, the wine was watered down, with (on average) two to three parts water to one part wine. Sometimes at Greek parties drunkenness was induced through less dilution or the addition of herbal toxins, but Jewish teachers disapproved of such practices; that drunkenness is part of the celebration at Cana is unlikely. Yet it normally made sense to serve the better wine first because, drunk or not, guests’ senses would become more dulled as the seven days of banqueting proceeded.
2:11. God had often manifested his glory by doing signs (Ex 16:7; Num 14:22; for glory, cf. comment on Jn 1:14). Moses’ first public sign was turning water into blood (Ex 7:20; cf. Rev 8:8); Jesus’ first sign is turning water into wine.
Especially in the devastating wake of the temple’s recent destruction (A.D. 70), Jesus’ earlier warnings about the old temple and announcement of a new one would prove very relevant for John’s hearers.
2:12-13. Pious Jews who could attend the Passover in Jerusalem customarily did so; unlike Jewish people in distant lands, Galileans could make the pilgrimage regularly. Galileans went “up” to Jerusalem (because of Jerusalem’s higher elevation).
2:14. The sheep and doves (and, to a lesser extent, the cattle; cf. Lev 1:3-9; 4:2-21; 8:2; 22:21) were necessary for the people’s sacrifices; moneychangers were needed to standardize foreign and Galilean currencies into coinage useful to the sellers of the sacrificial animals.
2:15-16. Jesus insists on a different priority for activity in the temple; cf. perhaps Malachi 3:1-6.
2:17. The *disciples recall Psalm 69:9, a psalm of a righteous sufferer. Psalm 69:21 speaks of vinegar being given him to drink (cf. Jn 19:29). In the context of John, Jesus’ zeal “consumes” him by bringing about his death for the world (cf. 6:51).
2:18. Some Jews expected prophetic leaders to validate their authority with signs. (Some for example claimed to be able to part the Jordan or make the walls of Jerusalem collapse, like a new Moses or Joshua.)
2:19-20. Many groups in Judaism expected a new or transformed temple. But the old temple was one of the most magnificent buildings in antiquity, the symbol to which the rest of Judaism looked. To most Jews, and especially to the aristocracy who controlled Jerusalem’s temple, speaking of the temple’s demise sounded like opposing God. Herod the Great began work on the temple in 20–19 B.C., and work continued until A.D. 64; its forty-sixth year mentioned here places Jesus’ words in A.D. 27.
2:21-22. A prophetic word was often understood only in retrospect (e.g., 2 Kings 9:36-37; the Delphic oracle’s words to Croesus). Many Jewish interpreters (attested especially in the *Dead Sea Scrolls) interpreted Scripture in this way.
2:23-25. Miracle workers were often thought to know some hearts, but only God, who was called “searcher of hearts,” was thought to know the hearts of all people.
Jesus explains to Nicodemus that religious knowledge and ethnicity are not a sufficient basis for a relationship with God; one must be born into his family by the *Spirit. John often contrasts water rituals and the Spirit (3:5; see comment on 4:7-26).
3:1. A wealthy and prominent Nicodemus (Nakdimon ben Gorion) is known in Jerusalem in this period, though we do not know whether John means the same one. As a highly educated “ruler” or leader in the Jewish community, John’s Nicodemus was surely well-to-do.
3:2. One might come by night to avoid being seen, or because Jewish teachers who worked during the day could study only at night (cf. Ps 119:148; the latter was undoubtedly not the case with Nicodemus, who would not need to work—v. 1). But John includes the detail because it serves the theme of light and darkness (1:4-5; 11:10; 13:30) that brackets this *narrative (3:19-21).
3:3-4. Jesus speaks literally of being born “from above,” which means “from God” (“above,” like “heaven,” was a Jewish circumlocution, or roundabout expression, for God). One could also construe the phrase as meaning “reborn,” which Nicodemus takes literally. (Ancient writers, including those of the *Old Testament—as in the Hebrew text of Jer 1:11-12; Mic 1:10-15—often used plays on words, and John includes quite a few other puns; they also sometimes used other characters as less intelligent foils for a narrative’s main spokesperson.) Most evidence for Greek traditions about individual rebirth come from a later period, possibly formulated in light of Christianity, but some Jewish analogies probably lack direct Christian influence. Because Jewish teachers spoke of *Gentile converts to Judaism as starting life anew like “newborn children” (just as adopted sons under Roman law relinquished all legal status in their former family when they became part of a new one), Nicodemus should have understood that Jesus meant conversion; but it never occurs to him that someone Jewish would need to convert to the true faith of Israel. The idea of a transforming conversion reflects texts such as Ezekiel 36:26 (evoked in this passage of John), although such ideas may appear elsewhere (e.g., 1 Sam 10:6; Wisdom of Solomon 7:27; 8:17).
3:5. Converts to Judaism were said to become “as newborn children”; their conversion included immersion in water to remove Gentile impurity. “Born of water” thus could clarify for Nicodemus that “born from above” means conversion, not a second physical birth.
The Greek wording of 3:5 can mean either “water and the Spirit” or “water, that is, the Spirit.” Ezekiel 36:24-27 used water symbolically for the cleansing of the Spirit (cf. especially the *Dead Sea Scrolls), so here Jesus could mean “converted by the Spirit” (cf. 7:37-39)—a spiritual *proselyte *baptism. Whereas Jewish teachers generally spoke of converts to Judaism as “newborn” only in the sense that they were legally severed from old relationships, an actual rebirth by the Spirit would produce a new heart (Ezek 36:26).
3:6-7. The “spirit” that is born from God’s Spirit may reflect the “new spirit” of Ezekiel 36:26. Everyone understood that like begets like.
3:8. The term for “Spirit” also meant “wind” in both Greek and Hebrew. (Although Jesus probably spoke especially *Aramaic in Galilee, a high-status teacher in Jerusalem might be equally comfortable with Greek.) One could translate “sound of the wind” as “voice of the Spirit” (for plays on words, see comment on 3:3-4). The wind is unpredictable and uncontrollable (see Eccles 8:8; cf. Eccles 1:6, 8, 14, 17; 2:11, 17, 26; 4:4, 6, 16; 6:9). The Spirit, associated with water in Ezekiel 36, was symbolized as wind in the next chapter, Ezekiel 37; some Jewish interpreters linked this image with Genesis 2:7 (cf. Jn 20:22).
Jesus as incarnate Wisdom (see comment on 1:1-18) is the only one fully qualified to reveal God and reconcile the world to him.
3:9-10. Nicodemus’s denseness makes him a foil for Jesus the revealer. For this theme in some ancient literature, see the discussion of Mark’s message in the introduction to Mark.
3:11-12. “Earthly things” might be the analogies of water and wind used earlier in the passage. Only an eyewitness of heaven, such as the Father and the Son, could fully testify about heaven. Wisdom of Solomon 9:16 notes that people can scarcely guess about earthly matters, and thus asks how people could guess about heavenly ones.
3:13. In the context of John’s allusion to Wisdom of Solomon 9:16 (in Jn 3:11-12), the next verse may be relevant: no one could learn God’s ways without wisdom and the *Spirit sent from above (Wisdom of Solomon 9:17). Jewish literature provides other parallels to John 3:11-13, but the closest are Jewish texts that speak of divine Wisdom coming down from God, seeking to reveal the ways of heaven (God) to people (cf., e.g., Baruch 3:29; Wisdom of Solomon 9:10; God’s powerful “word” descending to slay Egypt’s firstborn in Wisdom of Solomon 18:15). Jesus might also imply a contrast with Jewish mystics who sought to ascend to heaven, and with the Jewish tradition that Moses ascended not only Mount Sinai but up into heaven to receive God’s *law. Now Wisdom/Word/Law itself—one greater than Moses—has come down from heaven in the flesh (see comment on 1:14-18).
3:14-15. “Lifting up” is another play on words (3:3-4): Jesus returns to heaven by way of the cross, “lifted up” like the serpent Moses lifted up to bring healing (Num 21:4-9; for “lifting up,” see comment on Jn 12:32-33). “Lifting up” had long been a play on both exaltation and execution (Gen 40:20-22); here the language evokes Isaiah 52:13, where God’s servant would be lifted up (and the *Septuagint adds, “glorified”), a passage immediately preceding Isaiah 53. The serpent passage in Numbers (Num 21:8-9) directly precedes a passage about God’s gift of a well in the wilderness (Num 21:16-18), relevant for John’s following chapter (Jn 4:6, 14). Ancient Egyptians used images of snakes as magical protection against snakebites; this cursed the snakes. In Wisdom of Solomon 16:6, this bronze serpent symbolized salvation. Moses set the serpent on a standard, which the Septuagint renders with the same word that translates “sign” (semeion), making Jesus’ death a sign (cf. Jn 2:18-19). *Midrashically, some Jewish interpreters could have linked this bronze serpent with Moses’ rod that became a serpent (Ex 4:3; 7:9-10, 15), hence a “sign” (Ex 7:9). Those who saw the serpent in Numbers 21 would “live” (21:8-9); later Jewish interpreters sometimes applied biblical promises of life to *eternal life, and in John, those who see Jesus live forever (cf. Jn 6:40; 14:19).
3:16-18. God “gave” his Son by him being lifted up like the serpent (see comment on 3:14-15). The term often translated “so” means not “how much” but “in this way”; the tenses of the Greek verbs reinforce the sense: “This is how God loved the world: he gave his son.” Some translations’ “only begotten” is literally “special, beloved”; Jewish literature sometimes applied it to Isaac, to emphasize the greatness of Abraham’s sacrifice in offering him up. Eternal life is literally the “life of the world to come” (from Dan 12:2); John’s present tense (“have”) indicates that those who trust Jesus begin to experience that life already in the present time.
Despite ancient Jewish literature’s mention of God’s love for humanity and its emphasis on God’s special love for Israel, nothing compares with this sacrifice, especially not for “the world,” which in John normally means those not yet following God’s will. The *Old Testament also emphasizes God’s immeasurable love (e.g., Ex 34:6-7; Deut 7:7-8; Judg 10:16; Is 63:9; Hos 11:1-4, 8-11; cf. Is 16:11; Jer 48:36). Jewish people expected full salvation and judgment in the day of judgment; like eternal life, however (just noted), John recognizes these events taking place also in the present (3:17-18), because the promised *Messiah has already come.
3:19-21. Ancient texts (especially the *Dead Sea Scrolls) often contrast light and darkness as good and evil in the same way John does here. Everyone would have understood John’s point. Bracketing off a narrative by starting and ending on the same point (3:2) was an ancient literary device.
3:22-23. On John’s *baptism, see comment on Mark 1:4-5. Jews who practiced initiatory baptisms of other Jews could be viewed as sectarian. Away from the Jordan River, water was not plentiful, so in their itinerant ministry Jesus’ *disciples (4:2) probably do not baptize everywhere, although ceremonial immersion pools were widespread in Palestine. Many scholars think that Aenon was near modern Ainun; although it lacks water today, many springs remain in the area. Although this reconstruction is not certain, if it is correct it is interesting that Aenon lay near Shechem, the center of *Samaritan habitation in Jesus’ day, so that John the Baptist is already ministering in an area near where Jesus will be ministering in chapter 4.
3:24. There is a possible echo of Jer 37:4. John was imprisoned and executed in Herod Antipas’s strong and well-known fortress Machaerus. This was located in Perea, across the Jordan (i.e., not in Judea or Galilee proper), where much of John’s ministry occurred (1:28; 3:26; 10:40).
3:25-26. On Jewish ceremonial purification, cf. 2:6 and 11:55. This theme runs through the Gospel: ceremonial washing (2:6), *proselyte baptism (3:5), perhaps Jacob’s well (chap. 4) and the healing waters of Bethesda (chap. 5), Siloam’s water for the Feast of Tabernacles (7:37-38; 9:7) and perhaps 13:5-11 and 19:34. Disciples of rival teachers often competed, but John is not competing with Jesus.
3:27-28. “Heaven” was a fairly common Jewish circumlocution for God. In Jewish custom, one person who represents another acts on his sender’s authority but must adhere to the constraints of his mission; the real authority always stems from the sender; for being sent ahead, cf. perhaps Malachi 3:1. Such customs might help make the point more intelligible for John’s hearers.
3:29-30. Weddings epitomized joy (e.g., *3 Maccabees 4:6). The “friend of the bridegroom” refers to the Jewish custom of the shoshbin, who was much like the best man in weddings today. Like other friends, this leading friend of the bridegroom might offer speeches of encouragement at the wedding; he might also be a witness for the wedding, contribute to it financially, possess the evidence of the bride’s virginity, and so forth. (To illustrate the way that Jewish traditions valued both this role and weddings in general: later *rabbis claimed that God was the shoshbin for Adam’s wedding.) The most significant emphasis of Jewish weddings was joy.
3:31. One who originates from heaven, as opposed to others who were from earth, most naturally applies in Jewish texts to divine Wisdom (see comment on 1:1-18).
3:32-33. Prominent individuals had distinctive marks on their signet rings, which they would press into hot wax seals on the outside of documents to attest that they were witnesses to the execution of the document. Merchants could use seals to attest a container’s contents. Rulers could also share their seals with the highest officials who would act in their name (cf. Gen 41:42).
3:34. Because many thought that the *Spirit had been quenched in Israel till the future restoration of Israel, and many thought that only a few had merited the Spirit, to say that someone had unlimited access to the Spirit (whether Jesus has unlimited access as giver or receiver here is debated) indicates that he is greater than any person who had ever lived.
3:35-36. Again, the language of the Father authorizing the Son and judging the world by their response to him portrays the Son more highly than any mere human was viewed in Jewish literature; cf. 3:31. Again, language that John’s Jewish contemporaries often applied to the future judgment is applied also to the present here (see comment on 3:16-18).
Jesus’ positive reception by *Samaritans contrasts with his reception in Jerusalem (2:13–3:9). In John 4:1-42, Jesus crosses strict cultural boundaries separating culturally distinct peoples, genders and moral status, pointing to the new and ultimate unity in the *Spirit. Some features of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman evoke earlier well scenes (Gen 24; 29; Ex 2), but to a different effect.
Samaritans worshiped Israel’s God devoutly, practicing circumcision and the Sabbath. Nevertheless, insofar as our later sources can indicate, they accepted only the Pentateuch, regarding Israel’s subsequent history as apostate. They claimed that the true site for worship was Mount Gerizim (edited even into their version of the Ten Commandments), rejecting the Jerusalem temple. Like Jews, they looked for an end-time restorer; thus one prophetic figure promised to restore sacred vessels left by Moses at Mount Gerizim (before *Pilate butchered them). Greek culture and language heavily affected Samaria, although Greek need not have been the first language of Samaritan villagers. (The *Gentile Greek city Sebaste, in the midst of Samaria, probably exerted an influence; cf. Acts 8:5.)
4:1-2. On Jesus’ *baptism, see comment on 3:22-23. Although ceremonial washings were common in Judaism, those who practiced initiatory baptisms (those that initiated people into a particular Jewish group) were viewed by other Jews as sectarian.
4:3-4. The “necessity” of the Samaritan route may have been spiritual rather than geographic. One could travel around Samaria (east through Perea), but many pilgrims to and from the feasts in Jerusalem took the shorter route straight through Samaria (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.118; Jewish War 2.232); the quickest route, it yielded a three-day journey (*Josephus, Life 269). But if Jesus was near John (3:22-23) and the latter was in the Jordan valley (3:23), Samaria might even be a geographic detour, since Jesus could have traveled north near Bethshan. Since Jesus ends up staying awhile (Jn 4:40), the Father’s plan rather than haste probably motivates his need to pass through Samaria. Samaritans and Jews worshiped the same God and both used the *law of Moses (although the Samaritans made a few changes in it). But they despised one another’s places of worship and had remained hostile toward one another for centuries.
4:5. Some identify “Sychar” here with Shechem (closest to Jacob’s well), or perhaps more often with modern ‘Askar (about 1.5 km northeast of the well).
4:6. The site of Jacob’s well is still known; it is within view of Mount Gerizim, which was holy to the Samaritans (based on Deut 11:29; 27:12). This site begins a *narrative that emphasizes holy geography (especially 4:20). Although this concept is foreign to most modern Western readers, ancient people were widely attracted to special “holy sites”—which Jesus here supersedes.
The “sixth hour” normally means noon; thus Jesus and the *disciples had been journeying for perhaps six hours. (According to a much less likely system of time reckoning here, “sixth hour” would mean 6 p.m.—cf. 19:14—in which case Jesus and his disciples would be ready to settle down for the night and lodge there—4:40.) Weary travelers sometimes would sit, including at wells; most relevant here is Ex 2:15 (which in Jewish tradition Josephus claims occurred at noon). Because noon was particularly hot, most people sought shade and often rested during that time. The local women, who often would come in groups to draw water, would not come in the midday heat of this hour; people throughout the ancient Mediterranean world avoided being out in the midday heat except when no alternative was available. This woman, however, had to do so, because she had to come alone (for her reasons, see comment on 4:7).
In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus’ gift of the *Spirit supersedes the ritual waters of John the Baptist (1:26, 33), ceremonial purification (2:6), *proselyte *baptism (3:5) and the Feast of Tabernacles (7:37-39; 9:7); note discussion of background on each of these passages. It also apparently supersedes water having other religious symbolism associated with holy sites, such as healing sanctuaries (5:2-8) and Jacob’s well (4:7-26). For John’s readers, who have the Spirit but lack many of the rituals of their opponents, these contrasts would constitute an encouragement.
4:7. That this *Samaritan woman comes to the well alone rather than in the company of other women (and at the hottest hour of the day, when she would not run into them) probably indicates that the rest of the women of Sychar did not like her, in this case because of her marital history (cf. comment on 4:18). Although many Jewish teachers warned against talking much with women in general, they would have especially avoided Samaritan women, who, they declared, were unclean from birth. Other ancient accounts show that sometimes even asking water of a woman could be interpreted as flirting with her; this might be especially the case if she had come alone at an unusual time. Jesus breaks various conventions of his culture here. In addition, Isaac (through his agent, Gen 24:17), Jacob (Gen 29:10) and Moses (Ex 2:16-21) met their wives at wells; such precedent created the sort of potential ambiguity at this well that religious people wished to avoid.
4:8. Rabbis sometimes sent *disciples to procure supplies. Many *Pharisees considered many of the foods of the Samaritans unclean.
4:9. John provides cultural background in this verse. Although his summary statement might contain an element of *hyperbole, the animosity between Jews and Samaritans was well known; on rare occasions it even led to bloodshed requiring Roman intervention. Judeans usually regarded Samaritans more favorably than Gentiles, but views varied and tended to be negative. The woman first confronts this encounter in ethnic/cultural terms: under Jewish *law, even her water vessel (the same term as in 2:6) was considered unclean for Jewish drinking. Ironically, in John’s Gospel only non-Jews recognize Jesus’ Jewishness (here and 18:33-35).
4:10. “Living water” simply meant “fresh” or “flowing” as opposed to stagnant or well water (cf. the *Septuagint and Hebrew text of Lev 14:6, 51; Num 19:17; Zech 14:8), but given John’s propensity for double meanings (see 3:5), here the term may also mean “water of life.” Cf. Jer 17:13.
Some scholars have pointed out that the *rabbis spoke of Torah, the law, as God’s gift and as living water. But John uses the symbolism differently to refer to the Spirit (7:37-39). The background here is God as provider of the source of genuine life (Is 12:3; Jer 2:13).
4:11. Jesus has no jar to lower into the well; moreover, even with a jar he could not get “living” (i.e., fresh or flowing) water from a well (see comment on 4:10). Although we cannot know the well’s depth in the first century, in modern times it is about a hundred feet (around thirty meters) deep.
4:12. Her saying “our father Jacob” is an affront to the Jewish teaching that the Jewish people were children of Jacob, whereas the Samaritans had much Gentile blood. The one who is greater than Jacob (for this theme cf. also 8:53) does not argue the point with her; it is peripheral to the issue he wishes to drive home.
4:13-14. Cf. Sirach 24:21 (where Wisdom promises that whoever drinks from her will thirst for more of her). If Jesus alludes at all to Moses’ well in Numbers 21:16-18, it may or may not be coincidental that that passage immediately follows the account of the serpent (Num 21:4-9) mentioned in John 3:14.
4:15. The images of water and wells were often used symbolically in antiquity; like many other characters in John, however, she takes Jesus literally when he is speaking figuratively. Nonwealthy rural women usually went to nearby water sources to draw water; they could let down their pitcher or other vessel into a spring, and sometimes would carry it back on their head.
4:16-17. In view of the ambiguity of the situation (see comment on 4:7), her statement, “I have no husband,” could mean “I am available.” While wells were common places of conversation, they also could serve as places for finding spouses, most notably in some well-known biblical accounts (Gen 24; 29; Ex 2). Although she obviously came to the well alone, this Jewish man converses with her (against custom; Jn 4:27) and might be thought to ask a leading question. Jesus removes the ambiguity, which stems from his refusal to observe customs that reflected ethnic and gender prejudice, not from flirtation.
4:18. Jesus clarifies her ambiguous statement: she had been married five times and is not married to the man with whom she now lives. If she were repeatedly widowed, people might well think something was wrong with her (cf. Gen 38:11; Tobit 6:14-15). A more common situation would be that she had been divorced most or all of these times; in this case, most ancient readers would (rightly or wrongly) believe there was something wrong with her. (Carrying a vessel, she was not wealthy enough to have initiated the divorces.) Samaritans were no less pious and strict than Jews, and she was apparently ostracized from the Samaritan religious community—which would have been nearly coextensive with the whole Samaritan community (see comment on 4:6-7).
4:19. That she came to the well alone might lead a visitor to suspect that she had a negative reputation; only a prophet, however, could supply details. Prophets were considered capable of sometimes knowing others’ thoughts (see comment on 1:42). Although this frequent designation for Jesus is inadequate (4:44; 6:14; 7:40; 9:17), it at least moves the conversation beyond 4:17. Yet Samaritans apparently rejected the biblical prophets between Moses and the end-time restorer. The Samaritans awaited not just any prophet, but the greatest prophet, one like Moses (Deut 18:15-18); see John 4:25. If Jesus is a prophet, then Jews are right and Samaritans are wrong, leading to the question of 4:20.
4:20. Mount Gerizim, the Samaritans’ holy site equivalent to Judaism’s Jerusalem, was in full view of Jacob’s well. For Jews, the Jerusalem temple was the holiest site on earth. The Samaritan Pentateuch, by contrast, specified Gerizim as the proper site for worship. The woman undoubtedly uses the past tense for “worship” because of her continuing consciousness of Jews’ and Samaritans’ ethnic separation: roughly two centuries earlier, in 128 B.C., a Jewish king had obliterated the Samaritan temple on that mountain, and it had remained in ruins ever since. Samaritans mocked the Jewish holy site and once, under cover of night, even sought to defile the Jerusalem temple. Jews similarly ridiculed Mount Gerizim and even built many of their *synagogues so worshipers could face Jerusalem. Samaritans were unwelcome in Jerusalem’s temple, so if the Jews are right (4:19), there is no hope for her.
4:21. “A time is coming” was common prophetic language (1 Sam 2:31; 2 Kings 20:17; Jer 31:31). Ancient peoples valued “holy sites.”
4:22. Jesus is not neutral; he accepts the correctness of the Jewish position, although he does not allow that to remain as an ultimate barrier to ethnic reconciliation (4:23). In a Gospel probably at least partly addressing Jewish Christians rejected by their synagogues (see the introduction), this point is significant.
4:23-24. When he speaks of “worship in Spirit and truth,” Jesus may have in view the common identification of the *Spirit with prophetic inspiration and empowerment in ancient Judaism, as well as *Old Testament passages about charismatic, prophetic worship (especially 1 Sam 10:5; 1 Chron 25:1-6). Given the common belief that the prophetic Spirit was no longer fully active, Jesus’ words would strike ancient ears forcefully. The future hour (4:21) is present as well as future; Jesus makes the character of the future world available to his *disciples in their present lives (see comment on 3:16). For oppressed Jews and Samaritans longing for the future promise, this was also a striking statement.
4:25-26. Later Samaritan documents explain the Samaritan concept of a *messiah: the Taheb, or restorer, was a prophet like Moses (Deut 18:15-18). Some evidence suggests that the Taheb’s role included teaching.
4:27. Traditional Jewish piety warned men not to talk much with women (some later *rabbis added, even with one’s own wife!), both because of temptation and (especially in later sources) even because uninformed observers might suspect misconduct. Traditional Greek and Roman culture also considered it inappropriate for a wife to talk with men in unguarded settings; although Roman culture had been shifting, much of the rural Mediterranean world (probably including most of Galilee and Samaria) maintained more conservative traditions. That the disciples are amazed yet trust their teacher enough not to ask about this situation is a sign of their respect for him, an attitude considered appropriate for faithful disciples. (A few later Jewish traditions report rabbis who disintegrated disrespectful disciples into heaps of ashes with their eyes, but such stories are meant only to illustrate the general principle that one ought not to challenge one’s teacher!)
4:28-30. Like other ancient cultures (e.g., Roman law), most Jewish people did not have much regard for the witness of a woman (see later rabbis but especially Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 4.219). The witness of a sinner, meanwhile, would be worthless; the situation was probably the same among the Samaritans. Nevertheless, she witnesses the way Philip had (1:46). That she is distracted from her original purpose for coming to the well (4:28) likely suggests that Jesus’ water has replaced the water of Jacob’s well for her. Someone who knew Rebekah came to meet the man who met her at the well and to invite him to stay (Gen 24:28-32; cf. 29:13; Ex 2:20).
4:31-33. Ancient teachers sometimes used food as a metaphor for spiritual food (see comment on 6:32). In the *Old Testament, this metaphor sometimes related to one’s calling (Jer 15:16; cf. Ezek 3:1-3).
4:34. The figurative use of food imagery was intelligible in Jesus’ milieu (e.g., Sirach 24:19-21), including for one’s calling (cf. Jer 15:16; Ezek 3:1-3). Jewish teachers regarded God’s work in one sense as finished (his creative work—Gen 2:2) but in another sense continuing (his work of sustaining his creation; see comment on 5:17). Jesus refers here to a work that climaxes all God’s work: Jesus completes the Father’s work on the cross (19:30; cf. 17:4).
4:35. “Lifting up one’s eyes” (KJV, NASB) was a common Old Testament expression for “looking” (e.g., Gen 13:10; 18:2; 24:63-64), although it became rarer in later Hebrew. The main wheat harvest ran from mid-April through the end of May; the barley harvest, which made fields “white” (literally, as in KJV, NASB; cf. “ripe”—NIV, NRSV) was in March. In Palestine, the gap between sowing and reaping was normally four to five months. Some scholars think that Jesus here cites a Jewish proverb that refers to four months between planting and harvesting.
4:36-38. In this context, Jesus and the Samaritan woman sow, and the *disciples see the harvest (v. 39). Verse 37 seems to adapt a popular proverb based on ideas such as Ecclesiastes 2:18—changing an image of sorrow to one of joy.
4:39-42. The effectiveness of her testimony in this culture is surprising; see comment on 4:28-30. The Samaritans now believe because they meet Jesus (as in 1:46-49), but the woman’s relationship to her community also changes through her having become his first witness there.
Mediterranean culture, especially in largely rural areas like Palestine, emphasized the virtue of hospitality. Nevertheless, Jews and Samaritans did not typically extend this act to each other. For Jesus to lodge there, eating Samaritan food and teaching Samaritans (v. 40) would disturb traditional Jewish sensitivities, perhaps like defying segregation in the United States during the 1950s, apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s, or ethnic or cultural segregation found in many other societies. The Jesus of the Gospels is more concerned with people than with custom (cf. 2:6-9).
4:43-45. See comment on Mark 6:4; but here the “home country” is apparently Judea (cf. Jn 1:11).
4:46. For Cana see 2:1. Capernaum was close to a full day’s walk from there. “Royal official” (NASB, NIV) probably means that this man is one of Herod Antipas’s court officials, although Herod’s official title was tetrarch rather than king; some of the Herodian rulers’ officers were even *Gentiles (though John would probably mention it if that were the case here). Many of these lived in Tiberias, some ten miles (about fifteen kilometers) from Capernaum (see comment on 6:23), but this one may reside in Capernaum. Jesus, who is never mentioned as entering Tiberias (or Sepphoris, the other major city in Galilee), was extremely unfavorable toward Antipas (Lk 13:32; 23:9; for reasons, cf. Mk 6:17-29); this man who comes to Jesus may have been a wealthy aristocrat, probably much influenced by Greco-Roman culture and probably not respected by stricter Jewish standards.
4:47-49. “Come down” (v. 49 NRSV) is relevant because Capernaum, on the Sea of Galilee, was lower in elevation than Cana. The *Old Testament condemned unbelief in the face of signs (Ex 4:9; Num 14:11); John’s Gospel articulates an even higher ideal. On Jesus’ rebuff and a suppliant’s insistence, see comment on 2:4-5.
4:50-54. The journey from Capernaum to the likeliest site of Cana is less than twenty miles, an average day’s walk in antiquity, but if evening intervened the official would have stopped en route to spend the night before proceeding. Long-distance miracles were rare by Old Testament, other Jewish and Greco-Roman standards; people generally believed prophets and Greek magicians more easily if they were present in person. The rare stories of long-distance miracles suggested to ancient readers that these miracle workers had extraordinary power. For Jesus, the only prerequisite for such miracles is seekers’ faith in his power.
Healing shrines were common throughout the ancient world, especially for the worship of Asclepius and other popular deities renowned for healing powers. Most of these shrines required the supplicants to purify themselves at the adjoining fountain or other source of water. This passage portrays Jesus as greater than such healing sanctuaries of his day. More critically, this chapter reveals Jesus as the Father’s agent (see “*apostle” in the glossary), hence able to perform divine acts even on the Sabbath. Contrasting characters was a common *rhetorical and literary device in antiquity, probably applied by John here.
Table 4. Parallels Between John 5:1-17 and 9:1-34
| John 5:1-17 | John 9:1-34 |
|---|---|
| Unable to walk for 38 years (5:5) | Blind from birth (9:1) |
| Jesus, rather than a Jerusalem pool, brings healing (5:3-4, 7) | Jesus uses a Jerusalem pool to bring healing (9:7) |
| Do not keep sinning, lest you face something worse (5:14) | Neither this man nor his parents sinned to cause his condition (9:2) |
| The man reports Jesus to the authorities (5:15) | The man refuses to deny Jesus to the authorities (9:24-34) |
| Jesus does the Father’s works (5:17) | Jesus came to fulfill the Father’s works (9:3-4) |
5:1. John does not specify which Jewish feast is the occasion for Jesus’ trip to Jerusalem, although some manuscripts have “the feast,” which would probably imply the Feast of Tabernacles, as normally in Jewish tradition (not Passover). But the real issue for this narrative is that the day on which Jesus heals is a sabbath (5:9b).
5:2. Public baths were standard in Greco-Roman cities, and people congregated there. A *Qumran scroll attests the name of this pool, and archaeologists have discovered a pool in this location fitting precisely this description. Although scholars do not agree on the site of Bethesda (or its exact spelling), many favor a site under St. Anne’s Monastery in Jerusalem, just north-northeast of the temple. The pools were quite large (like a football field) and roughly twenty feet deep. This site had two twin pools, surrounded by four porches, or porticoes, and one porch (a fifth one) down the middle separating the pools (perhaps separating genders). Although John writes after Jerusalem was destroyed in 70, his recollection of the site is accurate.
5:3. This site was later used as a pagan healing shrine; given the ancient tendency to reuse older shrines, the Jewish community in Jesus’ day may well have viewed this pool as a place of healing. The temple authorities undoubtedly did not approve—after all, sacred pools at healing shrines characterized Greek cults like that of Asclepius—but popular religion often ignores religious contradictions that seem clearer to official religious leaders.
5:4. This verse may not be original (see notes in most translations) but was probably added early by a *scribe familiar with the tradition of healing at Bethesda; it explains the otherwise enigmatic verse 7.
5:5. The man had been sick there longer than many people in antiquity lived—for about as many years as Israel had wandered in the wilderness. Ancient reports of healings often specified how long the person had been sick to emphasize the greatness of the healer’s cure. Obviously nothing else, including this pool, had succeeded in restoring him.
5:6-9a. In 2:6 and 3:5, Jesus replaces the water of ceremonial purification; in 4:13-14, he replaces the “holy water” of a *Samaritan holy site. Here he, not the supposedly healing waters, restores the man.
Narratives often made points by contrasting characters; John contrasts the man healed in 5:1-9 with the man healed in 9:1-7. Local authorities may have been pressuring some of John’s hearers to follow the example of the former; John urges them to emulate the latter instead (a few decades later, a Roman governor was pressuring Christians to renounce their exclusive devotion to Christ, sparing their lives only if they revered the statue of the emperor and other deities).
5:9b-10. Biblical rules forbade work on the sabbath, even so much as gathering wood for a fire (Num 15:32-36). By Jesus’ day, Jewish *law explicitly forbade carrying things on the sabbath, viewing this as a form of work.
5:11-13. Many teachers also forbade minor cures—physicians’ cures not necessary to save a life—on the sabbath. That Jesus acts in God’s name with a miracle rather than a physician’s cure should make that discussion irrelevant; but law is often argued by analogy, and the particular authorities in this passage apparently reason that Jesus’ cure is just like a physician’s cure.
5:14. The man may have been in the temple for worship, possibly to give thanks for his healing (cf. Lev 14:10; Ps 56:12); but the temple dominated public space in Jerusalem. In the Bible sufferings were sometimes (not always—cf. 9:2-3; e.g., 2 Sam 4:4; 1 Kings 14:4; 2 Kings 13:14) judgment for sin (e.g., 1 Kings 13:4; 2 Kings 1:4; 2 Chron 16:12). Jesus warns of greater judgment here—probably the *resurrection for judgment (cf. 5:29).
5:15-16. This man apparently does just the opposite of the faithful healed man in 9:30-34, with whom John contrasts him. His behavior may resemble those who left the *churches of John’s readers and sided with their opponents, betraying them to persecution (see introduction to 1 John in this commentary).
5:17. Everyone recognized that God had continued to work since creation, sustaining the world even on the sabbath. Jesus reasons by analogy that what is right for God in sustaining his creation is also right for himself.
5:18. Jewish prayers often called God “Father,” as the Father of Israel; the issue here is that Jesus seems to treat his relationship to the Father in a special way (see e.g., Ex 4:22-23; Is 63:16; 64:8; Jer 3:19). Because Jesus appears to usurp prerogatives solely attributed to God (5:17—the right to work on the sabbath), his hearers think that he thereby claims a position equal to that of God, a claim that naturally sounds blasphemous to them (cf. Is 14:14; Ezek 28:2). Second-century *rabbis accused many Jewish Christians of believing in two gods; some later rabbis even spoke of those who sought to make themselves independent of God as acting as if they were “equal” to God. Even Greeks, for whom the line between divine and mortal was often rather thin, regarded attempts to make oneself a deity as presumptuous. One could “annul” a biblical law by disregarding it, so they feel that Jesus is (literally) “destroying” the sabbath.
Jesus seeks to qualify their understanding of his relationship to the Father; far from usurping God’s honor (5:18), Jesus acts only on the Father’s authority and in conjunction with his will.
5:19. Jesus qualifies their understanding by applying another analogy: it was common wisdom that sons imitated their fathers. Far from claiming that his rank rivals the Father’s (as they have charged), Jesus here highlights his obedience to the Father (filial obedience was an important virtue in antiquity). But the offense remains in that Jesus claims to be God’s Son (and to watch the Father continually) in a unique way that does not include them.
Wordplays were common. God continued his creative work on the sabbath (see comment on 5:17); what Jesus “does” or “makes” (poieo) here is that he “makes a person” well on the sabbath (7:23), a possible allusion to the *Septuagint of Genesis 1:26-27, where God first “made a person.” In that passage, God made humanity “in our image”; Jesus might imply the joint work of the Father and the Son.
5:20. Some Jewish mystics claimed visions of God, but Jesus’ language goes beyond this, implying continual experience of God. Fathers typically loved sons; God was said to love Israel (in context, of course, Jesus’ claim is more special).
5:21-22. If Jesus shares the Father’s initial and continuing work of creation (see comment on 1:3; 7:23), he could also share his future prerogative of raising the dead. Although some *Old Testament texts spoke of a king who would reign under God’s authority (Dan 7:13-14; cf. Jn 5:27), raising and judging the dead was a divine prerogative reserved for God alone, as rehearsed daily in Jewish prayers (“God who raises the dead”). Some Jewish texts, perhaps following Greek models, delegate some judgment in the afterlife to an individual like Enoch or Abel or perhaps even the *Son of Man, but absolute judgment is a divine prerogative.
To his opponents, this would sound like ditheism (an offense with which some later rabbis charged early Christians). By claiming that the Father “gave” him this authority, Jesus claims to exercise delegated authority as the Father’s agent (Judaism accepted the legal principle of agency; cf. “*apostle” in the glossary). The idea of the Son as the Father’s agent runs throughout this section and disarms their objection in verse 18. (In trinitarian terms, Jesus is equally deity with the Father but distinct in person and submits to the Father.)
5:23. In the kin-centered ancient Mediterranean world, how one treated one member of a family reflected one’s attitude toward the family as a whole. God sometimes gave others honor as his representatives (Ps 2:11-12; Is 60:1-2), but no one was ever to be honored to the same degree as God (Is 42:8; 48:11; cf. Ex 20:5). Jesus’ hearers could easily construe Jesus’ statement here as a claim to deity.
5:24-25. *Eternal life, the life of the world to come, was supposed to be available only when the dead would be raised; but Jesus provides new life already for those who trust in him.
5:26. Non-Palestinian Jewish texts held God to be the only one with life “of himself” (“uncreated,” “self-begotten,” etc.); as in some Greek writings, they described the supreme God as existing without any source outside himself. Although John can also use the phrase more generally in other contexts (6:53), this passage compares Jesus’ prerogatives with those of the Father, suggesting that, as in *Diaspora Jewish sources, the term here refers to Jesus’ uncreated eternality.
5:27. The Son of Man in Daniel 7:13-14 was to rule for God in the future *kingdom; ruling included executing judgment.
5:28-29. The Old Testament (Dan 12:2) and much of ancient Judaism taught a *resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous, which would take place at the last day. (Some circles in ancient Judaism taught only a resurrection of the righteous; others taught that the wicked would be resurrected only temporarily for judgment and then destroyed; still others held that the wicked would be resurrected to eternal judgment. Others, such as *Sadducees and probably many Hellenized Diaspora Jews, denied a future resurrection.) The Old Testament and Judaism spoke of God judging people by their deeds. “Tombs” may evoke Is 26:19 in the Septuagint.
5:30. Jesus is thus a faithful shaliakh, or agent; Jewish *law taught that the man’s agent was as a man himself (backed by his full authority), to the extent that the agent faithfully represented him. Moses and the *Old Testament prophets were sometimes viewed as God’s agents.
5:31. Here Jesus cites the Old Testament principle, central to later Jewish law (both that of the rabbis and that of the *Dead Sea Scrolls), that two witnesses are necessary to prove a (capital) case (Deut 17:6; 19:15). Testimony was essential in ancient Jewish court cases.
5:32. Jewish teachers sometimes spoke of God in roundabout terms (here, “another”).
5:33-34. On John the Baptist as a witness, see comment on 1:6-8. Speakers in courts sometimes supplied evidence even while denying that it should be strictly necessary.
5:35. The hand-held oil lamps of the Herodian period were too small to give forth much light (they normally produced as much as a candle), and thus one would symbolize only a small reflection of “the light.” Some Jewish teachers referred to a great person, such as a patriarch or a great rabbi, as a “lamp” or light in the world.
5:36-37. The witness of the Father should be all that is necessary. Israel at Sinai supposedly saw his form and heard his voice (cf. Ex 19:9, 11; 24:10-11; Sirach 17:13; but cf. the qualification in Deut 4:12), and accepted his word through his agent Moses; Jesus says that his own generation rejects the fuller revelation of God sent to them (cf. Jn 1:11, 14-18). Greek-speaking Jews thought of Wisdom as God’s image (Wisdom of Solomon 7:26; so also *Philo of Alexandria regarding the logos); see comment on John 1:1-18.
5:38. They claimed to have God’s word in the law given at Sinai (cf. 5:37, 39), but missed the point.
5:39-40. Even *Gentiles recognized the Jewish people’s zeal for their Scriptures, and various groups (including the people reflected in the *Dead Sea Scrolls) emphasized diligent searching of the Scriptures. Scripture said, “Do this and you will live,” which Jewish teachers read as: “Do this and you will have life in the world to come.” Thus they believed that one had eternal life through the Scriptures; but Jesus says that the Scriptures witness to him, hence to reject him is to disobey the Scriptures.
5:41-44. The Father’s agent comes in the Father’s name, not in his own; to reject a person’s agent was to reject the authority of that person himself.
5:45-47. Moses witnesses to Jesus in his writings (the first five books of the Old Testament were attributed to him). Ancient Judaism viewed Moses as an intercessor for Israel (a view found in, e.g., *Josephus, rabbis, the *Testament of Moses); but Jesus says that Moses will instead be their prosecutor. Jewish teachers regarded Moses as the central prophetic figure of their history, and even many pagans knew of Moses as Israel’s lawgiver. Moses wrote of a prophet like himself (Deut 18:18), but in the larger context of John’s Gospel, Jesus could refer here to Moses’ experience of divine glory (see comment on 1:14-18).
After speaking of Moses (5:45-47), Jesus goes on to perform a sign that might be expected of a new prophet like Moses (Deut 18:15): providing manna.
6:1. Although outsiders rightly called it a “lake,” Galileans called it the “Sea” of Galilee.
6:2. Any means of possible healing in antiquity (such as hot springs and healing shrines) drew large followings. Wonderworkers seem to have been rarer in this period, but even fraudulent ones (such as the Alexander mentioned by *Lucian) or those who promised but later failed to deliver prophetic signs (such as some failed prophets mentioned in *Josephus) often drew large crowds.
6:3-4. If the events of chapter 5 took place at the Feast of Tabernacles (see comment on 5:1) and those of this text occur at Passover, and if this section of John is in chronological order, half a year has elapsed between these chapters. The chronological recollection fits the depiction of grass in 6:10.
6:5-6. People (e.g., generals) sometimes tested others’ understanding or resolve; some teachers also asked questions of their *disciples solely to test them.
6:7. The bread needed to feed the crowd would cost two hundred days’ wages for a peasant or unskilled laborer; during food shortages (which such a multitude might create for surrounding villages) a day’s wages might feed just one family. Although fishermen may have earned the same amount faster, it still represents a substantial sacrifice to the disciples’ communal treasury (12:6; 13:29).
6:8-9. The “barley” loaves are reminiscent of 2 Kings 4:42-44, where Elisha multiplies such loaves. Philip’s and Andrew’s skepticism also mirrors that of one of Elisha’s prophet disciples (2 Kings 4:43; cf. Num 11:21-22). (Some scholars also point to the presence of Elisha’s assistant in 2 Kings 4:38, 41; the *LXX there uses the same word for “lad” as Andrew does here.) There too bread was left over, though Elisha fed just two hundred with twenty loaves. Bread was the most fundamental staple of the ancient Mediterranean diet; barley was cheaper than wheat, allowing for more loaves at the same price. Fish was a staple in Galilee, and sometimes was dried; most people could not regularly afford meat.
6:10. People often sat on chairs but “reclined” (so the Greek here) at banquets (like Passover). Grass would flourish especially in the spring, around Passover season (cf. 6:4); it would also make the ground more comfortable for sitting (the wilderness often lacked it). John numbers five thousand “men” (the Greek term here is gender-specific, and only men were usually numbered in antiquity); the whole crowd, including women and children, may have been as many as four times that number. In this case Jesus could be addressing a crowd nearly as large as the seating capacity of the theater for the citizen assembly of a major city like Ephesus, and at least four times the seating capacity of the theater in Sepphoris, a major Galilean city; to address such a crowd was no small feat.
6:11. The head of the Jewish household customarily gave thanks before (and, at least according to later attested custom, after) the meal. A later standard blessing is, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, who brings forth bread from the earth.” Miracles of multiplying food appear in the *Old Testament (cf., e.g., 1 Kings 17:16; 19:8) and occasionally in extrabiblical Jewish tradition (cf. the oil in late traditions about the *Maccabees) and Greco-Roman texts; the primary background here is 2 Kings 4:42-44 (see comment on 6:8-9) and especially the manna of Exodus 16 (see comment on 6:31-33).
6:12. Possibly relevant is an ancient Roman custom that required hosts to provide sufficient food for some to be left over at the end of the meal; Jesus is the ultimate host. Certainly relevant is the analogous miracle in 2 Kings 4:44. Greco-Roman moralists and Jewish teachers abhorred waste; although the extra bread has been provided miraculously, its provision is not to be taken for granted and squandered.
6:13. The leftovers are considerably more than they started with; that they filled the maximum number of baskets they could carry underlines the enormity of the miracle.
6:14. “The Prophet” implies the prophet like Moses of Deuteronomy 18:15-18. In Moses’ day, God had miraculously provided bread from heaven, manna. At Passover season (Jn 6:4) hopes for deliverance ran even higher than usual, because the Jewish people rehearsed how God had delivered them from their oppressors by the hand of Moses.
6:15. Some other first-century leaders gathered large followings in the wilderness who believed that they could perform signs like Moses or Joshua and overthrow the Romans; see comment on 6:14. The crowds wanted a worker of earthly miracles and an earthly leader like Moses (some Jewish traditions—*Philo, the *rabbis, etc.—viewed Moses as a king; cf. Deut 33:4-5); but this was not Jesus’ mission (6:63). Perhaps threatened by the earthly emperor’s claims to authority (see the introduction to Revelation), John’s hearers may have taken warning from this passage. Privacy was difficult to find within Galilean villages, but would be easier on the mountain (6:3).
In the context of John’s discussion of Jesus as the New Passover, new manna and one greater than Moses, Jesus’ miracle on the sea may have reminded his first hearers of Israel’s crossing the sea in the days of Moses.
6:16-19. Squalls were frequent on the lake and can keep even modern boats on shore. Given where they are traveling (from the northeast to northwest shores), they were probably most of the way across the lake; turning back is no longer an option. That they had not arrived yet indicates the difficulty of the wind (6:18). Fishing boats were equipped with oars; the sail would be counterproductive in this storm. In the *Old Testament, only God is said to walk on the waves (see comment on 6:20).
6:20. “It is I” (v. 20) is literally “I am.” “It is I” is a legitimate way to translate the phrase, and no doubt how Jesus intends the disciples to understand it; but given the context of Jesus walking on water, the nuance of deity in “I am” (Ex 3:14; Is 41:4; 43:10, 13) is probably present. *Gentiles had some stories of miracleworkers walking on water, but these were not known to Palestinian Jewish tradition, echoed here. In the Old Testament, Moses, Joshua, Elijah and Elisha all parted bodies of water, but only God trod upon the water (Job 9:8; cf. Ps 77:19, shortly before Ps 78:24, possibly used in Jn 6:31).
6:21. The boat being instantly at its destination has no exact Old Testament parallels, but the *Spirit had sometimes carried prophets from one place to another almost instantly (e.g., Ezek 8:3; 11:24—probably in a vision; cf. 1 Kings 18:12; 2 Kings 2:16).
6:22-23. A large, culturally Greek-oriented city on the lake of Galilee, Tiberias was named for the emperor Tiberius and built by Herod Antipas on the site of a graveyard. This site effectively kept the most religious Jews out of the city and allowed Herod to dole out favors to allies without interference from other powerful Jews. It does not appear in the *New Testament record apart from this mention and, like Sepphoris, the other large city of Galilee (also very Hellenized), does not seem to have been frequented by Jesus. People often had to cross the lake in small boats.
6:24. People could lease boats, and perhaps paid a fare for conveyance (though this is not clear). Capernaum was a shorter distance across the sea from their location than Tiberias was, and less than ten miles from Tiberias (relevant if the boat-owners of 6:23 wished to return there).
6:25-26. The appeal of free food is not hard to understand; thus, for example, emperors and others used it to pacify Rome or gain political support. The crowd wants to follow a prophet who will provide free food and political deliverance—another Moses. But they miss the central thrust of Jesus’ mission (cf. 6:15).
6:27-29. The dialogue between Jesus and the crowd plays on the term work; Judaism stressed righteous works, but Jesus singles out a particular work: faith in him (Jewish teachers praised Abraham’s “work” of faith in God, but Jesus’ demand is more specific). They then demand from Jesus a “work,” which now means a sign (v. 30), as it sometimes does in Jewish literature. The “seal” (v. 27) means that God has attested Jesus; cf. comment on 3:33.
This passage fits ancient Jewish expectations for a *midrash or homily on Exodus 16:15 and Psalm 78:24, which Jesus quotes in John 6:31. Jesus paraphrases, explains and expounds in a manner characteristic of ancient Jewish teachers, yet his hearers fail to understand him. Ancient teachers sometimes made their lectures hard to understand to sort out genuine followers from the masses.
6:30-31. The crowd still wants him to act as the new Moses they expect—on an earthly, political level. Many Jewish people expected manna to be restored in the world to come. Moreover, God provided Israel bread in the wilderness not just once but daily; the crowd might reason that if Jesus is a prophet like Moses (6:14-15), he should provide bread more than once. Like other ancient writers, John was free to paraphrase his material in his own words; here the crowd cites Scripture as if they are rabbis in a debate, using Exodus 16:4, 15 and/or Psalm 78:24. John seems to know and use both Hebrew and Greek versions of these texts. The following discourse repeatedly paraphrases the text (as was common in ancient Jewish Scripture exposition).
6:32-33. Both Exodus 16:4, 15 and Psalm 78:24 attribute the bread to God (also Ps 78:19-20; Neh 9:15); correcting a misapplication was common in Jewish Scripture interpretation (e.g., “Do not understand the text as meaning X; instead it means Y”). (Some later rabbis attributed the manna to Moses’ merit, but they would have agreed that God gave it.) Jesus says, “Not Moses, but God really gave this bread.” His hearers would have to agree; that was technically how Moses had put it (Ex 16:4, 15; cf. Deut 8:3). Like many other interpreters of his day (see, e.g., the *Dead Sea Scrolls), Jesus is concerned to apply the biblical text to their present situation.
6:34. They hear him on a different level from the meaning he intends (cf. 3:4; 4:15), so he explains further. The ignorance of opponents or minor characters was often used as a foil to further a main argument throughout ancient literature (*Plato, rabbis, novels, etc.).
6:35-38. Jewish expositors had already often used manna as a symbol for spiritual food, God’s *law, or Torah/Wisdom/Word. Ancient writers also often used water or drinking figuratively (including Jewish teachers using it for Torah or Wisdom). Sirach 24:19 portrays Wisdom as saying, “Come to me . . . and eat from my fruits”; in 24:21, Wisdom cries, “Those who eat me will hunger for more, and those who drink me will thirst for more.” Jesus here compares himself with divine Wisdom, but (in contrast to Sirach) emphasizes the satisfaction of those who eat and drink from him.
6:39-40. The dead would be raised to *eternal life “on the last day,” the day of the Lord, when God would transform the world and inaugurate his eternal *kingdom. In ancient *rhetoric, the repetition of a point would make it sound more emphatic; repeating both the beginning and ending of a claim would underline it all the more. For divine vision (6:40) and transformation, see comment on 1 Jn 3:2.
6:41-43. In Exodus 16:2, Israelites grumbled before receiving manna, but here Jesus’ hearers complain even after having eaten bread. The crowd continues to hear Jesus on the wrong level, even though he clearly refers to eternal life and not literal bread. For background on Jesus coming down from heaven in addition to manna, see comment on 3:13 (especially on Wisdom’s descent; e.g., Wisdom of Solomon 9:10).
6:44. Most Jewish people believed in both human choice and God’s sovereignty. For example, the fifth benediction of the Amida, a regularly prayed Jewish prayer, recognized that God granted *repentance. “Drawing” may echo *Septuagint language for God drawing his people to himself (Jer 31:3; cf. Hos 11:4).
6:45. Jewish expositors often explained a Torah text in view of a passage from the prophets. Jesus cites Isaiah 54:13, which is not far from another context offering drink to God’s people (55:1) or from Isaiah 53, which John uses elsewhere (12:38).
6:46. On God’s invisibility, even in part to Moses, see comment on 1:18.
6:47-51. Jesus contrasts the new and old manna in good midrashic style, like a good Jewish expositor. Most fundamentally, the manna in the wilderness conferred only temporary life, whereas Jesus confers eternal life. Virtually the entire wilderness generation perished in the wilderness (6:49) through disobedience, despite manna and the Torah.
6:52. Again Jesus’ hearers interpret him too literally. Jewish people had many forbidden foods, but they and all the Greco-Roman world as well abhorred cannibalism (which some abominable cults and some barbarians reportedly practiced occasionally). Many non-Christian Romans later misinterpreted Christian language about the Lord’s Supper: “eating the body and blood of their Lord” sounded like cannibalism to outsiders and thus aroused more persecution against the *church. In a Passover context (6:4), however, Jesus is being identified figuratively as the Passover lamb (Ex 12:8); cf. also divine Wisdom in comment on John 6:35.
6:53. Eating the flesh of the Passover lamb was required (Ex 12:8); but drinking the blood of the lamb (or of any creature) was always forbidden (Lev 17:10-11), avoided even in meat (Gen 9:4). Perhaps some might have also recalled the expression “the blood of grapes,” meaning wine (Gen 49:11), which was essential to the Passover meal. Moreover, both Sirach and *Philo speak of drinking divine Wisdom.
6:54-58. On the literal level (cannibalism and drinking blood) obeying Jesus’ statement should have merited judgment, not salvation; thus they are confused. Some sages spoke in riddles, a practice for which Jesus is known (his *parables, etc.). Only those wise enough to continue with him would penetrate the meaning of his teaching.
6:59. Synagogues could function as community centers and were not limited to use on the Sabbath. Although most of the remains of the Capernaum *synagogue are from a later period, evidence remains that points to the first-century synagogue on which the later synagogue was built.
6:60-61. The *disciples’ grumbling recalls how the Israelites treated Moses in the wilderness. “Stumbling” (NASB) was a common figure of speech for sinning or falling away.
6:62. Here Jesus may use a standard Jewish “how much more” argument: If you cannot receive the message of the cross, how much more difficult will it be for you to accept my *resurrection and return to the Father? For the impossibility of earthly things understanding heavenly things, see comment on 3:11-12.
6:63. Jesus provides here the interpretive key to what preceded: he is not speaking literally, as if they are to eat his literal flesh; he speaks of life through the *Spirit. Some Jewish interpreters were masters at figurative interpretation; but his followers still fail to understand him (6:66).
6:64-65. On Jesus’ knowledge, see comment on 2:23-25.
6:66. John portrays the departure of these disciples as apostasy, which Judaism regarded as one of the worst sins. The loyalty of disciples brought honor to teachers in antiquity; their abandonment led to dishonor.
6:67-71. Even among his closest followers, one is a betrayer. That even Jesus faced such betrayal would encourage John’s readers, who had experienced some apostates in their own churches (see the discussion of setting in the introduction to 1 John). On the “Twelve,” see comment on Mark 3:14-15. For “Iscariot,” see comment on Mark 3:16-19.
7:1. In Jesus’ day, Galilee and Judea were under separate jurisdictions (that of Antipas and the Roman governor, respectively), so that someone in trouble in one part of the country would be safer to remain in the other part. The Judean ruling class controlled many affairs in Judea and could refer capital cases to Pilate.
7:2. The Feast of Tabernacles was one of the three most important festivals of the Jewish year and was celebrated for eight days in Jerusalem. Jewish pilgrims from throughout the Roman and Parthian world would gather. The men would live in booths (made of branches and the like) constructed on rooftops or elsewhere, commemorating God’s faithfulness to his people when they lived in booths in the wilderness (women and children were not required to live in the booths). This feast was known for its joyous celebration.
7:3-4. From the standpoint of general ancient political theory, the advice of Jesus’ brothers is correct; they may not know the specific matter of the Jerusalem authorities’ opposition. Most teachers taught in public places. Moralists praised as virtuous frank or open speech (v. 4), whereas secret acts were deemed deceitful. But cf. John 6:30.
7:5. Brothers were normally among one’s closest allies; kin ties were very important, and intrafamily conflicts were considered particularly tragic.
7:6-9. Pious Jewish men who lived as near as Galilee were supposed to go to the feast. It would be normal for Jesus to travel with his extended family (*Josephus spoke of whole towns going). The issue is not that he will not go, but that he will only go “secretly” at first, so as not to hasten the appropriate time of his execution (cf. 7:6 with 2:4). Although Jesus’ “not yet” prevents his statement from qualifying as deception per se, Scripture’s general demand for truth was qualified in particular cases, most often for saving life (e.g., Ex 1:19; 1 Sam 16:2-3; 2 Kings 8:10).
7:10. Festal pilgrims typically traveled in groups (Josephus even speaks of entire towns going). Because of Jerusalem’s elevation, pilgrims would “go up” to it. Greco-Roman biographers often liked to describe their subjects’ appearances, flattering or not. That none of the Gospels does so suggests that Jesus’ appearance may have been average enough to allow him to pass unnoticed in a crowd: probably curly black hair, light brown skin, perhaps a little over five feet in height—unlike the Aryan pictures of him that circulate in some Western churches. (He could be taller; some suggest an average height closer to five foot seven. The *Shroud of Turin, which is purported to be Jesus’ burial cloth, makes him taller, in the epic Hebrew tradition—1 Sam 9:2. But scholars debate its authenticity.) Although *Diaspora Jewish men, like Greek and Roman men, were normally clean-shaven, coins portray Palestinian Jewish captives in this period with full beards and hair down to their shoulders. Nevertheless, most Judeans had not seen Jesus at close range, so while Jesus’ appearance was probably not strikingly distinctive, we cannot be certain about the details.
7:11-13. In contrast to some later stereotypes, ancient Jewish views were very diverse on a number of issues. “One who leads astray the multitude” (NASB) or “one who deceives the people” (NIV, NRSV) was a serious charge, applied to those who led other Jews to idolatry or apostasy. Deuteronomy prescribes death as the penalty (13:5, 12-18), and some *rabbis even felt that such persons should be given no chance to repent, lest they be able to secure forgiveness though their followers had perished. Some Jewish sources as early as the second century charged Jesus with this crime.
7:14. Teaching was often done in public places, including in the temple courts. Some popular teachers drew large crowds there.
7:15. Most children in the Greco-Roman world could not afford even a primary education. But many Palestinian Jewish children, except perhaps from the poorest homes (which a carpenter’s family usually was not), would learn how to recite and probably often how to read the Bible, though most probably could not write. The issue here is not whether Jesus is literate or can recite Torah, but that he has never formally studied Scripture with an advanced teacher, yet he expounds as well as any of the scholars without depending on earlier scholars’ opinions.
7:16-17. Some Jewish sages agreed that willingness to obey preceded genuine understanding. Learning by doing was a standard part of Jewish education, which included imitating one’s teacher. (Sometimes this may have been taken too far. In a probably fictitious story, one *disciple was said to have hidden under his rabbi’s bed to learn the proper way to perform the marriage act.)
7:18-19. Prophets were to be God’s agents (see “*apostle” in the glossary). False prophets were technically to be executed; but the prophet like Moses was to be followed (Deut 18:9-22). To seek to kill a true prophet obviously contravened the *law.
7:20. Demoniacs were often thought to act insanely; in this case the crowd thinks Jesus is paranoid. But even this charge could imply the suspicion that he is a false prophet (7:12): false prophets were sometimes thought to channel spirits (indeed, many pagan magicians claimed such spirit-guides). The penalty for false prophets was death (Ex 22:18; Deut 18:10), so it is ironic that they would accuse him of having a *demon while denying any intention to kill him. Josephus tells of one true prophetic figure in this period (he does not quite label him a “prophet”) who was regarded as insane and demon possessed; the Gospels suggest that some viewed another this way (John the Baptist—Mt 11:18).
7:21-23. Jesus asks the crowd to reason consistently (sound and fair judgment was paramount in Jewish teaching): why is it wrong for him to heal supernaturally on the sabbath, when circumcision (which wounds) is permitted on the sabbath? A later first-century rabbi argued similarly: circumcising on the eighth day (involving a single member) takes precedence over the sabbath, so saving a whole life (which involves all one’s members) also does so. Some practices at the festivals (such as killing the Passover lamb and waving the lulab, i.e., palm branch, at the Feast of Tabernacles) were likewise held to take precedence over the sabbath. Jesus employs a “how much more” argument, frequent in the Gospels and in Jewish teaching more generally.
7:24. Many thinkers, including many *Pharisees, would have agreed with Jesus’ admonition here.
7:25-26. When a speaker was troublesome but popular, the less brutal ancient authorities sometimes discreetly waited for the best opportunity to deal with him rather than acting immediately.
7:27. Some scholars have pointed to a tradition (attested mostly but not exclusively in later sources) that the *Messiah would be hidden for a time before he appeared, and thus no one would know where he was from (cf. the irony in 9:29). Later sources compare him with Moses.
7:28-29. Jesus declares that where he is “from” is obvious: he is “sent from” the Father. This expression means that he is a commissioned agent, an authorized representative, of the Father (see “apostle” in the glossary).
7:30. The idea of an appointed (or fated) hour of death was fairly common in ancient Mediterranean sources, so the present claim would be intelligible to a wide audience.
7:31. In most Jewish traditions, the Messiah was not a miracle worker, except to the extent that the works of a new Moses figure would validate his prophetic claim to lead the people.
7:32. The aristocratic priests were dominant in Jerusalem’s leadership; some aristocratic Pharisees (though probably a much smaller number in Jesus’ day) also belonged to the coalition, though they did not dominate it. In Jesus’ day the Pharisees as a movement had no authority to arrest anyone, although the chief priests did; John might update the language for readers of his own day. Most scholars believe that the main Palestinian opposition that Jewish Christians faced in the decades after A.D. 70 came from Pharisees. The officers are the Levitical temple guards.
7:33-36. Sages sometimes spoke in riddles, inviting those who were wise to understand their teaching. John again employs the motif of misinterpretation: if the Jewish authorities misinterpret Jesus so badly, how can they claim to understand the Scriptures rightly? “Greeks” refers to Hellenized *Gentiles, perhaps descended from Greek and Macedonian settlers; “dispersion” (NASB) refers to Jewish people scattered among them. Jesus’ hearers apparently suspect that he will use the foreign Jews as a base of operation for reaching the Gentiles to whom they seek to be witnesses (a situation that ironically occurred, according to the book of Acts).
7:37. The “last day” of the Feast of Tabernacles (7:2) probably refers to the eighth day. For at least the first seven days of the feast, priests marched in procession from the Pool of Siloam to the temple and poured out water at the base of the altar. Pilgrims to the feast watched this ritual, which Jews throughout the Roman world thus knew about; it was even commemorated on souvenir jars they could take home with them. “Come to me” may echo the summons of Wisdom to come eat and drink of her (Sirach 24:19, 21).
7:38. Scripture reading at this feast is at least as old as Nehemiah 8:1-18; early Jewish tradition suggests that the readings on this last day of the festival (7:37) included the one passage in the Prophets that emphasized this feast, Zechariah 14, which was interpreted in conjunction with Ezekiel 47. Together these texts taught that rivers of living water would flow forth from Jerusalem or the temple, bringing life to all the earth. Jewish teachers often depicted the temple as the navel, or belly, of the world—that is, the center of the world (the way that Greeks viewed Delphi), so one might view the waters as proceeding from this belly or center. The water-drawing ceremony (7:37) (originally meant to secure rain) pointed toward this hope.
Because the water of verse 38 flows to and not from the believer (v. 39), 7:37-38 may be punctuated to read: “If anyone thirsts, let this one come to me; and let whoever believes in me drink. As the Scripture says . . . ” (The original manuscripts had no punctuation.) Verse 38 may thus declare that Jesus fulfills the Scriptures read at the feast, as the foundation stone of a new temple, the source of the water of life (cf. 19:34; Rev 22:1).
7:39. Most of Judaism did not believe that the *Spirit was prophetically active in their own time but Scripture promised the full outpouring of the Spirit in the messianic age or the world to come. Water often symbolized Torah (*law) or wisdom in Jewish texts, but John follows *Old Testament precedent in using it for the Spirit (Is 44:3; Joel 2:28; esp. Ezek 36:25-27).
7:40. “The Prophet” is the “prophet like Moses” (Deut 18:15, 18; see on 6:14-15). Although the connection is not explicit here, the hearers might have thought of the living water God provided in the wilderness in Moses’ day (Ex 17:1-7).
7:41-42. Like civic pride, regional prejudice was common in antiquity. Contradicting what others had said in 7:27, some people cite the place where the Messiah was to originate, based on Micah 5:2; that the Messiah was of Davidic descent was unanimously held. Although John included no birth *narratives, the conjunction of Matthew, Luke and widespread Christian traditions known by the early second century (to pagans interrogated by Hadrian) suggests that John’s hearers know that *Christ was born in Bethlehem. They would thus regard Jesus’ opponents here as ignorant.
7:43-44. Public divisions were common in ancient Mediterranean society.
7:45-46. On the *Pharisees in Jesus and John’s day, see comment on 7:32. Powerful and wise speech was highly regarded in antiquity; in that era, listening to public speakers was a form of entertainment as well as of learning (the former function has been largely replaced in affluent societies by television). The Levite temple guards would have heard many teachers in the temple, yet they are particularly impressed by this one. Rarely, but on occasion, elsewhere in antiquity armed men failed to arrest someone after hearing his discourses (an earlier case is mentioned by ancient Roman historians).
7:47. On the “misleader,” see comment on 7:12.
7:48. The Pharisees are clearly mistaken here (cf. 3:1-2). John uses irony, a common ancient literary technique, to underscore his point: Jesus’ opponents are closed-minded and dense. Aristocrats despised demagogues who appealed to the uneducated masses, and often tried to protect the masses from being deceived by them.
7:49. Trained *rabbis often looked down on the ‘amme ha’arets, “the people of the land,” common people who did not even try to follow rabbinic interpretations of the *law. Many texts indicate the animosity between Pharisaic rabbis and ‘amme ha’arets (e.g., *Akiba contended that before becoming a rabbi he was one of the ‘amme ha’arets and wanted to beat up rabbis). On a lesser scale, analogous attitudes may sometimes be observed among educated elites today; but the rabbis reasonably believed that one could not live the law without knowing it, and they did not think that ‘amme ha’arets, who did not know rabbinic interpretations, knew it.
7:50-51. Although municipal elites may not have always acted fairly, Pharisees and some others could insist on following proper Jewish legal procedure: a defendant must be allowed to speak for oneself. Given the elite’s attitude to those who do not know the law (7:49), John’s irony (see comment on 7:48) is eloquent here: Nicodemus challenges them on a basic matter of legal procedure accepted by Moses (e.g., Deut 1:16; 19:16-17) and all Jewish interpreters.
7:52. “Search and see” was a familiar phrase inviting a person to check the Scriptures. This response reflects regional prejudice rather than knowledge of the Scriptures (despite their attitude in 7:49): 2 Kings 14:25 demonstrates that they were mistaken. Later rabbis admitted that prophets arose from every tribe. Especially outside Sepphoris and Tiberias, Galileans (who were mostly rural) may have been more conservative than much of the Jerusalem elite, but Jerusalemites often perceived them as backward.
Omitted by all the earliest manuscripts, this passage is generally agreed to be a later addition to the Fourth Gospel. Although it may be a true story, as many scholars think, it should not be read as part of the context in John.
7:53–8:1. For Jesus spending nights on the Mount of Olives, cf. 18:1-2; Luke 22:39; cf. also Mark 11:1, 11.
8:2. Most people rose about sunrise. Teachers often taught in the temple courts; cf. 7:14.
8:3. John, who deals only with “*Pharisees” and chief priests, nowhere mentions “*scribes,” who are more frequent in the other Gospels; scribes functioned as teachers of the *law. On adultery, see comment on 1 Thessalonians 4:4-6.
8:4-5. Scripture commanded the execution not only of the adulteress but also of the adulterer; if the woman was genuinely caught in the act, the adulterer had surely been identified as well. The law of Moses demanded the execution of this woman, but Rome had removed capital jurisdiction from Jewish courts, except for temple violations. Thus the Jewish leaders test whether Jesus will reject the law, compromising his patriotic Jewish following, or reject Roman rule, which will allow them to accuse him to the Romans. Pharisees and later *rabbis were quite scrupulous about the biblical requirement of witnesses (Deut 17:6; 19:15), so it was necessary to claim that they had caught her in the act. Since she was caught in the act, however, it seems suspicious that the man is not brought.
8:6-8. Roman judges wrote their sentences before reading them aloud. Some think that Jesus may have written an acquittal. God wrote the Ten Commandments with his finger (Ex 31:18; Deut 9:10); perhaps Jesus writes the first line of the tenth commandment in the *Septuagint of Exodus 20: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.” This text might declare them all guilty of adultery (Mt 5:28). Jesus’ hearers, however, seem unaware of what he is writing; this proposal is thus at best speculation. (Some people also drew circles for ultimatums, but while the term here allows also for drawing figures, Jesus nowhere explains the writing.)
The witnesses were normally the first to throw the stones, but false witnesses were to pay the same penalty they had hoped to inflict on their victim (Deut 17:7; 19:19).
8:9-11. It was a commonplace of Jewish teaching that even the most pious had committed sins. God had the power to judge or forgive sins.
In the likelihood that 8:1-11 is not part of the context, 8:12–10:21 still takes place on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (7:2, 37).
8:12. Jewish literature was generous with the title “light of the world,” applying it to Israel, Jerusalem, the patriarchs, the *Messiah, God, famous rabbis and the *law (cf. 1:4-5); but always it refers to something of ultimate significance. One of the most spectacular celebrations of the Feast of Tabernacles was a torchlight ceremony with dancing in the temple’s court of women (commemorating the pillar of fire in the wilderness); this feast, along with Hanukkah (10:22), was thus known for splendid lighting (though John also uses the image in 12:46). That Jesus offers his light to the whole world, to all the nations, may suggest an allusion to Isaiah 42:6; 49:6. Walking in darkness (cf. Jn 9:4; 11:9) is a natural metaphor for stumbling (Is 59:10; Jer 13:16), falling from the right way (Jer 18:15; Mal 2:8) or being destroyed (Ps 27:2; Jer 20:11).
8:13-18. Ancients normally condemned public self-praise. The law of Moses required two witnesses to confirm any case (Deut 19:15; cf. 17:6), and subsequent Jewish interpretation made this requirement stricter; Jesus might employ the standard Jewish argument “how much more”: if the witness of two men is valid, how much more that of Father and Son? Perhaps relevant to 8:17: if later traditions are applicable to this period (which is not clear in this case), this was the season in which Jewish people especially contemplated judgment (during the closely associated New Year’s and Day of Atonement holy days).
Jews spoke of the law as “God’s law” or “our law”; rabbis presented only their pagan and heretical challengers as calling it “your law” (8:17). In John (who argues that Jesus fulfills the law), however, this expression is surely ironic: see the introduction on “the Jews.”
8:19-20. Their response is (v. 19): If he is a witness, he must appear in the court; and they complain that they have no access to the voice of God. Jesus’ reply is apparently: that is the problem. Treasuries were standard in ancient temples; the Jerusalem temple’s wealthy treasury (containing money, expensive garments, and other goods) was said to adjoin the Court of Women, where the lighting ceremony (8:12) and dancing took place throughout the nights of the festival. The treasury itself may have been used only for storage, but 8:20 can be read, “near the treasury.”
8:21-22. Many *Gentiles approved of suicide, but most Jews rejected it except under the most drastic circumstances (see comment on Acts 16:27). Although it is far from clear, it is possible that they think in terms of a deceased father; those who trafficked in ghosts would be viewed with hostility (Lev 20:27). In any case, they do not see Jesus as a particularly pious person here. Yet John’s irony is again at work: Jesus does return to the Father through his death on the cross.
8:23. The contrast between the realm above (God’s realm) and the realm below (where mortals lived) was common in Jewish *apocalyptic literature, but heavenly revealers in apocalypses were angels or very special heroes of the past (helping to prompt the question of 8:25). Jesus’ hearers cannot accept his implications, which depict Jesus more like divine Wisdom descended from heaven than like a boy who grew up in Nazareth (6:42; 7:41).
8:24-25. Dying in sin was a serious matter, for at death one’s final opportunity for *repentance had passed (cf. Ezek 18:21-32). (For this reason, Jewish teachers exhorted those being executed to confess their sins and expect their death to *atone for their sins.) Jesus agrees that one must repent but insists that genuine repentance must include faith in him. Although ego eimi can mean “I am he,” it can also refer to the divine name (Is 43:10, in Greek inviting them to believe that ego eimi; John builds toward the more explicit claim of 8:58).
8:26-27. That God was “true” was central to Jewish understanding of his character. According to Jewish law, an agent must accurately represent his sender, and to the extent that he did so was backed by his sender’s full authorization.
8:28-29. “Lifting up” (cf. 3:14; 12:32) is from the *Septuagint of Isaiah 52:13—the context of which early Christians applied to the crucifixion (Is 52:14–53:12).
8:30-31. Although Jesus’ listeners initially believe, they are ready to kill him by the end of the passage (8:59; cf. Ex 4:31; 5:21). Just as *Gentile converts or converts to Jewish movements had to persevere as well as join, and teachers wanted their *disciples to continue in their teaching, so true followers of Jesus must persevere (on perseverance, see also Ezek 18:24-26). This report could also encourage John’s circle of *churches (see introduction to 1 John).
8:32. The Greek concept of truth emphasized reality; the *Old Testament word translated “truth” had more to do with integrity or faithfulness to one’s word or character. Jewish thought sometimes characterized God as the Truth, so Jesus’ hearers should realize that he refers specifically to God’s truth in the Jewish sense.
8:33. Jesus’ hearers typically misunderstand him in a natural sense. Since freeborn ancients used slave status as an insult, they might object that they have never personally been slaves. Nevertheless, their reference to Abraham shows that they understand Jesus as referring to the Jewish people as a whole. Their response is surprising, since Jewish teachers generally acknowledged that their people had been subjected under the yoke of at least four kingdoms: Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. But many expected God to ultimately break the yokes of the other nations (an extreme form of this belief led to the revolt of A.D. 66–70). They taught that the other nations were ruled by guardian angels and the stars, but that Israel was ruled by God alone.
8:34. Philosophers often used “free” to mean free from false ideas, passion or constraint; Judaism spoke of being free from sin.
8:35. Although slaves were considered part of a household and could be “inherited,” they were not permanent members; they could be sold, and often they were freed. Indeed, Old Testament *law mandated that Jewish slaves be freed in certain years. By contrast, barring disinheritance, a son was always part of a household (cf. Gen 21:10). Jesus may also make another allusion here: “house” (which here, as often, means “household,” “family” or “home”) might possibly include a wordplay with God’s house, the temple (2:16); only the “sons” will have a permanent share there (Ezek 46:16-17; cf. also Is 56:4-5).
8:36-37. In popular Jewish belief in some circles, descent from Abraham virtually guaranteed salvation except for the most wicked; Israel was chosen and destined for salvation in him. Judaism celebrated Abraham’s righteousness, a righteousness Jesus’ critics here did not imitate (8:40).
8:38-39. “Father” could mean “ancestor,” and on that level Abraham was their father (v. 37—although many would have had some Gentile converts in their ancestry). But metaphorically a father was someone whose ways one imitated, often a teacher, or whose nature one revealed, such as a spiritual progenitor.
8:40. Abraham was used as the ultimate model for Jewish piety (hospitality, faith, and his role as model *proselyte and maker of proselytes), and Jewish tradition celebrated his reception of God’s disguised messengers in Genesis 18. (Jewish teachers later even appealed to his merits as a basis for God’s favor.)
8:41. Insinuation was common in ancient *rhetorical conflicts. To suggest that someone had one father by law but another father by nature was to suggest that one’s mother was guilty of adultery. Recognizing this implication, the interlocutors insist on the purity of their descent: “children of Abraham” was equivalent in Jewish literature to “children of God” (cf., e.g., Ex 4:22), because God had adopted Abraham’s descendants. (Some scholars have also seen here an allusion to the later rabbinic charge against Jesus that his mother bore him to a Roman soldier rather than as a virgin, though this charge is not clear in this debate.)
8:42-45. Jesus’ interlocutors would not deny that the devil was the original murderer (cf. 8:37, 40) and denier of truth (cf. 8:32); Jewish tradition stressed that his lie had led to Adam’s death (cf. Gen 3). People could be called “children” figuratively of those they resembled or whose ways they imitated; for becoming children of God instead, see comment on 3:3, 5. Because Jesus’ interlocutors want to kill him and reject his truth, their behavior demonstrates who is their real father; the issue is not ethnic but spiritual. Commentators usually associate the devil’s initial murder with his deception of Eve into spiritual death or (perhaps less likely, since no deceiver is explicit) Cain’s murder of Abel. (In a much later Jewish tradition, the devil was Cain’s actual father.) In ancient forensic rhetoric a defendant often returned the accuser’s charges (cf. 7:20). The devil (see *Satan) as liar likely evokes the serpent’s deception of Eve; Jewish literature continued to emphasize his role as deceiver (as well as tempter).
8:46-47. In court, the accused typically demanded proof from their accusers. Ancient defense rhetoric showed that the accusation was morally not characteristic of the upright defendant; it also often shifted charges onto accusers, thereby also impugning their motives for bringing a case. But whereas defendants would sometimes “confess” to faults that were not indictable crimes, Jesus claims to be above reproach. Jewish teachers normally acknowledged that everyone sinned (a few excepted the patriarchs).
8:48. Although many Judeans looked down on Galileans, both would have been insulted to be compared with *Samaritans. Jesus’ hearers within the *narrative are probably unaware of his fraternizing with Samaritans (4:40), which would not play well to a Jerusalem audience. The basis for this charge might be similar theology: Samaritans insulted the temple and challenged the Jewish people’s exclusive heritage in Abraham (see comment on 4:12). It was customary in ancient rhetoric to return one’s accuser’s charges (Jesus associated them with the devil, and they associate him with a *demon). Jews denied that Samaritans were pure descendants of Abraham (cf. 8:41). The charge of demon possession (also 10:20) challenges his prophetic credibility (see comment on 7:20). The discussion also reflects John’s irony: only the Samaritans (4:9) and *Pilate (18:35) recognize that Jesus is Jewish.
8:49-50. According to Jewish *law, one who rejects a person’s appointed agent also insults and rejects the one who sent that agent.
8:51-53. They could have understood him spiritually or in terms of the *resurrection, since some Jewish sources do speak in such terms (e.g., *4 Maccabees 7:18-19); most Jewish people except the *Sadducees would have agreed that Abraham and the prophets were spiritually alive with God. They continue to understand him too literally, however. (Even in one Jewish story where Abraham did not want to die, God made special arrangements to persuade him to give in.)
8:54-55. Ancients condemned public self-praise, but one could cite another’s endorsement. God would not share his glory with another deity (Is 42:8; 48:11). “He is our God” was the basic confession of the covenant in the *Old Testament (e.g., Ex 6:7; Lev 26:12; 1 Chron 17:22; Jer 31:33; Ezek 36:28). Yet those loyal to the covenant—those who truly keep God’s law—were said in the Old Testament to “know” God (e.g., Jer 9:24; 31:31-34; Hos 2:20).
8:56. Jewish tradition emphasized that during his vision in Genesis 15:12-21 Abraham had been shown the future kingdoms that would oppress Israel and the messianic era beyond them. This experience links Abraham with Moses (see comment on 1:14-18) and Isaiah (cf. Jn 12:39-41) as among those who had seen God’s glory.
8:57-58. Although the main point is that Jesus is too young to have known Abraham, his interlocutors might also imply that he is too young for much authority; fifty was the minimum age for involvement in some kinds of public service (and maximum for some others, Num 8:25).
If Jesus merely wished to imply that he existed before Abraham, he should have said, “Before Abraham was, I was.” But “I am” was a title for God (Ex 3:14), which suggests that Jesus is claiming more than that he merely existed before Abraham. This title of God may have been fresh on the minds of Jesus’ hearers at the feast: later tradition says that during the Feast of Tabernacles, the priests uttered God’s words in Isaiah: “I am the Lord, I am he” (Is 43:10, 13; the *Septuagint of Is 43:10 has ego eimi “I am”). (Although we cannot be certain of this tradition’s date, it certainly does not derive from this Gospel.)
8:59. Jesus’ hearers do not miss his point in 8:58; they take his words as blasphemy (a mere claim to *messiahship was not considered blasphemous, although it could be offensive; they understood him to claim deity). Stoning was an expected punishment for blasphemy (Lev 24:16, 23), but God’s people had sometimes attempted it against God’s own agents (Ex 17:4; Num 14:10; cf. 1 Sam 30:6). The temple was constructed from massive stone blocks, not the sort of stones that people could throw; but in Jesus’ day construction was still going on, and mobs usually found objects to throw, as *Josephus says *Zealots later did in the temple and a crowd did in a *synagogue.
In the Greek tradition, deities sometimes made themselves or favorite mortals invisible. More relevant here, God had earlier hidden some of his servants for their safety (Jer 36:26); here Jesus hides himself. Jesus’ departure from the temple might symbolize that: the glory had departed (Ezek 10–11); the departure of God’s presence on account of Israel’s sin was a common theme in later Jewish texts.
9:1. The pool of Siloam (9:7), presumably not far from where this incident occurs, was also near the temple (which Jesus had just left, 8:59). Blind people could make a living only by public charity, and they could make it best near the temple, where many people passed and people would tend to think charitably (cf. Acts 3:2). The *disciples see this blind man as they are leaving the temple area (8:59).
9:2. Most people in antiquity, including Jewish teachers, believed that suffering, including blindness, was at least often associated with sin, though Jewish *law provided protection for a blind person. Jewish people acknowledged punishment for ancestral sin; many believed in prenatal activity; and some allowed even for prenatal sin.
9:3-5. Jesus uses commonplace images: no one (except night watchmen and shepherds) works in the dark (v. 4); because modern lighting was unavailable, that normal forms of work (and usually even battles) ceased at nightfall was common knowledge. On the light of the world, see comment on 8:12.
9:6. Spittle was sometimes associated with healing in pagan circles, so it would naturally represent an agent of healing in popular thought. But spittle was still more widely considered vulgar and disgusting, and its application would make the man uncomfortable if he knows what it is. Some find here an allusion to the creative act in Genesis 2:7 (cf. Jn 20:22).
9:7. Healing through washing appears in the account of Naaman in 2 Kings 5:10-14. It is not clear whether “Siloam” meant “sent,” but Greek teachers as well as Jewish teachers from *Philo to the *rabbis commonly made arguments based on wordplays, which were often based on fanciful etymologies.
This pool was inside Jerusalem’s walls in Jesus’ day, with large masonry and four porches. Although Siloam was used as a water supply and for baptizing converts to Judaism, it has more direct significance here. This was probably still the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (7:2, 37; see comment on 7:53–8:11), and the water of Siloam was the sacred water used for this feast (see comment on 7:37-38). Here Jesus employs the ritual water (cf. 2:6; 3:5), but it works only because the man is “sent.”
9:8. Beggars in antiquity were often turned down and despised; Judaism emphasized charity, but the shame attached to begging normally deterred those who did not need to resort to it.
9:9-12. Those blind from birth (9:1) were not known to recover (9:32)—at least not without direct supernatural intervention.
The key word in 9:12-31 is “know”: everyone claims repeatedly what they know and do not know. The *Pharisees, who supposedly know the *law, turn out to know nothing; whereas the healed man, who knows only Jesus, has had an experience with God that his more scholarly interrogators cannot refute.
9:13. Local elders (or in some places, like *Essene communities, priests filled this role) served as judges in local communities before A.D. 70; but Pharisaic teachers gradually began to achieve much dominance in religious teaching in Palestine after 70. Writing in the 90s, John uses the language of his day to communicate the point to his readers, many of whom have faced opposition or expulsion from their own *synagogues (see comment on 9:24-34).
9:14-16. This is a natural Pharisaic response on the sabbath (5:9-12; see comment on Mk 2:23-3:6). The Pharisaic school of *Hillel allowed praying for the sick on the Sabbath; but the Pharisaic school of *Shammai was dominant in Jesus’ day. Most, however, would have viewed as a Sabbath violation making a clay poultice on the Sabbath (so long as the person was not in danger of dying). Kneading (dough, and by analogy clay) was one of thirty-nine classes of work forbidden on the sabbath. Pharisees were divided among themselves on many issues in Jesus’ day, and they had still not settled those issues by the end of the first century, when John was writing.
9:17. “Prophet” is an inadequate but positive title (cf. 4:19, 44; 6:14; 7:40). Some of the more academic circles in early Judaism were apparently more skeptical that prophets continued in their day, although popular circles were often open to them. “Prophets” could also be associated with unrest or criticism, and so were often problematic for Jerusalem’s institutional leaders.
9:18-21. The blind man could have remained under his parents’ roof at night and earned his keep by begging in the day, although this is not clear. But the reason the Jewish leaders ask his parents about his blindness is that they would know if he was born blind. Both Greek and Jewish courts of law could compel persons to witness against their will. “Of age” means any time past puberty. After about age thirteen a Jewish boy became responsible for his own keeping of the commandments (this point becomes explicit only in later rabbinic texts but was probably already implied in coming-of-age rituals in this period).
9:22-23. Pharisaic rules were scrupulous about cross-examining witnesses fairly and without prejudice; these interrogators thus violate Pharisaic ethical teaching. Excommunication was one of the severest forms of discipline administered by a synagogue community and was apparently rare and thus very harsh in the time of Jesus. (The practice is also attested among other disciplines in the *Dead Sea Scrolls 1QS 6.24–7.25; cf. Ezra 10:8.)
Throughout this section, the interrogators ignore the basic rules of evidence and fairness that later *rabbis diligently emphasized. Most scholars today believe that John’s hearers, or many of them, had faced the danger or reality of expulsion from their synagogues (16:2; cf. 12:42-43). The faithfulness of this man (in contrast to the betrayal of the man in 5:14-16) would encourage them to remain faithful too.
9:24. “Give glory to God” can invite praise, but in an interrogation setting it can invite confession of sin (cf. Josh 7:19; 1 Esdras 9:8), in this case perhaps for following a “misleader” (see comment on 7:12). Interrogations sometimes proceeded in a heavy-handed way to procure a desired outcome (e.g., *Gentiles sometimes tortured slaves until they confessed what was suspected). Greek literature often mocked the overconfident person wise in their own eyes.
9:25. In contrast to arrogant persons (cf. 9:24), philosophers (like Socrates) normally admitted their ignorance and pursued knowledge. Although the man’s affirmation of ignorance may be sincere, it is possible to interpret the passage otherwise; sometimes people feigned ignorance *rhetorically.
9:26-27. Diligent cross-examination was important in Jewish *law (cf., e.g., Susanna 48-62; Mishnah Avot 1:9). Although most people accepted arguments from the experience of miracles, some rabbis whose opinions appear in later sources insisted that standard rabbinic interpretations of Scripture outweighed even visible miracles.
9:28. Both Philo and later rabbis spoke of being *disciples of Moses, suggesting that the idea was common. John’s point, however, is that these interrogators are wrong (5:45).
9:29-30. Leaving someone anonymous was sometimes a way to denigrate their value. The interrogators confess that they do not know where Jesus is from. Some scholars note that the circumstances of birth of a person accused of leading people astray would sometimes be investigated to determine if the misleader was an illegitimate child; if this point is in view here at all, the interrogators have failed to investigate the matter. More importantly, denying knowledge of where someone was from could repudiate or belittle them, demonstrating their lack of significance. Ironically, they undercut their own claims of knowledge (9:24); where Jesus is significantly from is “above” (8:23). Irony was a common literary technique in antiquity.
9:31. This view reflects good Jewish piety: everyone taught that God heard the pious but rejected the prayers of the ungodly (cf. Ps 34:15; Prov 15:8, 29; 21:27; 28:9). This is the major premise in the healed man’s argument.
9:32-33. The minor premise of the argument (9:31) is that an extraordinary miracle was done; the conclusion is that Jesus is a righteous man. Syllogism—the practice of demonstrating a conclusion from two accepted premises—was a common way of arguing a case in antiquity.
Blindness from birth was thought an especially difficult ailment to cure; in the rare instances when such extraordinary healings were claimed at a pagan healing shrine (e.g., a later-written report of empty eye sockets filled), they became a cause for much praise to the pagan god held responsible for them. But while extant Jewish tradition reports healings of blindness (Tobit 11:12-13), it does not report the healing of one born blind. (The man’s “never since the world’s beginning” is emphatic, and probably *rhetorical overstatement; there were a few claimed exceptions in the Gentile world of which he was probably unaware. But even if John’s audience knew and believed other claims of healing they would have excused the man’s *hyperbole.)
9:34. Later rabbis emphasized being humble and teachable; but despite the proper Jewish argument the man gave in 9:31-33, the authorities expel him on the premise that he was born in sin—which the reader knows to be false (9:2-3). How formal excommunications were in this period is unclear, but he is certainly expelled from participating in the local center of religious life (see comment on 9:22-23).
9:35-38. The healed man responds like John’s probable Jewish Christian hearers: in faith, unlike their opponents. The title “*Son of Man” is potentially ambiguous, but as an object of faith presumably alludes to Daniel 7:13-14. The man responds based on his experience of Jesus (see comment on 9:25-27).
9:39-41. Greek and especially Jewish tradition used “blindness” figuratively in a moral, intellectual or spiritual sense (e.g., Is 6:9-10; Jer 5:21); sometimes this was conjoined with physical blindness (e.g., the Greek seer Tiresias; the Israelite prophet Ahijah, 1 Kings 14:4). The reversal of physical and spiritual blindness is a motif in the prophets (e.g., Is 42:16-19); the religious authorities, who are sure they are not spiritually blind, are the blindest of all.
The original text of the Bible had no chapter breaks; this passage continues Jesus’ words to the *Pharisees in 9:41. It is based on *Old Testament images of God as the shepherd of Israel (Gen 48:15; 49:24; Ps 23:1; 28:9; 77:20; 78:72; Is 40:11; Ezek 34:11-31), of Israel as his flock (Ps 74:1; 78:52; 79:13; 100:3) and of abusive or unfaithful religious leaders as destroyers of his flock (Jer 23:1-2; Ezek 34). Faithful human shepherds (Jer 3:15) included Moses, David (2 Sam 5:2; Ps 78:71-72) and the Davidic *Messiah (Mic 5:4), but God appears most often as Israel’s chief shepherd. Although Moses and David were shepherds, urban people throughout the Roman Empire often looked down on shepherds as low-class and coarse. From the ancient Near East to Greek epic, however, shepherds were a common ancient figure for rulers.
In this context, the healed man who follows Jesus but is excluded from the *synagogue is one of Jesus’ sheep; Jesus is the divine shepherd of Israel; and those who excluded the man recall Israel’s unfaithful leaders condemned in the prophets. Thus, although these leaders seek to exclude the man from God’s people, God himself affirms that the man (and those like him) do belong to his people.
10:1-2. During the cool winter months, sheep were kept inside a pen at night; the pen often had a stone wall, which might have briers on top of it. (Winter was approaching at the time of this feast.) Ancient sources portray the pen as a protection from wolves (10:12) and other predators. Although in warmer parts of the Mediterranean sheep could ideally find pasture at any time of year, where this was not possible they might remain in the fold during winter (soon approaching, in view of 7:2 and 10:22).
One could build such pens at caves (1 Sam 24:3), a square on a hillside surrounded by stone walls, an enclosed yard in front of a house, and anything from a roofed enclosure to a temporary shelter using thornbushes instead of rocks, depending on the circumstances. The door here may suggest formal walls, perhaps of stones. One observer of Middle Eastern shepherding, Kenneth Bailey, suggests that because the thief must “go up” to surmount the wall in 10:1, it may be like some modern village family courtyards, with walls more than two meters high. (“Go up” does not always require such an interpretation, however; cf., e.g., Gen 38:12; 41:2.) Various families may share a courtyard for this purpose; this might be distinct from the setting in 10:7-9 (see comment there).
When speaking technically, ancient law distinguished thieves from robbers: the former broke in, whereas the latter often lived in the wilderness and assaulted passersby. When linked figuratively, though, they can belong to the same semantic domain. Shepherds continually had to guard against losing sheep to either kind of enemy (or other predators, 10:12). People dreaded thieves and robbers, which were common (esp. at night) and could be harshly punished.
10:3-4. Sheep were considered among the most obedient of animals. In the Old Testament, Israel “heard God’s voice” when they obeyed the *law and his message through his prophets. Those who were truly his sheep—in covenant relationship with God—knew him (see comment on 10:14-15). (John’s readers hear him through the *Spirit, a practice that most of their contemporaries did not believe was possible in their own day; cf. 16:13-15.) Sheep could have names based on color, like “snowy” (white), or other characteristics. It is said that shepherds customarily knew each of their sheep by name. In the Old Testament, God called his special ones, his closest servants, “by name” (Ex 33:12, 17; cf. Is 43:1). (God knowing the names of all stars reveals his omniscience [Ps 147:4; Is 40:26]; likewise, he is able to know each person individually.) Flocks of various shepherds often mingled together, but shepherds could easily separate out their own sheep, for example to put them in or lead them from their pen, or lead sheep elsewhere. They could do this because the sheep knew their shepherd’s voice; it is said that some even trained sheep to respond to the signals of particular flute melodies.
10:5. Ancient sources do report (and modern experience confirms) sheep fleeing from strangers. In this context the strangers are the thieves and robbers (v. 1)—the Pharisees—who have sought to mislead the sheep (9:40-41). The synagogue leaders who expelled John’s Jewish Christian readers claim to be true shepherds, but when John’s audience hears this passage they will think of them quite differently.
10:6. Jesus’ preceding figure fits Jewish definitions for a *parable; indeed, in the *Septuagint, the present term translates the same Hebrew term that is translated “parable” in the *Synoptic Gospels.
10:7-8. Although wolves (10:12) and other intruders were sometimes known to penetrate sheepfolds, often they feared to enter them, and even when ravenously hungry they sometimes assaulted the walls in vain. As opposed to the apparently walled enclosure in 10:1, some suggest that the sheep pen here might be a temporary enclosure topped with thorns, closer to pasture for seasonal grazing; lacking a separate door, it could depend on the shepherd to sleep across the gateway, a practice sometimes reported in modern times. Although shepherds in warmer regions could keep sheep in pasture areas all year (grazing in higher altitudes in summer and lower in winter), in cooler areas such as the Judean hills they spent part of the year in more formal pens and part of the year in the pastures, where temporary pens might be constructed. This explanation makes sense here (10:7, 9), but mixed metaphors were common and Jesus might simply alternate between shepherd and door images because he fulfills more than one role; like God in the Old Testament, he is Israel’s shepherd, but he is also the way to the Father. On sheep not hearing strangers, see comment on 10:5.
10:9. For the door, see comment on 10:6-8. Sheep were led “in” and “out” (cf. shepherd leaders in Num 27:17; 2 Sam 5:2) of the sheepfold to and from pasture. Coming and going offered a Semitic expression for freedom of movement and together sometimes meant “all the time” (cf. Deut 28:6, 19; 2 Kgs 19:27; Ps 121:8). In at least some regions of the ancient Mediterranean world, shepherds led sheep to begin grazing around sunrise, led them to drinking around 10 a.m., led them to shade, where possible, during midday heat, and then drinking and then grazing again until evening. In the evening they returned to the fold, whether the temporary or permanent variety.
10:10-11. The thief (in the context, unfaithful leaders; cf. v. 5) acts for his own good, not that of the flock (hungry thieves might steal sheep to eat them); a shepherd risks his life to protect his flock from animals and thieves. Shepherds were known for intimate concern for their sheep, an image applicable to God (Ps 23:1; Ezek 34:2-6, 11-16). Pharisees considered shepherds members of an unclean profession, and aristocrats despised them as vulgar lower-class workers; thus Jesus’ opponents would not readily identify with the protagonist of the story, but in Scripture God was Israel’s chief shepherd (see the introduction to 10:1-18). Sheep were completely dependent on shepherds, who provided shelter and guidance and helped them when they gave birth or were sick or injured. “Life” was short for “*eternal life,” the life of the world to come, in Jewish parlance; Jesus provides this relationship with himself in the present. See comment on 3:16.
10:12-13. A hired helper was not responsible for attacks from wild animals (cf. Ex 22:13) and worked for pay, not because the sheep were his own. Ancient sources sometimes complain about hirelings who did not protect the animals the way they should. Biblical prophets condemned religious leaders who let God’s sheep be scattered, not concerned with what concerns God (Jer 23:1; Ezek 34:6). Commonly ancient sources (including fables) contrasted sheep with wolves, regularly portraying wolves as predators of sheep. The image was used both literally and figuratively.
10:14-15. The Old Testament often described Israel’s covenant relationship with God as “knowing” him, which meant having an intimate and obedient relationship with him (e.g., Jer 31:34; Hos 6:6). The intimacy anticipated here appears to exceed even the intimacy that earlier biblical prophets had with God. See John 10:3-4 and 16:13-15. As a perfect reflection of God, Wisdom was expected to provide people intimacy with God like prophets (Wisdom of Solomon 7:26-27); probably more important, all of God’s people would “know” him in the time of the new covenant (Jer 31:33-34).
10:16-18. The image of gathering the folds together into one flock in Old Testament language meant gathering the dispersed sheep of Israel, scattered among the nations (cf. Ezek 37:21-24; Mic 2:12); the “one shepherd” in Ezek 37:24 is the Davidic king (cf. Ezek 34:23). The regathering of Israel in the end was one of the basic hopes of ancient Judaism, reflected in writings and prayers. But Jesus may include *Gentiles; *proselytes, or converts to Judaism, became part of God’s people.
10:19-21. The Jewish community again experiences schism over Jesus’ identity (cf. also 7:43; 9:16), as it was also experiencing in John’s day. On charges of demonization, see comment on 7:20.
Jesus attends an extrabiblical festival in Jerusalem, commemorating Israel’s deliverance in the time of the *Maccabees. Ironically, Israel’s truest deliverer faces rejection from some of his people at this festival of national deliverance.
10:22. Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication, was not a required pilgrimage festival, but the eight-day celebration of lights in the temple was beautiful, and many pious Jews from nearby Galilee would come to Jerusalem. It was the next festival after those immediately connected to the Feast of Tabernacles (7:1-10:21).
10:23. The vast outer part of the temple had porches on all four sides; the Royal Porch, on the south, had four rows of pillars. Solomon’s Porch was on the east side of the temple, with two rows of pillars (as on the west and north sides). The south portico was called Solomon’s because people thought that its pre-Herodian masonry had survived from Solomon’s temple (*Josephus, Jewish War 5.184-85; Jewish Antiquities 15.397-400; 20.221). Greek public buildings often included such porches, and they had long been a popular place for public lectures and discussions. Even as early as Hanukkah (10:22), it could be cool in Jerusalem in winter, so people would be especially inclined to walk under the colonnades, as here. (On avoiding travel in winter, see comment on Acts 27:9.)
10:24. See 8:25; cf. also the discussion of the theme of the messianic secret in the introduction to Mark. These Jews would have either misunderstood his claim or used it to charge him with sedition (cf. 18:29-35).
10:25-27. On hearing Jesus’ voice, cf. comment on 10:3-4.
10:28-29. A shepherd who would protect his sheep against any thief or predator would have to be ready to pay a great price (10:12, 15), but this is the price of faithfulness (Jer 23:4). On no one snatching from his hand, compare also Psalm 95:7, where Israel is “the sheep of his hand”; this allusion would fit the mention of hearing Jesus’ voice (10:27), since the same verse in the psalm exhorts his people to hear God’s voice.
10:30. His hearers might think of the relation between Israel and God, but Jesus’ wording about his unity with the Father is too explicit for that: instead he echoes the basic confession of Judaism that God is one (Deut 6:4). For Jesus to be one with the Father (albeit distinct from him) is tantamount to a claim to deity. (He has probably already applied earlier texts about God to himself in this context; see comment on 10:28-29.)
10:31-33. Cf. 5:18, 8:59; as in the other instances, Jesus’ opponents understand his claim to deity, even if they do not catch all the ramifications. Hanukkah (10:22) celebrated deliverance from the wicked ruler Antiochus Epiphanes, who made himself to be God; John’s hearers, however, know that the Father sent Jesus, rather than he exalting himself (1:14; 5:23, 36; 6:38). Jesus implicitly compares his good work with his opponents’ attempt to stone him; ancient defense *rhetoric often contrasted the honorable behavior of the accused with the shameful behavior of the accusers and sought to expose the accusers’ own crimes. Ingratitude toward a benefactor was reprehensible, and direct enmity toward a benefactor even more so. The festival honored the Maccabees’ good works; Jesus’ opponents want to stone him for his (cf. Ex 17:4; Num 14:10; the term used here appears in 2 Sam 16:6, 13).
10:34. On “your law,” cf. 8:17. Some employed the term “*law” broadly to include all of Scripture, as here, where Jesus cites a psalm. Psalm 82:6 in context refers to powerful people, probably the kings of the earth viewed as God’s divine council; those kings considered themselves divine, but they would perish like mortals. In a Jewish tradition attested in second-century *rabbis, however, this verse was sometimes applied out of context to Israel as recipients of the divine law (God’s word at Sinai gave them immortality, but they lost it through disobedience), as Jesus may know. Or Jesus may simply be evading the issue by a further riddle, noting that he has not explicitly defined his words.
10:35-36. Jesus might respond with a standard Jewish “how much more” (qal vahomer) argument: if (as you read it) Israel was loosely called “gods,” how do you object to me saying that I am God’s Son, without even understanding my point? (Even more generally, a Jewish tradition protested that the wicked complain about righteous people calling God their Father; Wisdom of Solomon 2:16.)
Many commentators have argued that Jesus’ being “sanctified” or set apart to his mission (cf. also 17:17) may relate to the context of the Feast of Hanukkah, or “Dedication” (10:22). Hanukkah commemorated the consecration, rededication or setting apart (as again holy) of the Jerusalem temple in the time of the Maccabees in the second century B.C. For Jesus as the foundation of a new temple in John, see 2:21 and comment on 7:37-38; such an image would be particularly compelling after the traumatic destruction of the temple in A.D. 70.
10:37-38. Jewish tradition emphasized right motives but allowed that obeying a commandment from inadequate motives was better than not obeying at all.
10:39-42. “Beyond the Jordan” presumably means Perea, in Jesus’ day ruled, like Galilee, by Herod Antipas—and well outside the jurisdiction of the Jerusalem leaders.
Jesus’ first sign in this Gospel is at a wedding; his climactic one, at (or more technically, after) a funeral. (In ancient sources, weddings and funerals typified the most joyful and most sorrowful occasions, respectively.) Less certainly, if Jesus’ first sign (water turned to wine) evoked in reverse Moses’ first plague (water turned to blood), his climactic sign (raising Lazarus) might evoke Moses’ final plague (death, in that case of the firstborn).
11:1. Bethany was close to Jerusalem (v. 18); emphasizing Jesus’ Galilean ministry, Mark omits this miracle and is followed by Matthew and Luke. “Mary” was the most common Jewish woman’s name in the period; “Martha” is rarer, though attested; “Eleazar” is fairly common, sometimes in the Greek form, “Lazarus.” (The three names even occur together, along with others, in a burial cave in Bethany, but we do not know if the names reflect the persons in John 11.)
11:2-5. Visiting and praying for the sick was a pious obligation in Judaism, but Jesus’ reputation as a healer is undoubtedly the main reason for informing him of Lazarus’s sickness. Informing him would serve as a polite request (cf. 2:3).
11:6. Given the urgent request for a miracle-worker, Jesus’ delay may have seemed culturally offensive. Perhaps by the time Jesus receives news, however, and certainly before he could have reached Bethany, Lazarus was already dead (11:14, 17). Lazarus was in the tomb four days by the time Jesus arrived (11:17, 39), people buried corpses on the day of death, and it was only a day’s journey each way, just over twenty miles. The journey to Bethany may have taken slightly longer than the journey from there, since it would be uphill (in the Judean hills, Bethany may have been nearly 2700 feet above sea level, whereas the Jordan plain, where Jesus was in 10:40, was roughly 1100 feet below it). For temporary rebuffs to test faith, cf. 2:4.
11:7-8. Although the Jerusalem priesthood was respected in Galilee, it wielded more power and influence in Judea; Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, did not tolerate direct interference in his territory. (In John’s day, the Pharisaic establishment was also settled in Judea, where it presumably wielded more influence than in Galilee.)
11:9-10. On walking in darkness and stumbling, see comment on 8:12. Anyone who has walked on unlit paths on a dark night understands the metaphor, but even the language was familiar in first-century Palestine (in the *Dead Sea Scrolls, children of righteousness walk in the light but those ruled by the evil one walk in darkness; 1QS 3.20-21).
11:11-16. Again the *disciples interpret Jesus too literally (v. 12)—although “sleep” was a common metaphor for death in Jewish texts and throughout the ancient world (Greek myth even portrayed Sleep and Death as twin brothers). But even though they may not understand that Jesus’ death is the cost of giving Lazarus (and others) life, they are prepared to die with him (v. 16). Even though disciples loved their teachers, this is a rare expression of commitment in practice; in general, Jewish people emphasized only being prepared to die for God and his *law.
11:17-19. The note of proximity (11:18) may heighten the element of danger (11:8), but also explains the presence of additional “Judeans” in 11:19. Visiting and consoling the bereaved in the days immediately following a close relative’s loss was an essential duty of Jewish piety. The neighbors would provide the first meal after the funeral. Lazarus would have been buried on the day of his death.
11:20. The first week of deep grief after a close relative’s burial would be spent mourning in one’s house, sitting on the floor, while others brought food and sympathy (considered an important element of piety). This custom, called shivah (for “seven” days), is continued in Jewish tradition and is very helpful for releasing grief. Mourners abstained from adornment for the next three weeks and from common pleasures for the next year. Because mourners would be present to console the family, Mary remains in the home while Martha slips out.
11:21-22. Prayers for comfort were standard, and this might be the import of verse 22. Conversely, Martha may be asking in verse 22 for her brother’s resuscitation, and verse 24 may test Jesus, pressing him further for the favor (2 Kings 4:16; cf. 4:28). Ancient Near Eastern peoples often sought favors from benefactors in such self-effacing ways, as opposed to the more direct modern Western approach (“Give me . . . ”).
11:23-27. The common belief of Palestinian Judaism in this period was that the dead would be raised bodily at the end; indeed, *Pharisees considered those who denied this doctrine (specifically *Sadducees) to be damned for doing so. Apparently most Jews who affirmed future *resurrection also accepted an afterlife before the resurrection.
11:28. Martha informs Mary about Jesus’ coming “secretly” perhaps for his safety, but perhaps also because someone needed to remain home to entertain the guests. According to custom, members of the family were supposed to remain home mourning for the first seven days (unless perhaps going to weep at the tomb, 11:31).
11:29-32. The time and consolation of an important religious teacher who had come a long distance would be especially meaningful, though local students and teachers of the *law joined in funeral processions when it was possible for them to do so. Supplicants fell at one’s feet (11:32) to beg favors, but one could also fall before God in worship or prayer.
11:33-37. Unlike most individuals, Greek and Roman philosophers emphasized sobriety and remaining calm and untroubled by bereavement; Jewish tradition, by contrast, expressed grief emotionally. Most people regarded as praiseworthy a protagonist who shared others’ grief; also, in the ancient Mediterranean world, women’s tears were sometimes known to move men to special action. Jesus’ “anger” (the normal sense of the term for him being “moved” in 11:33, 38) might be grief over people’s unbelief (cf. Num 14:11; Mk 4:40).
11:38. People were often buried in caves. Although some tombs were vertical shafts, as a cave this one probably had the body laying horizontally. The body would be left to decompose for one year, then its bones would be placed in an ossuary (bone box), which in turn would typically be slid into a slot on the wall. Stones (often disk-shaped) covered many tomb openings and would keep out animals, the elements and occasionally robbers.
11:39. The body would be wrapped and left lying on the floor in the tomb’s antechamber; only after a year, when the flesh had fully decomposed, would family members return to collect the bones into a box, which they would then slide into a slot on the wall. After four days (11:17), decomposition was well under way, especially because it was probably no longer winter (11:55). Whatever spices they may have used to delay the stench (see comment on Mk 16:1) would no longer be sufficient. Some scholars note a later rabbinic tradition that the soul left the body only after three days; if the idea is this early, the fourth day could emphasize the miracle’s greatness.
11:40. Moses promised Israel that they would “see God’s glory” when God acted on their behalf (Ex 16:7, though in a context of their initial unbelief).
11:41-42. Lifting one’s face to heaven appears in some other ancient Jewish prayers (e.g., Ps 123:1; *Jubilees 25:11). For the preliminary prayer, cf. 1 Kings 18:36.
11:43-44. The deceased would be wrapped in long cloth strips, often mentioned in ancient Jewish texts. This wrapping was thorough, binding the limbs to keep them straight and even the cheeks to keep the mouth shut; the facecloth may have been a yard square. John’s ancient audience would recognize that this tight wrapping would have made it hard enough for a living person to walk, not to mention a formerly dead person coming forth from the entrance to the tomb; this difficulty probably further underscores the miraculous nature of this event. Men could not wrap women’s corpses, but women could wrap both men and women, so Lazarus may have been wrapped by his sisters.
11:45-46. On the *Pharisees here, see comment on 7:32. Most ancient miracle stories include acclamation but lack rejection, but *New Testament miracle stories often include the latter as well.
11:47-48. The Pharisees and chief priests call together literally a “Sanhedrin,” probably referring here to the supreme court of Israel or those of its representatives who are available. Their concern is a legitimate one validated by history: those perceived as political messiahs threatened their own power and Judea’s stability, inviting Roman intervention; the Romans accepted only one supreme king, Caesar. *Josephus testified to this concern of the priestly aristocracy, and one reason Joseph Caiaphas maintained his office longer than any other *high priest of the first century (A.D. 18–36) was that he kept the peace for the Romans. But this is another touch of John’s irony (a common ancient literary device): this was their view, not that of the Romans (18:38; 19:12); and although they handed Jesus over to the governor for execution, the Romans ultimately did take away their temple and nation, in A.D. 70, anyway.
Josephus shows that Jewish aristocrats (not unlike Roman ones) plotted to remove those they considered dangerous. Sometimes sympathizers leaked this information to those being plotted against. Historically, we should expect that at least some of the Sanhedrin was involved in Jesus’ execution: Romans normally depended on local accusers to bring cases to their attention, and would expect a hearing before the local elite first. Most scholars accept as authentic part of Josephus’s comments about Jesus, sometimes including the remark that it was Jerusalem’s aristocrats who influenced *Pilate to execute him (Jewish Antiquities 18.63-64).
11:49. Various ancient Jewish sources complain about frequent corruption in the first-century high priesthood. The high priesthood, like some Greek priesthoods (e.g., at Eleusis), had originally been a lifelong office. It had never been reduced to an annual assignment, like most priesthoods in Syria or Asia Minor, but John’s “priest that year” may poke fun at how the Roman governor had power to change the *high priests, or at how the high priest’s deposed relative could still meddle so much in these affairs (18:13); or he may simply mean (with probably the majority of commentators) “high priest in the particular year of which we speak,” because officials’ terms were used to date events.
The high priest presided over the Sanhedrin. To have a high priest inform his colleagues, “You do not know anything,” is the epitome of John’s irony.
11:50. Whether one should be sacrificed to protect the many (if, say, the Romans demanded an innocent person be handed over) was an issue of debate in early Judaism, but never in terms of actual murder (11:53). Josephus claimed that King Agrippa II urged his people to forego vengeance concerning injustice for the sake of peace; but Jewish teachers in the rabbinic tradition said not to betray a single Israelite to rape or death even if the result would be the rape or execution of all. The chief priests here think in terms of expediency (a common Greek ground for moral and *rhetorical debate). Many of the chief priests helped control their people to keep peace with the Romans (to whom they also owed their own local political power).
11:51. Here the high priest means one thing on the level of his own hearers, but his words have another meaning that would be more obvious to John’s readers: others (both Greeks and Jews) also believed that those appointed as God’s representatives could sometimes speak God’s truth without meaning to do so. Some Jewish traditions seem to associate *prophecy with the priesthood.
11:52-53. Jewish people expected the gathering of their dispersed people (God’s children) in the end time. (John may reapply this spiritually; 1:12.)
11:54-55. The temple courts had countless pools for ritual purification; on this point, cf. also 2:6 and 3:25. Those coming from a great distance, especially in the *Diaspora, wanted to arrive early to ensure that they were pure for the festival; those with corpse impurity would need to arrive at least a week early.
11:56-57. Those speaking presumably could not believe someone as pious a religious teacher as Jesus is popularly supposed to be would not show up for one of the great pilgrimage festivals required by the *law, especially when he had to come only from Galilee.
For more details, see comment on Mark 14:1-11. Three kilometers east of Jerusalem, Bethany was one of those villages near Jerusalem where Passover pilgrims could spend the night with hosts. Even six days before the festival, Jerusalem would be filling with pilgrims (esp. those needing purification and those from the *Diaspora, who could not calculate the exact timing of arrival but needed to avoid arriving late). Given 18:28 and 19:14, this meal may be Saturday evening after sundown (hence allowing Martha to serve). Just possibly this could portray Jesus as entering Jerusalem (12:12) when the Passover lambs were set aside (Ex 12:3, 6), but this interpretation is not clear.
12:1-2. One typically “sat” at normal meals; one “reclined” on couches at special meals like feasts or banquets. Unless the Gospel writers simply adopt Greek language for the meals consistently (Greeks normally reclined), Jesus was invited to many banquets—this one probably in his honor. Early traveling teachers were often invited to lecture at meals in return for free meals and lodging. In that culture, women often served at table.
12:3. The Roman “pound” (NASB) or “pint” (NIV) may have been roughly 324 grams, about twelve ounces. A flask would normally contain not more than an ounce, so Mary is tremendously extravagant here. Actual “myrrh” could take the form of either powder or liquid, perfume or ointment; its manufacturers derived it from resin from a sort of short balsam tree in the horn of eastern Africa and southern Arabia. John, however, employs the Greek term here more generically, the specific aromatic substance being spikenard, a very expensive fragrant oil from a plant in the mountains in northern India.
It was common to anoint the heads of important guests, but for their feet a host normally would simply provide water. Expending such expensive perfume on feet was shocking; she treats even Jesus’ feet as worthier than a normal head. (Given the following context, Mary may have thought of a royal anointing.) Further, religious Jews resented married women who uncovered their heads and exposed their hair to men’s gazes; because Mary’s brother and sister but not her husband are mentioned, she may well have been unmarried (thus young, widowed, divorced, or—rare as this was for women—adult yet never married); but acting thus toward a famous (albeit single) *rabbi might still raise some pious eyebrows. In any case, normally only servants (see comment on 1:27) would even touch the master’s feet with their hands, much less their hair.
12:4-5. Because such ointment would have been so expensive, scholars often think that it was a family heirloom. In any case, it represented nearly a year’s wages for an average worker and would be reserved for only a dramatically special occasion.
12:6. Some rabbis delegated their school’s financial concerns to their *disciples; some other groups, like the *Essenes and some Greek philosophers, held property in common. Only those whose virtue was most trusted were permitted to keep group funds (cf. 13:29); thus Judas’s treachery is all the more scandalous.
12:7. Kings (cf. 12:13-15) were anointed, but so were corpses; fragrant spices could be added to help cover the initial odor of decomposition. On anointing corpses, see comment on Mark 16:1; they were first anointed to clean them and then washed with water. This was an important act on Mary’s part; those executed as criminals may have sometimes been denied anointing before burial (though not Jesus; see 19:39).
12:8. Jesus’ reply alludes to Deuteronomy 15:11, which urges generosity to the poor, who will always be in the land; the context promises that God will bless his people if they care for the poor. Jesus thus does not play down giving to the poor but emphasizes his impending death; he must be his followers’ first commitment.
12:9-11. The religious leaders decide to have Lazarus killed. John’s irony: those who receive life by Jesus’ death must die because of it; witnesses get martyred. Irony was a common ancient literary device.
12:12-13. Branches were also waved to celebrate triumphs or in homage to rulers (cf. 1 Maccabees 13:51; 2 Maccabees 10:7). Large palm branches were used at the Feast of Tabernacles in the fall (cf. Lev 23:23, 40), often brought from lower-elevation Jericho; some pilgrims constructed temporary shelters for Passover (*Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 17.213, 217), for which they could have brought such branches; or local branches could be used. The branches described here are small enough for the colt to walk on. Palm branches, which had been one of the nationalistic symbols of Judea since the days of the *Maccabees, were consistently used to celebrate military victories and probably stirred some political messianic hopes among the people. (Carrying branches was also part of the worship at the feast depicted in Ps 118:27.)
Pilgrims to the feast were typically welcomed by crowds already there, so it is unlikely that the whole crowd recognized the significance of Jesus’ entry. Nevertheless, Jesus was well-known, especially among the Galileans who had come to the festival. In view of the crowd’s acclamation in 12:13, the image that may have come most readily to the minds of John’s ancient hearers is probably that of a royal entrance procession. Hopes for the restoration of the Davidic *kingdom also ran high at this time of year. “Hosanna” means “Please save!” Although the expression could be appropriate for imploring a king for deliverance (cf. the Hebrew of 2 Sam 14:4; 2 Kings 6:26), it could also address God, which is how it functions in Psalm 118:25. This Hebrew term and “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” come from Psalm 118:25-26. Psalms 113–118, called the Hallel, were regularly sung at Passover season, so these words would have been fresh in everyone’s minds.
12:14-16. One expected military heroes to ride horses or be drawn in chariots; Jesus came as a meek, nonmilitary official would, following Zechariah 9:9. (Later rabbis also took Zech 9:9 as messianic, due to the mention of the king.)
12:17-19. Again employing irony (a literary technique common in antiquity, as it is today), John lets the *Pharisees denounce themselves: “You do nothing profitable!” Their complaint that the world has begun to follow Jesus leads into 12:20.
12:20. Although some suggest that these “Greeks” are Jews who live in the Greek East, they are probably ethnic or cultural Greeks (the normal sense of the term), God-fearers not yet fully converted to Judaism who nevertheless would come to worship at Jerusalem (cf. Acts 8:27). Many of the attending “Greeks” could be from the region, including the Decapolis and larger Syria. Jews and Greeks were known for their mutual hostility in Palestine, nearby Syria and Egypt.
12:21-22. Philip is one of the only disciples of Jesus with a Greek name. Until A.D. 34 (i.e., after these events), Philip’s town of Bethsaida belonged to the tetrarchy of Philip rather than that of Herod Antipas; the town would have had contact with the predominantly *Gentile Decapolis. The cities of the Decapolis were culturally Greek. The announcement of verse 21 prompts Jesus’ knowledge that his hour has arrived (v. 23); his mission has begun to touch the whole “world.”
12:23-26. On “the hour” see 2:4; on “glory” see 1:14. “Glorified,” like “lifted up” (v. 32), refers back to the *Septuagint of Isaiah 52:13, which prefaces the death of the suffering servant (Is 53), whom early Christians recognized as Jesus. For most people in the Roman empire, crucifixion, where one was hanged naked to die slowly in front of crowds, was the most shameful form of death; but for John, it reflects Jesus’ glory.
Grain images were naturally common in antiquity. Technically (from a botanical standpoint), an embryo is already growing in a seed of wheat when it falls; it usually breaks through the seed coating after two days in moist soil. The text uses the image in a way more directly intelligible, however, for Jesus’ and John’s audiences. As in 12:25, some others also recognized that losing one’s life in this world preserves it for the greater reward of *eternal life (*1 Enoch 108:10; *2 Baruch 51:15-16).
12:27. Ancient philosophers and biographers often praised those who were not troubled in the face of death (in contrast to the Gospels).
12:28. Prayers for the glory of God’s name were common (see comment on Mt 6:9). Jewish tradition often discussed voices from heaven, which were frequently regarded as a substitute for *prophecy. (See comment on Mk 1:11 for more detail.)
12:29-30. In ancient Jewish stories, God often answered prayers by sending angels, which may have seemed less dramatic to some of his hearers than a voice from heaven. (On the persistent misunderstanding of the crowds, see comment on 3:9-10.) Thunder sometimes appears in theophanies, and God’s voice sometimes sounded like thunder (2 Sam 22:14; Job 37:2, 5; 40:9; Ps 18:13; 29:3-7; also in several Sibylline oracles). (Greeks also associated thunder with the chief deity, in their case, Zeus.)
12:31. God is the ruler of the world in nearly all Jewish texts, but these texts also speak of fallen angels ruling much of the world under his decree and recognize that the prince of the evil angels (i.e., *Satan, also called Sammael, etc.) ruled most of the peoples in the world except Israel (or, in the *Dead Sea Scrolls, all but the remnant). John would agree that God has always been ultimately sovereign over all; but here he speaks of Satan’s dominion in human affairs and of the present defeat of demonic spiritual forces, which Judaism expected only in the time of the *kingdom.
12:32-33. The “lifting up” (also 3:14; 8:28) alludes to Isaiah 52:13 and refers to being lifted up on the cross. This fits the allusion to Isaiah 52:13 in “glorified” (see comment on 12:23-27) as well. Ancients (e.g., *Cicero) spoke of people being “lifted up” on a cross, and sometimes ancients played on the expression: lifting up could refer to hanging or to exaltation (Gen 40:20-22; Gentile writers).
12:34. The *Old Testament predicted that the *Messiah’s rule would be eternal (Is 9:6-7; cf. 2 Sam 7:16); so also the *Son of Man’s (Dan 7:14). (Especially in the time of John and later, some Jewish teachers moved away from identifying the Son of Man with the Messiah; no less a rabbi than *Akiba was reproved by his colleagues for supposing that the Son of Man, like God, would receive his own throne.)
12:35-36. The Dead Sea Scrolls also contrast light (symbolizing good) and darkness (symbolizing evil), calling the righteous “children of light” and their opponents “children of darkness.” The former “walk in the light” and the latter “walk in darkness.” Jesus’ hearers would easily understand his language.
12:37-38. Isaiah 53:1 is from the same passage to which “glorified” and “lifted up” refer (Is 52:13; see comment on 12:32). The point is: Israel’s very unbelief in the servant-Messiah fulfills Scripture.
12:39-40. On the text (Is 6:10), see comment on Mark 4:12. At points the quotation follows the Hebrew as opposed to the Septuagint translation into Greek. John omits Isaiah’s “deaf” image, probably to focus on the blindness image that recalls his own discussion in 9:39-41.
12:41. Isaiah 6:1-5 refers clearly to Isaiah seeing a vision of God, the Lord of hosts, in his glory when he received this message, but John explains that this manifestation of God was the Son, Jesus (v. 41), also seen by Abraham (8:56) and Moses (see comment on 1:14-18). The Septuagint of both Isaiah 6:1 and 52:13 speak of “glory” or being “glorified”; the former text applies to God and the latter to God’s “servant.” Both texts also speak of being “lifted up” or “exalted,” as does Isaiah 57:15 (referring to God). Ancient Jewish *midrash, which interpreted texts based on shared key terms, could have treated the servant as divine (though for theological reasons probably only the Jewish Christians would have done so).
12:42. Because John selects details most applicable to his own day, it appears that not even all the *synagogue leaders of his time are of one mind about believers in Jesus. Those who are not hostile to the Jewish Christians, however, seem to remain publicly silent on the issue. The admission that even some of their opponents recognize the truth would encourage John’s audience in their situation (see comment on 9:22).
12:43. The Greek word translated “glory” (NRSV) or “praise” (NIV, KJV) can also be translated “reputation” or “honor” but contrasts here with Jesus’ glorification (12:23). Ancient moralists sometimes condemned those who sought much glory; but achieving honor and status and avoiding shame were central obsessions, especially in urban masculine culture.
12:44-45. Many scholars believe that 12:44-50 recapitulates a number of major themes in the Gospel. Ancient writers often summarized or recapitulated their argument at the end of a work or of a section. Jewish literature portrayed personified, preexistent divine Wisdom as the image of God (Wis 7:26); others, like Moses, could reflect his glory, but Jesus is the glory Moses and others saw (12:41, 46; cf. 1:18 and comment on 1:14-18).
12:46. On the “light,” see comment on 8:12; on the contrast of light and darkness as a common image for God’s *kingdom versus that of his opponents, see comment on 12:35-36.
12:47. Judaism believed that God’s *law was the standard by which he would judge his people at the end time; Jesus thus presents his words as equivalent to those of God.
12:48-49. One was to receive an agent or ambassador with the honor due his sender. An agent or ambassador was also expected to represent his sender accurately.
12:50. For life in God’s word, see comment on 1:4. Rabbis sometimes explained that keeping even the smallest of God’s commandments warranted eternal life (by which they meant life in the world to come), whereas disobeying even the smallest forfeited that life. Jesus describes his personal commission from the Father similarly.
John intertwines foreshadowings of the betrayal and cross with the footwashing. Jesus follows Mary’s example of servanthood (12:3).
13:1-2. Before the banquet, diners would normally wash a hand, eat appetizers, and then recline (13:12) and wash both hands for the main meal. (Because they reclined and had only one hand free, those preparing the food sliced it before the meal.) Meals could be accompanied by music, lectures, other entertainment, or deep discussion; Jesus here provides a teaching session.
13:3-5. The couches would be arranged around tables containing the food, with the upper part of each person’s body facing the food and their feet away from the table. Jesus would go to the outside of this circle to wash each person’s feet. A wealthy home might recline three or four people on each of three large couches; whether couches were available here (or mats, or cloaks), the arrangement may be similar. The person would lean on the left elbow, leaving the right hand free to reach food on the table.
After travelers had come a long distance, the host was to provide water for their feet as a sign of hospitality, as exemplified by Abraham (Gen 18:4). Yet loosing sandals and personally washing someone else’s feet was considered servile, most commonly the work of a servant or of servile or submissive persons (cf. 1 Sam 25:41). Travelers’ sandals need not be covered in dung, as some scholars have suggested (although in Rome people were known to occasionally empty chamber pots from their windows, sometimes to the misfortune of passersby below). Side roads were very dusty; the main streets of Jerusalem, however, would have been kept clear of human waste, especially in the Upper City, where Jesus likely ate this Passover meal historically. (Finding an upper room sufficiently large to host all the *disciples would have been more difficult in the poorer Lower City.) In any case, travelers and people walking in the streets normally washed their feet when entering a home. Jesus’ removing his outer garments to serve them would also appear as a sign of great humility before them.
By so serving, Jesus prefigures his death as the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 on behalf of the many. Jesus’ milieu celebrated honor and feared shame. Unlike most elite men in Greco-Roman society, Judaism valued humility; but like other societies, it also upheld societal roles. Jesus overturns even positions of social status. Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi (about A.D. 220) was said to be so humble that he would do anything for others—except relinquish his superior position; seating according to rank was crucial. Jesus goes beyond even this.
Ancient evidence suggests that Jesus may have poured water over the feet into a basin. Sometimes one would pour cold water into the basin first, and then hot water. Possibly Jesus uses a basin used for handwashing before the meal.
13:6-8. Jesus’ act violates cultural status boundaries so thoroughly (see comment on 13:3-5) that Peter finds it unthinkable.
13:9-11. The “bath” here may allude to ceremonial washing that Jesus and the disciples had undergone before the feast (11:55), but Jesus applies it in a spiritual sense. This figurative sense of cleansing was common enough that the disciples should have been able to understand his meaning. John’s repetition of Jesus’ statement of 13:10 in different words in 13:11 is not surprising; ancient writers valued variation and few people expected casual quotations to follow exact wording (cf. also Lk 24:46-49 with Acts 1:4-8; Gen 39:17-19; 1 Sam 15:3, 18).
13:12-14. *Disciples normally served their teachers, after the model of Elisha serving Elijah and Joshua serving Moses. One expression of service, however, was not required even of disciples: dealing with the teacher’s feet; Jesus goes beyond the service expected even for disciples. Although people often sat on chairs, they normally “reclined” (as here) for banquets (like Passover).
13:15. Disciples were expected to learn by imitating their teachers.
13:16. Some slaves were prominent when compared with free peasants, but any authority slaves exercised was derived from their masters, and slaves were always subordinate to their masters. An agent was always subordinate to his sender, his authority limited to the extent of his authorization.
13:17. The literary form of “beatitude” was common in the *Old Testament and early Judaism. Judaism also emphasized that one should not only know but also obey God’s *law.
13:18. Here Jesus cites Psalm 41:9, a psalm of a righteous sufferer; lifting up one’s heel to another was an act of disdain (cf. Mk 6:11). Betrayal by a friend sometimes happened, but was counted the most heinous form of betrayal. To eat at table with another formed a permanent covenant of peace (sometimes ideally extending even to descendants), so to betray one’s host at a meal was especially treacherous. (To give one example of the covenant bond: two warriors about to engage each other in battle relinquished the fight after learning that one’s father had hosted the other’s at table a generation earlier.)
13:19. Jesus’ wording here evokes Is 43:9-10, where God announced the future in advance (cf. Is 41:26; 44:7, 11; 48:3-7) so that his people might know that he alone was God.
13:20. In ancient cultures, one responded to agents, ambassadors or other representatives according to one’s feelings toward the person who authorized them.
13:21-22. Betrayal by one’s own *disciple would be a cause of embarrassment and reproach in the ancient system of honor and shame. Greek philosophers stressed remaining always tranquil and untroubled in spirit, but not everyone in antiquity shared this value. Although the Fourth Gospel stresses Jesus’ deity, it also stresses and frequently illustrates his humanity (1:14). In the *Old Testament God’s passionate feelings also frequently surface (e.g., Judg 10:16; Is 63:9-10; Jer 2:30-32; 9:1-3; Hos 11:8).
13:23. Men would recline (on couches, where available) at feasts. (According to traditional Greek custom often observed in the eastern Mediterranean, women would not dine in the same room with a gathering of men outside their family; this custom was changing in some areas, however. Passover was a more family-oriented setting.) Each person, facing to the right, would recline behind the person to his right, but with the head further forward on the couch; thus the beloved disciple could lean his head back and be even with Jesus’ chest. (They would lean on the left elbow with the right arm free. They could not easily, then, cut up their own food; it would come presliced at the banquet, and they could normally eat with their fingers.) This beloved disciple (presumably John) has one of the most honored positions at the feast, perhaps implicitly contrasting him with Peter in 13:24. (Ancients did not always compare only good and bad, but, as in this case and in 20:4-8, sometimes good and better.) Given verse 26, Judas may have the position to Jesus’ left. If so, Jesus offers Judas one final expression of love; the position to the left of the host was often the most honored position in a banquet.
13:24-27. For the host to dip a piece of bread in the common bowl (on Passover, the bowl may have contained charoset, a sweet mixture, and bitter herbs) and hand it to someone was normally a sign of honor to the person who received it. Jesus is in complete control here (cf. Mk 14:20).
13:28-30. Some pietists would do a charitable work before Passover to secure God’s favor. It would not have been customary to go outside on Passover night (Ex 12:22), and the bazaars would have been closed then, but in John’s *narrative (unlike Matthew, Mark and Luke) Passover apparently begins the following day (18:28; see comment there). (Many interpreters believe that John also thinks on a symbolic level here; cf. 3:19-21.) A group’s treasurer (see on 12:6) being a thief could generate scandal, though Judas is about to commit an even more heinous betrayal.
The context of these verses is betrayal and Jesus’ death.
13:31-32. On glorification, see comments on 1:14 and 12:23-27.
13:33. Teachers sometimes called their disciples “children” (cf. 1 Jn 2:1), and disciples called teachers “my father” (cf. Mt 23:9). Jewish literature included “testaments” of dying or departing famous heroes of the past giving important teachings to their children, to be read by future generations. Others have simply compared the more general form of farewell discourses; because Jesus is leaving, it is natural for him to provide final instructions to his disciples, whether or not John consciously follows the testamentary form here.
13:34-35. The *Old Testament had commanded love (Lev 19:18); what makes Jesus’ commandment new is the new standard and example: “as I have loved you”—in the context, to the point of laying down one’s life for others. Jewish ethics emphasized learning by imitation, including imitating God’s good character. Disciples were expected to learn by following the examples of their teachers. (In antiquity, love for one’s own group did not need to imply that one not love those outside it.)
13:36-37. Although Peter is sure that he will follow Jesus to the death, he does not understand that death is precisely where Jesus is going (14:5). For the misunderstanding motif, see, for example, 3:4; for background on it, see the introduction to Mark. Teachers often lectured in response to questions.
13:38. The first night cock crowing in Jerusalem occurred by about 12:30 a.m., according to some reports (others place it later), though only night watchmen were normally awake to hear it (most people went to sleep at sundown, except on special nights like Passover). Other crowings also occurred during the night. That the rooster crowed to mark the advent of dawn is more widely reported in ancient sources because this was the cock crowing most people knew. In either case the point is that Peter’s denial will follow almost immediately after his promise not to deny Jesus.
14:1. “Your” is plural, and thus Jesus addresses all the *disciples; in the *Old Testament God often told his servants not to fear. But to pair faith in Jesus with faith in God would sound blasphemous to most ancient Jewish hearers (although they could have found a less offensive way to interpret the phrase; see Ex 14:31; 2 Chron 20:20).
As the chapter proceeds, it becomes evident that the coming again specifically in view in verse 3 includes Jesus’ coming after the *resurrection to give the *Spirit (v. 18); but this point is not immediately clear at the beginning (v. 5).
14:2. The “Father’s house” could evoke the Father’s household (8:35) or the temple (2:16), where God would forever dwell with his people (Ezek 43:7, 9; 48:35); in any case, it designates the place of his presence. (A small number of early Jewish texts also speak of future homes for the righteous in God’s presence; e.g., versions of *1 Enoch 91:13.) The “dwelling places” (NASB, NRSV) might allude to “rooms” (NIV, GNT) in the new temple, where only undefiled ministers would have a place (Ezek 44:9-16; cf. 48:11). Whatever the particular background of the image (perhaps simply an ordinary house), John presumably understands this language figuratively for being in Christ, where God’s presence dwells (2:21); the only other place in the *New Testament where this term for “dwelling places” or “rooms” occurs is in 14:23, where it refers to the believer as God’s dwelling place (cf. also the verb “dwell”—15:4-7; see further the comment on 14:6-7).
14:3-4. In this context, John probably means not the Second Coming but Christ’s return after the resurrection to bestow the Spirit (14:16-18). In Jewish teaching, both the resurrection of the dead (which Jesus inaugurated) and bestowal of the Spirit indicate the arrival of the new age of the *kingdom. Jesus explains where he is going and how they will come to be there in 14:6-7.
14:5. *Disciples asked their *rabbis questions to clarify the teaching. Four questions were also asked in the extant household Passover celebration, but they differed from the questions here and the shared number may be mere coincidence (13:36-37; 14:5, 8, 22).
14:6-7. Jewish sources contrast the way of righteousness (wisdom, truth, etc.) and the way of falsehood (evil, etc.); Scripture and true Wisdom informed people of the righteous way. Some think the “way” might also echo Isaiah’s way back to the new Jerusalem through the wilderness (cf. 1:23). In this case the background is less critical than the force of the image, however. Jesus answers Thomas’s question thus: The Father is where I am going, and I am how you will get there.
“Truth” characterized God’s nature (e.g., Ex 34:6; Is 65:16) and later came to be even a Jewish title for God; it is uncertain if it was in use this early. The primary significance of the statement, however, is that Jesus is the embodiment of the truth, God’s covenant faithfulness (1:17), which was embodied in God’s “word” in the *Old Testament (17:17; Ps 119:142, 151). Just as Judaism affirmed that there was only one God and thus one right way (his *law, either in the short version supposedly given to the *Gentiles or the full version given to Israel), Jesus here affirms that he is the only way to the only God.
14:8. John may wish his readers, most of whom were more immersed in the Bible than most modern readers, to think of Exodus 33:18, where Moses asked to see God’s glory; see comments on 1:18 and 14:21-22. Philip might thus request a theophany.
14:9-10. Various Jewish sources portrayed divine Wisdom (see comment on 1:1-18) as the image of God. In the context of an allusion to Ex 33:18 in Jn 14:8, Jesus is the glory that Moses saw (see comment on 1:14-18). The *Old Testament sometimes spoke of God’s Spirit inspiring or anointing the prophets for his work; Jesus’ words here go beyond that idea.
14:11. God had earlier granted signs to invite faith (e.g., Ex 4:4-9; 19:9; Num 14:11).
14:12-14. Here scholars debate whether “works” (KJV, NASB, NRSV) refers to righteous deeds, as often in Judaism (e.g., 8:39), or to miraculous works such as Jesus performed (5:17; 10:32), or to both. (The works are probably quantitatively greater because Christ’s work is multiplied through all his followers.) In this context Jesus’ words are an invitation to radical faith: Jewish tradition allowed that some very pious teachers could receive from God almost anything they asked because of their intimate relationship with him, but never applied this possibility to the majority even of the pious. *Magic had no emphasis on relationship with the power addressed and sought only to manipulate forces for the manipulator’s ends (contrast 14:15). A broad invitation to confident faith such as appears in this passage was not common in antiquity. (Cf. 2 Kings 2:9.)
Ancient Judaism used “name” in so many overlapping senses that the context tells us more here than the background. In the Old Testament “name” often meant reputation or renown, and when God acted “on account of his name” it was to defend his honor. “In the name of God” could mean as his representative acting on his behalf (Ex 5:23; Deut 18:19-22; Jer 14:14-15), according to his command (Deut 18:5, 7), by his help (Ps 118:10-11; Prov 18:10) or using his name in a miraculous act (2 Kings 2:24). (When rabbis passed on traditions “in the name of” other rabbis it simply means that they were citing their sources, their basis of authority for the tradition.) In prayer, calling on a deity’s name simply meant addressing him (1 Kings 18:24-26, 32; 2 Kings 5:11; Ps 9:2; 18:49). In the Old Testament and later Judaism “Name” could also simply be a polite and roundabout way of saying “God” without uttering his name.
In this context “name” might mean something like: those who seek his honor and speak accurately for him, who are genuinely his authorized representatives. Nothing could be further from the pagan magical use of names that sought to manipulate spiritual forces for one’s own ends.
14:15. Here Jesus evokes another Old Testament idea, with Jesus filling the role of God: those who love God keep his commands (e.g., Ex 20:6; Deut 5:10, 29; 6:5; 11:1, 13, 22; 13:3-4; 19:9; 30:6, 14). In Ezekiel 36:27, the gift of the *Spirit enables one to keep the commandments (Jn 14:16).
14:16. The background for calling the Spirit “advocate” (NIV; NLT) or “Helper” (NASB, ESV) is debated; some suggest a courtroom image: one sense of the term is “advocate,” “defending attorney”; see comment on 16:8-11. Much more generally, it can mean “intercessor” or even simply “helper.” In Jewish depictions of God’s heavenly court, angels and divine attributes could serve as accusers or advocates, but *Satan is the primary prosecutor, and God (or his favored attribute of mercy, or Michael) defends Israel. Here the Spirit is “another” advocate like Jesus (cf. 9:35-41, where Jesus defends the man put out of the *synagogue and accuses his accusers); Judaism was also familiar with the idea of a “successor” who carries on a predecessor’s work. Although Judaism normally viewed the Spirit as an aspect of God rather than as a person, this passage goes beyond that perspective (cf. Rom 8:26).
14:17. The Spirit of truth guides God’s people in the way of truth—into fuller revelation of Jesus, who is the truth (14:6; 16:13). The *Dead Sea Scrolls contrast the spirit of truth with the spirit of error (cf. 1 Jn 4:6). The Old Testament sometimes (rarely) spoke of the Spirit of God dwelling in or filling some servants of God (e.g., Ex 31:3; 35:31; Num 27:18; probably Gen 41:38; Dan 4:8-9; cf. also several early Jewish texts); this was promised for all God’s people in the future (Ezek 36:27).
14:18-20. “Orphan” language (v. 18) sometimes extended figuratively to other forms of bereavement. In the *Old Testament, “orphans” (NASB, NIV) were powerless and needed a legal defender. The context here refers to Jesus’ coming to them and leaving his presence in them by the *Spirit (20:19-23). For background on the Spirit dwelling in people, see comment on 14:17.
14:21-22. *Apocalypses and other Jewish sources sometimes spoke of mysteries revealed to special persons. Israel believed (rightly) that God had given them a special revelation in the *law that the nations did not have. The language of “manifesting” (KJV) or “revealing” (NRSV, GNT) himself to them probably recalls God’s revealing himself to Moses on Mount Sinai (see comment on 1:14).
14:23-24. Jewish teachers spoke of God’s presence residing in a special way among those who studied his law, and especially in the temple; Jesus speaks of God’s presence residing in each believer continually as something like an individual temple for his presence. That God dwelt in his temple and among his people was standard Old Testament teaching (cf. Ex 25:8; Lev 26:11-12; Ezek 37:27-28); that his laws were written in the hearts of his faithful and that his Spirit moved among his prophets were also taught in the Old Testament. But Jesus broadens and personalizes this perspective in a manner unparalleled in extant ancient literature. The *Dead Sea Scrolls speak of the Spirit being active among the remnant of God’s people, but this activity is not nearly as extensive as the prophetic and charismatic activity found in the New Testament. Instead, the fulfilment is more like Ezekiel 36:27, where God’s Spirit dwells in all his people.
14:25-26. Some of the functions Jesus lists here for the Spirit were attributed in Judaism to divine Wisdom (e.g., Wis 7:21; 8:7; 12:2), which was associated with God’s Spirit as well as his law in some popular, pre-Christian Jewish writings (cf. also Neh 9:20; Ps 143:10). In a Jewish context, “teaching” could include elaborating and expounding; rote memorization was also an important part of ancient learning.
14:27. Jewish teachers highly extolled peace (especially in terms of relationships with others). Many philosophers and some rabbis, such as *Hillel (according to later tradition), also valued tranquility and/or peace. The Roman empire promised peace in its propaganda but was usually at war.
14:28-31. For verse 29, see comment on 13:19; for verse 30, see comment on 12:31; for “love” and “commandments” in verse 31, see comment on 14:15. Jesus’ obedience to the Father includes his mission to the cross in 14:31, where perhaps he also summons his followers to participate in that call (“let us go”). Thus the world could know Jesus’ true identity (12:32-33; 17:21).
The word “abide” (KJV, NASB, NRSV), “remain” (NIV, GNT) or “dwell” (15:4-10) is the verb form of “dwelling place” (see comment on 14:2, 23). In the *Old Testament God had promised to dwell with his obedient covenant people always (Ex 25:8; 29:45; Lev 26:11-12; Ezek 37:27-28; 43:9). The Old Testament and Jewish literature sometimes portrayed Israel as a vineyard (e.g., Is 5:7; Jer 12:10), or less frequently as a vine (e.g., Ps 80:8; Ezek 19:10; Hos 10:1). Nevertheless, the image of organic union elaborated here goes beyond most available analogies (though see comment about the *Spirit at 14:17).
15:1. As just noted, the Old Testament and Jewish literature sometimes portrayed Israel as a vineyard (e.g., Is 5:7), or less frequently as a vine (e.g., Ps 80:8; Hos 10:1), and God as the vinegrower (Is 5:1-3). A celebrated golden vine in the temple may have symbolized Israel’s power, and Jesus may here portray the *disciples as the remnant of Israel (see comment on 15:16). Also relevant in light of John’s depiction of Jesus in 1:1-18, Wisdom could be portrayed as a fruit-bearing vine (Sirach 24:17), inviting others to come to her, eat and drink, and obey (24:19-22). But Wisdom is compared with various trees (24:13-17) and invites hearers to eat her fruit, not bear it (24:19-21). Again, therefore, the image of union in this passage is more organic than in the most closely analogous texts. The most basic point of the imagery is the obvious dependence of branches on the vine for their continued life.
Vineyards were pervasive in the Mediterranean world, including in Judea and (where most scholars locate John’s audience) in Asia Minor. Small farmers, including most Galileans, had vines along with fig and olive trees.
15:2-3. The three common domestic fruit “trees” were the fig, olive and vine, and of these, the olive and vine (esp. the latter) required most attention. Those tending vines (and some kinds of trees) would cut away useless branches lest they wastefully sap the strength of the plant; in the long run, this diverted more strength into the branches that would genuinely bear fruit. The weaker the vine, the more harshly one pruned it, reducing short-term fruit but ensuring a greater measure of fruit the following year. Farmers pruned in two different ways: they pruned fruitful branches to make them more fruitful, and (as in 15:6) they removed unfruitful branches entirely.
In the spring in Italy, farmers would tie vines to their supports (trees or, more often, wooden posts) and offer an initial trimming; further pruning of tendrils could occur during summer and as late as October. Some advised pruning only when the vine was strong enough to bear it, with the strongest pruning just after the fall vintage. In Palestine, fruitless branches were removed especially during winter.
Here is another of John’s plays on words (see comment on 3:3): the term he uses for “prunes” normally means “cleanses,” reflecting a motif in John (e.g., 2:6; 13:10). Although the term applied to ritual purity, both Greek and Jewish sources also applied it to inward purification of the heart. The Old Testament prophets often called on Israel to “bear fruit” for God (e.g., Is 27:6; Hos 14:4-8); in an agrarian culture, one might depict God’s *law as bearing fruit in the righteous (*4 Ezra 3:20).
15:4-8. Dead, fruitless branches of vines are obviously of no use for carpentry; their only possible value is for fuel. Jewish teachers believed that God had awful punishments in store for apostates, because those who had known the truth and then rejected it had no excuse (cf. 15:22-24; for burning, see “*Gehenna” in the glossary). Although it may be coincidence based on common customs, the destruction of vine branches appears in an image of judgment in Isaiah 18:5.
15:9-11. Keeping the commandments (here epitomized as love) was supposed to bring joy (Ps 19:8 and often in later Jewish teachings).
15:12-13. Dying for others was considered heroic in Greco-Roman stories, and friendship to the death (dying with or, better when feasible, for a friend) was considered a high moral value (see comment on 15:14-15). But Jewish ethics did not usually share this general Greek emphasis, although it emphasized dying for the *law if need be. Rabbi *Akiba (within a few decades of John) pragmatically argued that one’s own life took precedence over another’s. Although it is unlikely that Jesus is directly influenced by the Greek view of friendship, John’s *Diaspora audience probably would have been familiar with it and so would have appreciated his point.
15:14-15. There were different kinds and levels of friendship in antiquity, and Greco-Roman writers often commented on the topic. Friendship could involve political or military alliances and was often pursued in self-interest; kings or lesser *patrons who supported dependents called *clients were (especially in Roman circles) said to be engaging in “friendship”; *Pharisees also met in circles of “friends.” The traditional Greek concept of friendship emphasized equality among companions, and some philosophical schools like the *Epicureans especially emphasized such friendship. Patron-client friendships were unequal, a socially greater supporting a lesser; thus friendship need not involve equality of rank.
The main ideals of friendship in ancient literature included loyalty (sometimes to the death), equality and mutual sharing of all possessions (cf. 16:14-15), and an intimacy in which a friend could share everything in confidence. Jesus especially emphasizes the last point in 15:15, where he distinguishes a friend from a servant, who might also be loyal but would not share intimate secrets. Jewish writers like *Philo emphasized friendship with God, sometimes even contrasting it with servanthood, as here.
The *Old Testament called two people friends of God: Abraham (2 Chron 20:7; Is 41:8) and Moses (Ex 33:11). Jewish tradition amplified on the friendship and intimacy of both of them with God. If an Old Testament allusion is in view here, it may be to Moses (see comment on 14:8). In another familiar source, Wisdom made people friends of God and prophets (Wisdom of Solomon 7:27). If this text emphasizes Jesus’ sharing his heart with his followers, the context communicates the character of his heart: love.
15:16-17. Jewish teachers emphasized repeatedly that Israel was chosen and commissioned by God (initially in Abraham [Neh 9:7], the secondary possible allusion in v. 15, though the emphasis on Israel’s chosenness is more pervasive than this); see comment on 15:1. Although Jesus, like most Jewish teachers, welcomed most listeners, he chose his own core *disciples. This language evokes OT texts about God choosing his people (Ps 135:4), normally not because of their own merit (Deut 7:6-7; cf. 9:5); this was a special privilege (Deut 14:2). (Sometimes God is also said to choose individuals or groups within Israel for tasks, e.g., Ex 35:30; Deut 18:5; 21:5; 1 Sam 10:24; 1 Chron 15:2; 28:10; 29:1; 2 Chron 29:11.) It can give the disciples confidence in their fruitfulness (Judas left the group in 13:30). On asking “in the name,” see comment on 14:12-14.
Ancient writers often liked to lay comparisons and contrasts side by side. After emphasizing unity, love and friendship in 15:1-17, Jesus turns here to the world’s hatred.
15:18-20. Given the sort of political alliances characteristic of Mediterranean urban life, friendship with someone (15:13-15) entailed also sharing common enemies. Jewish people often believed that the *Gentile nations hated them because they were chosen and sent by God and suffered on his account. They would resent Jesus’ grouping most of them with “the world,” but other persecuted minority sects in Judaism (like the *Essenes at *Qumran) also included the majority of Israel, whom they regarded as apostate, as among the world, their enemies.
15:21. Jewish people spoke of suffering (even martyrdom) for the sake of God’s name (e.g., Ps 44:22); Jesus here speaks thus of his own name (cf. Mt 5:11; Mk 13:13). When Israel kept covenant with God, they were said to “know” him; in their disobedience, they did not “know” him (e.g., Is 1:3; Jer 2:8; 4:22; 5:4; Hos 5:4).
15:22-24. Judaism taught that greater knowledge brought greater responsibility; thus in one line of tradition, the nations were accountable to keep only seven commandments, whereas Israel, who had received the *law, had 613 commandments. Jesus also teaches that revelation increases moral responsibility (elsewhere, e.g., Lk 12:41-46).
15:25. Here Jesus quotes from a lament of a righteous sufferer (Ps 69:4; cf. 35:19; 109:3), which Jesus elsewhere applied to his sufferings (cf. Jn 2:17). On “their law” see 8:17 and 10:34.
15:26. On the forensic work of the *Spirit as advocate, see 14:16; here he is not only advocate but witness.
15:27. The believers are also witnesses for Jesus before the court of the world (cf. 16:2) and God’s tribunal. The Jewish people viewed the *Holy Spirit especially as the Spirit of *prophecy (usually in the *Old Testament and even more often in later Jewish literature); God would thus empower the *disciples to speak as prophets. (This promise also fits the idea that God’s people would be anointed by the Spirit to witness God’s truth against the nations before God’s final tribunal; cf. Is 42:1; 43:10-12; 44:3, 8-9.)
16:1. Advance warning was helpful; cf. comment on 13:19.
16:2-4. Even in the *Diaspora, *synagogues could enforce discipline on members violating Jewish laws. Capital jurisdiction, however, belonged to Rome; any other killing was a lynching not approved by the Roman state. In the context of discussing witness, Jesus warned that his followers would face trouble in synagogues as elsewhere (see Mk 13:9-11), but this point may have special relevance for John’s audience. Most scholars believe that Christians in John’s day were being expelled from some local synagogues, perhaps under the influence of Palestinian Pharisaic propaganda (see the introduction to John and comments on 9:34 and 12:42). Hostile Jewish non-Christians in Asia Minor do not appear to have killed Christians directly (in violation of Roman law); but some nevertheless may have participated in getting followers of Jesus killed (in later Smyrna, cf. Martyrdom of Polycarp 17.2; 18.1, although scholars do not accept the entire story as accurate). By betraying Jewish Christians to the Roman authorities and claiming that Christians were non-Jewish, they left Christians with no legal exemption from worshiping the emperor and difficulty explaining how they remained loyal to the empire. Worried that Christians were a messianic and *apocalyptic movement that could get them in trouble with Rome, many synagogue leaders may have thought their betrayal of Christians would protect the rest of their community (cf. 11:50). Persecutors could believe that they acted for God (cf. Is 66:5), perhaps by following Phinehas’ model of zeal (Ps 106:30-31; 1 Maccabees 2:24-26, 54). Ancient thinkers sometimes pointed out that, before God or the bar of history, it was the unjust court rather than the victim that was on trial.
The *Spirit testifies of Jesus to the world (16:8-11, duplicating the earthly witness of Jesus) and to Jesus’ followers (16:13-15). The opponents of John’s readers did not claim to have the Spirit or to hear the Spirit speaking to their hearts as he had spoken to the prophets (many may have claimed to feel close to God but did not claim to hear him directly, in contrast to Christians and some apocalyptic visionaries). John encourages his readers that their intimate, personal relationship with God in the Spirit distinguishes them from their opponents.
16:5-7. The Advocate (see comment 14:16)comes to the believers, which implies that his ministry to the world (16:8-11) is through them (cf. Neh 9:30). This idea fits the common *Old Testament and later Jewish perspective on God’s Spirit as the Spirit of *prophecy. Because the Spirit’s activity in 16:8-11 matches that of Jesus earlier in the Gospel (e.g., 3:17-21; 8:46), the Spirit may mediate Jesus’ presence through believers’ preaching of him (the “Word”; cf. 1:1-18) in a way to some degree analogous to how early Judaism could envision the Spirit or Torah mediating God’s presence (see, e.g., comment on Mt 18:20).
16:8-11. As was common in ancient arrangement of material, 16:8 introduces three points then developed in 16:9-11. Here the believers’ Advocate may become a “prosecutor” of the world, as sometimes in the Old Testament (Jer 50:34; 51:36; Lam 3:58-66; cf. Ps 43:1; 50:8). Many Jewish people believed that God would make Israel prevail over the nations before his tribunal in the day of judgment; for John, the judgment has already begun (3:18-19). Roman courts had no public prosecutors and depended on an interested party to bring charges, although trained *rhetoricians then debated on behalf of those who could afford them. The Spirit here brings charges against the world before God’s heavenly court (see Mt 5:22), as a witness against them (see Jn 15:26).
Verses 9-11 probably mean that the world’s unbelief constituted their sin; *Christ being the heavenly Advocate (1 Jn 2:1) constituted the believers’ righteousness; and the judging of the world’s ruler (see comment on 12:31) spelled the judgment of the world. Thus for John it is not Jesus and his people (chaps. 18–19) but the world that is now on trial. One may also compare a common motif in the Old Testament prophets: the covenant lawsuit where God summons his people to account for breach of the covenant.
16:12-13. The Psalms speak of God leading his people in truth, in his way of faithfulness (Ps 25:5; 43:3; cf. 5:8); in John, this language implies a fuller revelation of Jesus’ character (14:6). Intimate friends shared confidences (see comment on 15:15). The Spirit will thus relate to the *disciples as Jesus has (15:15), so that believers’ relationship with Jesus in John’s day (and in subsequent generations) should be no less intimate than relationships with him were before the cross.
16:14-15. This intimacy (v. 13) may evoke a sharing of possessions that characterized ideal friendship in antiquity (see comment on 15:15); some applied this principle even to “friendship” with the gods. The specific sense of the sharing language in this context, however, is that God shares his heart with all his people, as he once shared his word with his prophets (Gen 18:17; Amos 3:7; cf. again God’s Wisdom in Wisdom of Solomon 7:26-27).
After his *resurrection, Jesus would return to the disciples to impart life (14:18-19), and through the gift of his *Spirit he would remain with them forever (20:19-23).
16:16-22. Women suffered and, as in many parts of the world even today, often died in childbirth. The prophets commonly used birth pangs as an image of suffering, often stemming from judgment (Is 13:8; 21:3; 42:14; Jer 4:31; 6:24; 13:21; 22:23; 30:6; 49:22-24; 50:43; Mic 4:9-10; cf. Ps 48:6). In some *Old Testament texts, these pangs signified what Jesus’ contemporaries would understand as the birth pangs of a new, messianic era (Is 26:17-19; 66:7-10; Mic 5:1-4; cf. Is 9:6; 53:12–54:1; 62:5; Hos 13:13-14). Labor pains, resurrection and “a little while” appear in Isaiah 26:16-21; in Isaiah 66:8-14, after Zion travails to birth the restored people of God (66:8), God’s people “see” and “are glad” (66:14; cf. Jn 16:22).
Early Judaism sometimes came to apply these birth pangs specifically to the final period of suffering before the end of the age, which would be followed by the resurrection of the dead (cf. *Dead Sea Scrolls 1QHa 11.8-11; *1 Enoch 62:4; *rabbis). Jesus’ resurrection inaugurates a new age, so that the life of the coming world is now available to the disciples in the present (see comment on 3:16).
16:23-24. See comment on 14:12-14, especially on the use of the “name” in prayer.
16:25-28. Following the Old Testament wisdom tradition, Jewish teachers often used proverbs and riddles, as Jesus does throughout this Gospel. Although the disciples are not ready for the full understanding of the new relationship with God that Jesus describes (16:12), he is getting them ready.
16:29-30. In the context of the Fourth Gospel, that Jesus knows their question before they ask reveals his special insight; see comments on 1:42 and 2:24-25.
16:31-32. The scattering of sheep may refer to Zechariah 13:7 (cf. Mt 26:31). The Old Testament often reports that God’s flock was scattered for want of a devoted shepherd (e.g., 1 Kings 22:17; Ezek 34:5-6, 12, 21; Zech 11:16; cf. Is 53:6; Jer 23:1; 50:17), as one would expect with flocks (e.g., Ps 119:176; 1 Maccabees 12:53).
16:33. Early Christians recognized that final victory would come, as Jewish prophets and teachers said, when the *Messiah comes in the future; but they also recognized that the Messiah had already come and therefore had inaugurated triumph in the midst of present (eschatologically expected) tribulation.
Jesus here reveals his unique relationship with the Father, sharing his glory; see comment on divine Wisdom in 1:1-18. From 12:23-33 it is clear that Jesus returns to this full glory only by way of the cross, even though for most people crucifixion epitomized shame rather than honor and glory. Many note that prayers and blessings are common in testaments (final instructions of a departing sage or hero in Jewish literature). Concluding sections frequently recapitulate major themes covered; many themes in Jesus’ teachings in this Gospel recur here.
17:1. Lifting one’s eyes to heaven was a common posture of prayer (cf. perhaps Ps 121:1; 123:1). “Glory” here has a double sense, another instance of wordplay; see comments on 1:14 and 12:23-27. Moses reflected God’s glory in Exodus 33–34, but Jesus is to be “glorified” in the same sense as the Father, with his preexistent glory (17:5).
17:2. The *Old Testament also often used “flesh” (KJV) in the sense of humanity (“people”—NIV; “mankind”—NASB). Only at the end, in the final *kingdom, did God promise to delegate his authority to a particular ruler (Is 9:6-7; Dan 7:13-14); this background suggests that Jesus’ death and *resurrection represent no mere temporal event but the climactic inbreaking of a new world.
17:3. On knowing God, see 10:4-5. Not knowing good and evil (Gen 2:9; 3:22), but knowing God was life (cf. Ezek 37:14). Other Jewish texts written in Greek also identified knowing God with *eternal life (e.g., Wisdom of Solomon 15:3); here one must have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
17:4-5. On finishing the work, see 4:34 and 19:30. Moses reflected God’s glory (Ex 34:29), but Jesus, who shares the Father’s preexistent glory, is greater than Moses here (cf. Jn 1:14-18). The Old Testament declared that God would not give his glory to another (Is 42:8; 48:11); Jesus’ sharing the Father’s glory in this sense is a claim that he is divine. Judaism did have an analogy with which to compare Jesus’ divine claim here: God’s Wisdom reflects his glory (Wisdom of Solomon 7:25-29). John’s Jewish Christian readers may have understood Jesus’ identity in analogous (albeit superior) terms (see comment on 1:1-18).
This passage addresses the inevitable conflict between Jesus’ followers and the world. Jesus’ followers here assume the role assigned to Israel in most extant Jewish portrayals of the end times and that assigned to the remnant (the children of light) in sectarian texts such as the *Dead Sea Scrolls; they constituted the whole number of the righteous and as such were a persecuted minority within society.
17:6. In the *Old Testament Moses announced God’s name (Ex 3:13, 15); more importantly, when God revealed his name, he revealed his character and attributes (Ex 33:19; 34:5, 14; for the future, see Is 52:6).
God’s name also meant his honor or reputation. To “hallow” or “sanctify” God’s name was to demonstrate its holiness, its sacredness. In contemporary Jewish teaching, righteous deeds hallowed God’s name, and wicked ones dishonored it; the kiddush hashem, or sanctifying of God’s name, was one of the most fundamental principles of Jewish ethics preserved in later rabbinic sources. Most Jewish people prayed for the future time when God would sanctify his name throughout the earth (see comment on Mt 6:9).
17:7-11. Although the comparison would be inadequate, some ancient hearers may have thought of how Moses received God’s words and passed them on to Israel, who alone of the nations received his *law; on Jesus and Moses, see comment on 1:14-18 (esp. 1:17). The ideas of Jesus’ being glorified among the *disciples and the use of God’s name (17:11) may also expound Jewish traditions related to Moses in the book of Exodus. On unity, see comment on 17:20-26.
17:12. Some suggest that the fulfilled Scripture here might allude to Psalm 41:9, cited in John 13:18: the verb for “lost” appears often for the wicked in the Psalms. Jewish teaching recognized that God dealt more severely with apostates than with those who were born pagans, because apostates had known the truth but turned away from it. “Son of perdition” (NASB) or “of destruction” reflects a Semitic idiom essentially meaning, “one who would be destroyed.” The passage may play on the related terms for “lost” and “destruction.”
17:13-15. Jewish texts often speak of God guarding or protecting his people.
17:16-19. The Old Testament and Jewish tradition emphasized Israel’s separation from and often hatred by the world. God had “sanctified,” that is, “consecrated” or “set apart,” Israel for himself as holy, especially by giving them his commandments (e.g., Lev. 11:44-45). (Today Jewish people still often celebrate this sanctification by the commandments in the blessing over the lighting of sabbath candles.)
God’s word in Scripture was truth (Ps 119:142, 160). If God had sanctified his people, or set them apart among the nations by giving them the law, how much more are followers of Jesus set apart by his coming as the Word made flesh (see comment on 1:1-18); Jesus treats his disciples here as the true remnant of Israel, that is, the saved covenant community within Israel. (Throughout most of the Old Testament, only part of Israel in any given generation followed God; in some times, like those of Joshua and David, the remnant was large; in other times, like Moses’ generation or that of Elijah, it was small.) Other Jewish groups, notably the *Essenes who likely authored the Dead Sea Scrolls, also felt that the rest of their nation had gone astray and that they were the true remnant; the theme appears in the Old Testament prophets (cf. Is 10:20-22; Joel 2:32; Amos 9:8-12). Whereas some of the Essenes sought to separate physically from the rest of Israel, however (cf. Dead Sea Scrolls 1QS 5.18; 9.8-9; CD 13.14-15), believers in Jesus remained in contact with the world despite being different from it (Jn 17:14-16).
The unity of Father and Son models the unity to be experienced by their people in whom they dwell. Israel emphasized that their God was “one” (Deut 6:4) and recognized the importance of this factor in their own solidarity among the nations, in a world hostile to them. This passage stresses a similar idea but in a manner more related to the idea of God’s personal indwelling introduced in chapter 14 (see especially comment on 14:23-24). God is glorified among his people (though he shares it with no one in the fullest sense) in Isaiah 44:23; 46:13; 49:3; 55:5; 60:1-2; God also sanctified his dwelling places with the glory of his presence (Ex 29:43).
The emphasis on unity would also speak to John’s readers, who are troubled by opposition from the *synagogue and perhaps from secessionists from their own ranks (see introduction to 1 John); it is also likely that ethnic or cultural unity—perhaps among John’s (emigrant?) Galilean and Asian constituencies (see the introduction to John)—is partly in view (10:16; 11:52; 12:20-23); John clearly emphasizes ethnic reconciliation in *Christ in chapter 4 (the *Samaritans). At any rate, followers of Jesus constitute a small minority in a hostile world and need each other to survive as much as other minorities normally do. On concern for coming generations compare, e.g., Psalm 78:3-7. Division was a pervasive problem in antiquity, and both philosophers and (especially often) orators challenged cities to seek unity among themselves. Jewish people celebrated God’s special love for Israel; the magnitude of God’s love for Jesus’ followers here is evident in the comparison with the Father’s special love for the Son, a Son whose death he allowed to save the others (3:16-17).
Biographies usually conclude with an account of the protagonist’s death, developing it particularly if the death was very significant. Jewish people and some *Gentiles celebrated martyr stories. The passion *narratives draw on such elements but form something distinctive. Greeks also had apotheosis stories about mortals transformed to deities, usually at their death; in John, however, Jesus is returning to the glory he had with the Father before the world (cf. Wisdom returning home in *1 Enoch 42:2).
Contrary to detractors, how Jesus is treated in the account fits what we know of the treatment of dissent in antiquity. Apart from outright threats (like armed bands in the wilderness), Rome depended on local aristocracies in the provinces to arrest and accuse troublemakers, though Rome itself inflicted the death penalty (18:31). A generation after the scene depicted here, one Joshua son of Hananiah cried out judgment against the temple; the chief priests had him arrested and handed over to the governor. After refusing to respond to the governor’s interrogation, Joshua was flogged, *Josephus says, until his bones showed (Jewish War 6.301-5). Because they considered that prophet insane and because he had no followers, he was then released—in contrast to Jesus, who had a movement and was viewed as a greater potential political threat. The priestly aristocracy were determined to maintain control at all costs, including by suppressing freedom of speech. The current Sanhedrin consisted especially of immediate descendants of Herod’s political appointees, and other Jews (from Josephus to the *Dead Sea Scrolls to the *Pharisees) criticized a number of *high priests in this era as corrupt and sometimes brutal.
18:1-2. “Kidron Valley” is literally the “winter-swollen-brook Kidron”: this brook flowed only in the rainy season—winter—so crossing it in April would not involve even getting wet. It had a long history (2 Sam 15:23), and the site is still identifiable. Jesus and his *disciples had met there other times; cf. Luke 22:39. Gardens were sometimes walled enclosures.
18:3. Romans and others typically depended on local informers, a role that Judas fills here. Many scholars have noted that this military contingent is described in a manner much like Roman cohorts (so NASB). Nevertheless, the same language was equally used of Jewish units, and this unit is probably the Levite temple guard. (Roman troops would not be used for a routine police action like this one, would not be lent to the chief priests, and Romans would not have taken Jesus to the house of Annas—18:13—whom they had deposed.)
A full cohort in the Roman sense could have involved six hundred soldiers, but a detachment from the cohort is all that John need mean here. Both the temple police and Romans carried torches (two kinds are mentioned here) at night, although only a few need have carried them. The moon would be nearly full at Passover.
18:4-6. “I am” can mean “I am he (whom you seek),” but it can also allude to Exodus 3:14, translated literally. A Jewish tradition, purportedly pre-Christian (attributed to the early *Diaspora Jewish writer Artapanus), said that when Moses pronounced the name of his God, Pharaoh fell backward. (If Jesus’ hearers had thought he was pronouncing the divine name, they might have also fallen back in fear, because magicians were said to try to cast spells in that name.) During some kinds of religious experience in many cultures, including Christian religious experiences historically (including during the Great Awakenings in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), people have sometimes been overwhelmed and fallen to the ground (cf. also, e.g., 1 Sam 19:24; Ezek 1:28; Dan 10:9).
18:7-9. That Jesus’ word (17:12) should be fulfilled just as Scripture is suggests his divine rank and mission. Although some Jewish writers allowed that *prophecy continued in their own time, they rarely accorded such revelations the same status as Scripture. Where no massive or violent threat existed, Romans and their allies often preferred to detain a ringleader rather than all the followers, if it was believed that the movement could not survive without its leader anyway.
18:10. As slave of the high priest, Malchus would be a powerful person with much authority; it is possible (though by no means certain) that Malchus was helping to lead the expedition. On the possible symbolic effect of his disfigurement, see comment on Mark 14:47.
18:11. Greeks might think of Socrates’ cup of hemlock, but more relevant for Jesus’ (and John’s) Jewish context, the cup often functioned as a symbol of judgment in the prophets (see comment on Mk 10:39).
18:12. The officer mentioned here is literally applied to tribunes of cohorts (in principle about six hundred strong); but see comment on 18:3; comment on Acts 4:1.
18:13-14. Annas was *high priest from A.D. 6–15, when the Romans deposed him. According to Jewish *law, the high priest was entitled to rule for life; thus some Jews no doubt considered the Roman deposition of Annas invalid, and he continued to command great respect. He was father-in-law of Caiaphas, and all five of Annas’s sons became highest priests at some point; he retained enormous influence until his death in A.D. 35. He was wealthy and powerful, but later Jewish literature (written by successors of those he opposed) does not speak well of him. The high priesthood had been the most powerful office in Jewish Palestine until the Roman period.
Capital cases were to be heard by a plurality of judges (according to later tradition, a minimum of twenty-three). No individual could legally act as judge in a capital case, but this law did not stop Annas from exercising his political power and privately interrogating Jesus. Perhaps he would have excused himself by a law that those tried by the supreme Sanhedrin for misleading the people first had to be tried by two lower courts. But that law may be Pharisaic and may be later than the first century, and it is doubtful that Annas is attempting to follow any law. The predominantly Sadducean priestly aristocracy would certainly not follow the Pharisees’ rules: they had to please the Romans, not the Pharisees. Roman law, like the Pharisees, posed limits on judges’ activity, but in the provinces politics trumped legal ethics when peace was at stake.
18:15-17. For more detail, see comment on Mark 14:66-69. Well-to-do homes had servants as doorkeepers, though these servants might do double-duty with other jobs; an extensive estate such as this one would have a full-time porter. Doorkeepers would determine (especially at night) whom to admit and would observe who entered and left the premises. Even once people entered, if they were unfamiliar they could be asked their identity. According to later rabbinic teaching, Jewish people were permitted to deny even their Jewishness, especially by evasion (cf. Mk 14:68), to save their lives. Direct denial that allowed God’s name to be reproached, however, was considered shameful. Peter probably lacks acquaintance with these specific rules, but they may illustrate his cultural setting, which did not always regard denial as severely as Jesus regards it.
18:18. The cold weather is not surprising for an April night in Jerusalem.
18:19. The changing of scene back and forth was a standard suspense-building technique in ancient literature; then, as today, it was good writing.
John does not claim that the “high priest” here is the official one Rome recognized (see 18:13, 24); like other *New Testament writers and *Josephus, John follows the common practice of labeling all prominent members of the priestly aristocracy “high priests.” Later tradition suggests that those questioning a “misleader” (see comment on 7:12) would ask about disciples.
18:20. Secret teachings were sometimes considered subversive, but Jesus taught publicly. Although *rabbis offered particular special teachings only to small groups of disciples (e.g., teachings on creation and on God’s throne-chariot), they had a tradition that one must teach the law openly, in contrast to false prophets, who taught “in secret.” Appeals to public knowledge added *rhetorical strength to one’s argument.
18:21. According to much later forms of Jewish law, interrogators were not supposed to force the accused to try to convict himself. But if this law is in effect in Jesus’ day, which is at best uncertain, the priestly aristocracy, upheld by Rome and acting on what they believe to be right for the people, does not concern itself with it. As throughout the empire, powerful people could even get away with judicial murder, and other people were well aware of this.
18:22-24. Striking a captive was certainly against Jewish law. This act shows how abusive and uninterested in any form of Jewish legality Annas is; his interest in the case is political, not legal. This also fits the picture of the high priests supplied by other minorities in Judaism who had conflicts with them (Pharisees and *Essenes). See comment on Mark 14:1, 43. Jesus may be indicating that he has not violated Exodus 22:28 (which forbade cursing authorities); cf. Acts 23:3-5. Interrogating him further in a private home rather than in the Sanhedrin’s meeting place on or near the temple mount violated ancient Mediterranean legal protocol. This may represent the early morning “official” meeting to produce the charge. People often cringed before the authorities; Jesus stands for truth.
18:25-27. For a disciple to repudiate a teacher was a great humiliation for the teacher. Ancient writers often contrasted characters; Peter’s denial here contrasts starkly with Jesus’ courage (18:20-24). On the cock crowing, see comment on 13:38.
18:28. Roman officials began meeting the public (especially their *clients) at daybreak and finished by noon; “early” is no exaggeration, and here may mean about 6 a.m. Although visiting officials were often swamped with plaintiffs, the priestly aristocracy, who controlled Judea for the Romans, would be able to secure an audience with him on short notice. Clamoring before *Pilate in large numbers was usually effective, because a riot was the last thing he wanted. The “Praetorium” (NASB) here was Herod the Great’s old “palace” (NIV), used by the Roman prefect when he came to Jerusalem from Caesarea during the feasts. (It was not, as some earlier commentators thought, the Fortress Antonia on the Temple Mount, where the usual Roman garrison was stationed.) He came precisely to ensure that order was maintained during the feasts, when Jerusalem was overcrowded and riots were most apt to break out.
That observant Jews (including the priestly aristocracy) would not enter this palace, lest they be defiled and thus unable to eat the Passover, fits Jewish practice. *Gentile residences were considered ritually impure, primarily because of the association with idolatry (which Pilate certainly practiced). (That priestly aristocrats cared about purity is clear archaeologically from the ritual baths common in their homes.) Their fidelity to purity regulations ironically highlights the corrupt leaders’ failure to observe legal propriety in the context.
A possible conflict with the other Gospels at this point has led to considerable debate as to when the Passover described in the Gospel passion narratives occurred. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus had already eaten the Passover with his disciples this night; whereas according to John, the priests plan to eat it the following night.
Of the many explanations for the apparent discrepancy, the two most prominent are probably these: (1) Several Jewish groups had different calendars and did not celebrate Passover on the same day. A dispute about when the month had begun (based on the appearance of the new moon) would also affect when the feast would be eaten. Some scholars have suggested that Jesus’ disciples celebrated it a day early, thus without a lamb slaughtered in the temple. (2) Either John or the other Gospels—probably John—is making a symbolic point (John stresses that Jesus is the Passover lamb; cf. 19:14, 36; 1 Cor 5:7). Later Jewish tradition also reports that Jesus was crucified on Passover, but this report could be based on the approximate time in earlier tradition. John’s language would not technically be incorrect in any case in the present verse, since many used “Passover” loosely for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which immediately followed; nevertheless, “eat the Passover” is a very odd way to speak of eating the bread during the rest of the feast (cf. also 13:1).
18:29. Precedent exists for a Roman official’s having to go outside to respect Jewish sensitivities (on the sensitivities, see comment on 18:28). Except in matters requiring military intervention, an official charge would be necessary before Pilate would be required to hear the case. Roman law had no public prosecutor in the modern sense and depended on private accusers to bring charges (although rhetoricians could be hired to debate a case, they were not supplied by the state). Accusers spoke first in a case.
18:30-31. Pilate regards the matter as one of religious law, hence to be tried in a Jewish court if the person claims to be Jewish and so submits to a Jewish court’s jurisdiction; this was Roman practice throughout the empire (also, e.g., Acts 18:14-15). Pilate is also known not to have been cooperative when dealing with Jewish religious matters; unless the situation got out of hand, he did not need to cooperate as long as his probable *patron Sejanus controlled the emperor Tiberius in Rome (see comment on 19:12). *Philo reports that Sejanus was anti-Jewish, and both Philo and Josephus portray Pilate as brutal. From Pilate’s initial attempt to bring idolatrous Roman standards into Jerusalem to his plundering of the temple treasury to build an aqueduct to issuing coins with the emperor’s image, Pilate had displayed insensitivity to Jewish concerns. Yet Pilate also belonged to a lower order of nobility than most governors, and was politically vulnerable apart from Sejanus’s patronage; ultimately he usually gave in to the demands of the Jewish aristocracy. Slowness to accept the chief priests’ recommendations might reflect spite for them rather than commitment to justice. Over time, though, he probably became more politically accommodating to the locals (thus he remained in office till A.D. 36, even though his political patron in Rome, Sejanus, was executed in 31.)
Pilate expected Jewish courts to judge all internal religious cases, but capital offenses required Roman verdicts, and apart from desecrating the temple only a political charge would suffice for that. Although scholars have debated the matter, Rome apparently did not permit Jewish courts to exercise the death penalty, except in the case of a *Gentile intruding into an inner court of the temple. They could flog and probably decree a person worthy of death; but executions not authorized by the Romans were illegal. The Romans had to try all other capital offenses. (Some later rabbinic sources place the abolition of Jewish courts’ right to execute the death penalty in A.D. 70 [other rabbis place it about A.D. 30], but this would have given Palestinian Jewish leaders a right not shared by most other local officials under Rome, a right we would therefore expect contemporary apologists for Judaism like Josephus to attest. Normally only governors and client rulers exercised the “right of the sword.” The Sanhedrin’s possession of it is not attested early, and later rabbis often idealized the earlier legal situation, even reading their own authority back into the pre-70 period. The right to execute violators of the temple was also permitted in the case of violators of other sacred shrines, like the sanctuary at Eleusis; but the right was rarely extended beyond this violation.)
18:32. They used not stoning but crucifixion for executing noncitizens charged with treason (thus fulfilling Jesus’ word about being “lifted up”—12:32-33).
18:33-35. Pilate follows a Roman procedure called cognitio, an inquiry to determine what really happened. As prefect, he would make the final decision and answer to no one for it unless a complaint were sent to Rome; but he investigates the matter nonetheless.
The priests charge Jesus with claiming to be a king, which is a charge of maiestas, treason against the emperor. (Herod Antipas was later exiled for simply requesting the title, which an earlier emperor, Augustus, had granted Herod the Great.) This was an especially deadly charge under Tiberias, the current emperor. Some other Jewish “prophet”-leaders later invited Roman intervention.
18:36-38a. Jesus’ nonresistance distinguishes him from true revolutionaries in Judea. The idea that Jesus’ *kingdom is not based on military or political force is repeated throughout the Gospels, but most of Jesus’ hearers never grasp that meaning in his words (after all, why call it a “kingdom” if it was nonpolitical?). Pilate hears the term “truth” and probably interprets Jesus in another sense: a philosopher or some other teacher. As an educated Roman, Pilate should have known that many philosophers portrayed themselves as ideal rulers (see comment on 1 Cor 4:8); although he probably had little attachment to philosophers himself, he would have viewed them as harmless. No one could be more nonrevolutionary in practice than a *Cynic or *Stoic philosopher, no matter how antisocial Cynic teachings might be. “Truth” in *Old Testament and Jewish tradition was God’s covenant integrity; the concept would sound more abstract to many Gentiles.
18:38b. Roman law prohibited treason, not wandering, antisocial philosophers. From Pilate’s Roman perspective, he had no reason to condemn Jesus.
18:39. Roman governors were not obligated to follow local (or other) customs, but out of political prudence often did so, especially at crowded festivals. Well-liked precedents like pardons were usually kept. Although unattested in extant Palestinian sources (as are many customs), the specific custom mentioned here is the sort of custom the Romans would have allowed. Roman law officially permitted two kinds of amnesty, the indulgentia (pardoning a condemned person) and—closer to what Pilate probably has in mind here—abolitio (acquitting a person before judgment). Romans and Greeks seem to have granted mass amnesty at some other regular feasts, and Romans occasionally acquitted prisoners in response to the cries of crowds.
18:40. The term translated “bandit” (NRSV, GNT) or “robber” (KJV, NASB) could mean what those titles usually imply, or, in light of Josephus’s usage, could imply that Barabbas is a revolutionary (cf. NIV), a point clear in Mark 15:7. (Some warn that it is difficult to distinguish between self-seeking bandits and those desiring only to terrorize foreigners.) In either case, Barabbas was the kind of person Rome would want to execute. Many ancient writers used irony. The irony here cuts deeply: the people preferred a real revolutionary to Jesus, who was denounced for treason as a would-be king but had no actual record of participation in insurrection. Judean leaders on other occasions used loud delegations to force governors to accept their demands.
19:1. Beatings were a regular punishment themselves, but flogging and scourging, much more severe, also accompanied death sentences. On other occasions governors had persons scourged as a warning although they did not regard them as genuine threats (cf. Josephus, Jewish War 6.304-5), or even handed over Roman soldiers for execution if needed to preserve public order (2.231).
In the provinces, soldiers normally administered this punishment. The person being punished would be stripped naked, then stripped to a post for the beating. Jewish *law allowed only thirty-nine lashes with a calf-leather whip; Roman law allowed scourging till the soldier grew tired, and texts report that bones or entrails were sometimes bared. Romans beat free Romans with rods, soldiers with sticks, but slaves and probably despised non-Romans with whips whose leather thongs enclosed sharp pieces of metal or bone.
19:2. Soldiers played games like throwing knucklebones, coins or dice; the chance to play games with this prisoner would come as a welcome respite from their customary boredom in a foreign land. Adorning a prisoner as a king and beating him occurred on other occasions, even when the person was not claiming kingship. Common, coarse street mimes seem to have often included mock kings arrayed in mock splendor; the Jewish ruler Agrippa I was ridiculed in this manner in Alexandria. Non-Jewish soldiers, many drawn from Syria, were often anti-Jewish and happy to ridicule a Jewish “king.”
Greek vassal princes typically wore a purple chlamys—purple dye being the most expensive—and a wreath of gilded leaves. The “purple robe” that the soldiers put on Jesus may have been a faded scarlet lictor’s robe or an old rug. The crown of thorns, perhaps from the branches of the thorny acanthus shrub or from the date palm (the latter would have looked more realistic), may have been meant to turn mainly outward (mimicking the wreaths of *Hellenistic kings) rather than painfully inward; nevertheless, one could not have prevented some thorns from scraping inward, drawing blood from Jesus’ scalp. Only the highest king would wear an actual crown instead of a wreath, so they are portraying him as a vassal prince.
19:3. “Hail” is sarcasm derived from the customary salutation of the Roman emperor, “Ave (Hail), Caesar!” Normally in the eastern Mediterranean world one would kneel when offering such an acclamation. The abuse of prisoners (a practice not unknown today) was probably common and was sometimes public.
19:4. Not known to be unnecessarily cooperative with the local leaders, Pilate characteristically holds out giving in to them as long as possible. The governor’s investigation has yielded a verdict: not guilty (18:35-38a). Under normal circumstances, this verdict would stand.
19:5. The garb of a mock king, as in the case of the Alexandrian dressed up to ridicule Agrippa I (see comment on 19:2), portrays Jesus to the mob not as a true king but as a harmless fool. Irony and sarcasm were common in ancient sources; the title “man” may contrast ironically with their charge: “God’s Son” (19:7); it may be a mock royal acclamation, as in “Behold the king!” in 19:14 (contrast the opening acclamation of the Gospel—1:29). In another irony, it might be relevant that Pilate’s “Behold the man” recalls the opening words identifying Israel’s first king in 1 Sam 9:17.
19:6. Pilate’s challenge may be derisive: the Jewish authorities did not have the legal right to execute capital offenders, and if they had they would normally have stoned them rather than crucified them.
19:7. The *Old Testament called the *Messiah (and all David’s line) the *Son of God (2 Sam 7:14; Ps 2:7; 89:27); in a more general sense, all Israel was called God’s child (Ex 4:22; Deut 8:3; Hos 11:1). But even falsely claiming to be the Messiah was not a capital offense in standard Jewish teaching, as long as one were not a false prophet advocating other gods. Political rather than theological considerations made such claims dangerous; Roman rather than biblical law made royal claims a capital offense. Even on their own terms, Jesus’ accusers are thus mistaken about the *law’s teaching about him (10:34-36); but John may intend more irony: he believed the Old Testament predicted that God’s Son would die (cf. Is 53).
19:8. Pilate hears the charge very differently. Although many wandering philosophers claimed to be sons of gods and were not taken seriously, some teachers were thought to actually possess divine wisdom or power, and Pilate might be cautious not to offend such a powerful being. They also knew stories of deities coming in disguise and judging those who rejected them. Some Romans were cynical about the gods, but most believed in them, and Pilate might be especially cautious, given the reputation of Jewish magicians for being among the best in antiquity.
19:9. In ancient accounts, sometimes philosophers and especially Jewish martyrs refused to satisfy their judges.
19:10. Pilate’s decree was legally binding in all capital cases; he did not even have to accept the recommendations of his consilium, or advisory council. He was authorized to judge in all cases regarding public order, even if no specific laws had been violated. Roman law did not take silence as an admission of guilt, but without a defense a defendant would be convicted by default. In any case, the issue with Pilate is no longer guilt or innocence but weighing the religious and political consequences of both decisions.
19:11. Judaism understood that rulers held authority only temporarily delegated them by God, who would judge in the end; “above” was sometimes a Jewish way of speaking of God (frequent in John). Here Jesus may imply that the authority of Caiaphas, unlike that of Pilate, is illegitimate; the high priesthood was to be for life, but high priests had been deposed and others installed at the whim and for the political expediency of the Romans. The Roman governor Valerius Gratus (A.D. 15–26) chose Caiaphas as a high priest cooperative with Rome, an approach Caiaphas had continued under Pilate.
19:12. Romans respected courage in the face of death (e.g., one ancient writer praises an ancient Spartan boy who silently let a fox eat away his entrails rather than break the rules of military training). Jesus’ answer may also confirm Pilate’s fear that Jesus is a genuinely divine messenger rather than a deluded street philosopher.
On October 18, A.D. 31, Sejanus, Pilate’s political sponsor in Rome, fell from power, and Pilate had much to fear from any bad reports about him. But Jesus’ trial probably took place before A.D. 31, and the accusation of 19:12 would be a fearful one even with Sejanus in power: the emperor Tiberius was suspicious of the least talk of treason, and a delegation to Rome providing the slightest evidence that Pilate had supported a self-proclaimed king could lead to Pilate’s beheading. *Philo tells us that Pilate also backed down much earlier in his career when the Jewish leaders threatened to petition the emperor against him (Embassy to Gaius 301-2).
“Friends” of powerful *patrons were their political dependents, and to be the “friend of the emperor” (NRSV) or the “friend of Caesar” (KJV, NASB, NIV) was a special honor. “Friend of the king” had been an office in Greek and ancient Near Eastern palaces (including Israel, from David through Herod the Great; cf. 1 Kings 4:5; 1 Chron 27:33); “friend of the emperor” was likewise an official title with political implications. As a client of Sejanus, Tiberius’s praetorian prefect and most trusted confidant at this point, it is possible that Pilate may have acquired this title (cf. Tacitus, Annals 6.8); otherwise it is intended figuratively.
19:13. Bad reports about one could hinder political ambitions. Some commentators have thought that the “Stone Pavement” is the pavement in the fortress Antonia on the temple mount, but that pavement seems to date from a later period. Instead the text undoubtedly refers to the raised, outdoor paved area near Herod’s palace, where the governor resided when he visited Jerusalem. Other sources confirm that both Pilate and a later governor addressed audiences from this platform. Evidence suggests that the governor had to pronounce death sentences pro tribunali, from the judgment seat (see comment on Rom 14:10-12).
19:14. In slightly different wording, “Behold, your king” repeats part of the quotation in 12:15 (Zech 9:9), so that Pilate unwittingly proclaims truth. The “day of Preparation” (19:14, 31, 42) was the day that the Passover lamb would be slaughtered to be eaten that night (see comment on 18:28). (Jewish people reckoned days from sunset to sunset, so what most people today would call Friday night they considered the beginning of the sabbath, or Saturday.) Later *rabbis estimated that offerings began earlier on Passover eve, but the slaughter of Passover lambs probably had to continue all day and was finally completed about the time the evening offering was slaughtered, roughly at the time (but not the day) when Jesus died in the *Synoptic Gospels (about 3 p.m.).
The “sixth hour” normally should mean noon but by a different (and much less likely) reckoning here could mean 6 a.m., close to dawn. John could use it for a symbolic connection with 4:6 or a symbolic connection with Passover (many scholars argue here that the slaughter of Passover lambs began about noon; this argument rests, however, on late and in this case improbable sources). (The other large Johannine work, Revelation, also uses time symbolically.) In any case, the narrative setting is noon, the hottest hour of the day; people would not normally be in public except for very important matters.
19:15. For Pilate to free someone accused of treason or of insulting the emperor’s maiestas would invite the same accusation against himself, especially at this time under Tiberius, one of the most paranoid rulers of the first century. Although not accommodating when he did not need to be, Pilate is known to have acceded to mob demands on other occasions. As a provincial governor he officially had full discretion to decree the penalty. Crucifixion was the standard Roman method of execution for slaves, revolutionaries or other provincials who were not Roman citizens (such as most Palestinian Jews).
The authorities’ cry is typical of the irony of John: Jewish people prayed daily for the royal Messiah, and one Jewish prayer that came to be part of the Passover celebration at least in later times acknowledges no king but God (see also comment on 8:33). (In this period, that precise language may have characterized those desiring to revolt against Rome.)
19:16. Although Pilate was not known for cooperating with the chief priests, neither was he such a poor politician as to risk negative reports about himself over a “minor” case. When a governor decreed that one would be executed, he would say something like, “You will mount the cross.”
19:17. Normally prisoners were marched through crowds of onlookers, using a public execution to warn against rebellion. Condemned criminals normally carried their own cross (the horizontal beam, the patibulum, not the upright stake) to the site of the execution, where it would be affixed to the upright stake (palus). The victim was usually stripped naked for the procession and execution as well, although this full nakedness must have offended some Jewish sensibilities in Palestine.
Thus Jesus would probably be led from Herod’s old palace, in the Upper City, through the garden gate (against the more traditional route envisioned by tourists).The probable site of Golgotha was outside the city wall and not far from Herod’s palace—perhaps a thousand feet north/northeast of it. Roman custom placed crucifixions, and Jewish custom located stonings, outside towns rather than at their center (in the *Old Testament, cf. Lev 24:14, 23; Num 15:35-36; Deut 17:5; 21:19-21; 22:24; in the *New Testament, cf. Lk 4:29; Acts 7:58).
19:18. Romans could crucify people even on trees, but this public execution at a festival probably involves a more formal cross. Some scholars suggest that several stakes, normally at most about ten feet high, stood in Golgotha ready to be reused whenever executions occurred. (The stakes were low enough that dogs nibbled the feet of some crucifixion victims.) On the top of the stake or slightly below the top was often a groove into which the horizontal beam of the cross would be inserted after the prisoner had been fastened to it with ropes or nails (see some further comment on Mt 27:26).
19:19. Sometimes one would carry a titulus stating the reason for the condemned person’s crucifixion, although it is not clear that it was usually displayed above the cross in this period. The charge against Jesus: one who attempted to usurp the prerogatives of royalty, which were properly dispensed only at the decree of Caesar. Jesus is charged with high treason against the majesty of the emperor, a charge that Jesus’ followers would not have made up (followers of one executed for treason were themselves suspect).
19:20. The site of execution was necessarily outside the city, although the soldiers preferred that it be nearby (see comment on 19:17). Jewish people in the Roman Empire dealt with three or four basic languages: Greek, Latin, *Aramaic and Hebrew (of these, Greek especially was spoken outside Palestine and shared its prominence with Aramaic inside Palestine, which was the dominant language further to the east). Jewish inscriptions to foreigners were written in Greek and Latin. Even in Jerusalem, some very important inscriptions meant to warn all peoples were in both Greek and Latin; Josephus, Jewish War 5.194.
19:21-22. No longer faced with the possibility of mob unrest or a complaint to Tiberius, Pilate returns to his characteristic lack of cooperation. In about this same year, Pilate minted a cheap coin of Tiberius bearing the augur’s wand—a pagan symbol quite offensive to Jewish sensibilities.
19:23. The “outer garments” would be the rectangular cloth used in bad weather, the inside “tunic” a sleeveless, tightly fitting shirt. Usually the latter was made of two cloths stitched together, so a seamless tunic was more valuable. Roman law as later codified in Roman legal Digests granted the soldiers the right to the clothes the executed man was wearing; it was customary to execute the condemned man naked. The basic unit of the Roman army was the contubernium, composed of eight soldiers who shared a tent; half-units of four soldiers each were sometimes assigned to special tasks, such as execution quads.
19:24. John’s mention that the soldiers do not want to “tear” it might allude to the *high priest’s garment in the *Old Testament (Lev 21:10), which Josephus mentions was also seamless. This interpretation, however, probably reads too much into the text; the wording in Leviticus is quite different. That it was seamless may simply suggest that, as a woven rather than knitted garment, it was more valuable. John finds two distinct acts in Psalm 22:18 (a common ancient Jewish method of interpretation), as Matthew does in Zechariah 9:9 (see comment on Mt 21:4-7). Casting lots was a conventional way to decide disputed matters, leaving the decision to deities (see comment on Acts 1:26); the soldiers may have brought dice or other games to pass the time, or they may create makeshift lots on the spot.
19:25. The evidence is disputed as to whether relatives and close friends were allowed near crucifixions; they probably usually were. In either case, the soldiers supervising the execution may have looked the other way in practice if they had no reason to forbid it; the prerogatives of motherhood were highly respected in the ancient world. People usually permitted women more latitude in mourning, even in cases when the person being mourned was a criminal, hence often not to be mourned. At the same time, ancients usually considered women less courageous on average than men, and the absence of most male *disciples could shame the absent men.
19:26-27. Because Jesus may not be elevated far above the ground, Jesus’ mother and disciple can hear him without being extremely close to the cross. A dying person could make an oral testament even from the cross, so long as witnesses were available; the eldest son might be responsible for his widowed mother’s care, and testaments sometimes delegated such care. If a widow’s eldest son died, normally younger sons would care for her; Jesus had brothers (cf. 7:3-5). Yet Jesus formally places his mother under his disciple’s protection, providing for her after his death. Dying fathers could exhort sons to take care of surviving mothers (which they normally would do); for a disciple to be accorded a role in his teacher’s family was a great honor to the disciple (disciples sometimes called their teachers “father”).
A primary responsibility which Jewish custom included in “honoring one’s father and mother” was providing for them (cf. 1 Sam 22:3) in their old age. Jesus’ mother is probably in her mid to late forties, is probably a widow and lives in a society where women rarely earned much income; she is therefore officially especially dependent on her eldest son, Jesus, for support, although after his death her younger sons would support her.
19:28. Some scholars have suggested that Jesus may have recited the rest of Psalm 22 after the verse cited by Mark (15:34); in the light of Mark 15:35, this suggestion is not likely, but those who were most biblically informed would know how the psalm continued, and some think that John could allude here to the same psalm (Ps 22:15).
19:29-30. “Hyssop” was not the most natural instrument to use for this purpose. If this plant is identified as the Origanum maru l., its stalk is over three feet long; others claim that it is a very small plant that could not have reached far, and they suggest a play on words with the similar-sounding term for “javelin.” In either case, John presumably mentions hyssop because of its significance in the Passover (Ex 12:22), fitting the symbolism of John 19 as a whole. A low cross (cf. 19:18) would not have required a long reed. “Sour wine” probably refers to poska, consisting of cheap wine vinegar mixed with water; it was often used by soldiers and laborers to quench their thirst; cf. vinegar in Ps 69:21.
19:31-33. Those bound with ropes often survived on the cross several days (e.g., Josephus, Life 420-21). The dying man could rest himself on a wooden seat (Latin sedile) in the middle of the cross. This support allowed him to breathe—and prolonged the agony of his death, until (often) blood loss or dehydration killed him. When the soldiers needed to hasten death by asphyxiation, they would break the legs of the victims with iron clubs so they could no longer push themselves up; *Cicero and others attest this custom of leg breaking. Romans might have allowed the bodies to rot on the crosses (and feed vultures), but Deuteronomy 21:23 and Jewish sensitivities about the sabbath require that these executions be speeded up, and Romans often accommodated Judean leaders’ wishes particularly during the crowded festivals. (Josephus declares that Jewish people always buried crucifixion victims before sunset.)
19:34. Some scholars suggest, on some evidence, that Roman execution squads sometimes pierced victims to ensure that they were dead. Jewish tradition also required certification that a person was dead before the person could be treated as dead, but Jewish observers would not treat the body as disrespectfully as this Roman does. (Probably less relevant, according to a probably first-century Jewish tradition, the priests were supposed to pierce Passover lambs with a wood pole from their mouth to their buttocks.)
A foot soldier was armed with a short sword and a pilum, or lance; the pilum was of light wood with an iron head, and was about three and a half feet long. Such a lance could easily penetrate the pericardial sac that surrounds and protects the heart and contains watery fluid. A Greek might read this description as referring to a demigod, because Greek gods had ichor (which looked like water) instead of blood. But the person who has read the Gospel from start to finish would see in it a symbolic fulfillment of Old Testament and Jewish hopes; see comment on 7:37-39.
19:35. Eyewitness accounts were considered more valuable than secondhand accounts, and narrators who were eyewitnesses (like Josephus) make note of that fact. Narrator-authors in antiquity also sometimes described themselves in the first person, third person, or both.
19:36. John here could allude to Psalm 34:20 or (fitting the context here) to the prohibition of breaking the bones of the Passover lamb (Ex 12:46; Num 9:12), or (some suggest) John could *midrashically blend allusions to both texts. Pre-Christian Jewish tradition preserves this practice of avoiding breaking the lamb’s bones (*Jubilees 49:13), and Jewish teaching (second century or earlier) stipulates a maximum corporal punishment for breaking the Passover lamb’s bones.
19:37. Although a late rabbinic passage interpreted Zechariah 12:10 messianically, the passage itself seems to refer to God’s having been pierced by the people of Jerusalem (before the coming of Jesus one would have assumed a figurative sense, “pierced with sorrow”). This would fit John’s Christology, although cf. also Zechariah 12:8. (Pronouns with divine referents seem to change readily in Zechariah; cf. 2:8-11 and 4:8-9, unless an angel is in view—4:4-6.) The same passage in Zechariah (12:10) apparently refers to God pouring out his *Spirit.
The traditional Catholic and Orthodox site of Jesus’ tomb is probably fairly accurate. Everyone knew that burials must be outside city walls, yet this site is within Jerusalem’s walls. Archaeology reveals, however, that Herod Agrippa I expanded the walls of Jerusalem while he was king of Judea (A.D. 41–44) and that this site was outside the walls at the historic time of Jesus’ burial. The memory of the site thus goes back to within roughly a decade of the event, hence is a fresh and likely accurate memory.
19:38. Crucifixion victims were usually thrown into a common grave for criminals and were not to be mourned publicly after their death; had the Romans had their way, the corpses would not have been buried at all, but such behavior would have needlessly provoked otherwise peaceful local residents. Local Jewish leaders probably normally deposited the bodies in criminals’ graves for a year before handing them over to families. But exceptions seem to have been made at times if family or powerful *patrons interceded for the body, naturally inviting comment as in the Gospels. Burying the dead was a crucial and pious duty in Judaism, and an important act of love; being unburied was too horrible to be permitted even for criminals (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 4.202, 264-65). Scripture and tradition mandated it before sundown (Deut 21:23; Josephus, Jewish War 4.317). To accomplish his task before sundown and the advent of the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea has to hurry.
Roman authorities did sometimes hand over bodies to friends or relatives who desired to bury them. Nevertheless, Joseph’s request for Jesus’ body was an act of courage. Especially for someone outside the family to make the request, it could identify one with the person executed for treason. Far from Joseph’s wealth and influence protecting him, it could have also made him a target of special scrutiny and envy. Joseph acts more courageously here than do Jesus’ previously public *disciples.
19:39. If this measure of Nicodemus’s mixture is one of weight, it is as much as seventy-five modern pounds (more than thirty kilograms; Roman pounds were lighter than modern pounds); less likely, some have suggested a measure of volume identified with the *Old Testament log, hence less than seventy fluid ounces. In either case it is a lavish expression of devotion, as in 12:3; but seventy-five pounds is perhaps a hundred times costlier than the lavish gift of 12:3. Other accounts of lavish devotion for beloved teachers are occasionally reported (a *Gentile convert allegedly burned eighty pounds of spices at the funeral of Gamaliel I, Paul’s teacher); indeed, five hundred servants carried all the spices for Herod the Great’s funeral (Josephus, Jewish War 1.673; Jewish Antiquities 17.199). Myrrh was used for embalming the dead, and aloes for perfume.
19:40. John mentions the Jewish custom; Jewish people did not burn dead heroes, as some Gentiles did, or mutilate them for embalming, as Egyptians did. Bodies were wrapped in shrouds, sometimes expensive ones, especially prepared for burials. Jewish sources are emphatic that none of these actions may be undertaken unless the person is clearly dead; thus those burying Jesus have no doubt that he is dead. Here strips of linen rather than a full shroud are used, perhaps because of the imminent approach of the sabbath at sundown.
White linen garments were worn by Jewish priests, by some other ancient priests (devotees of Isis) and by angels in Jewish tradition (e.g., 2 Maccabees 11:8); they were also wrappings for the righteous dead. Spices reduced the odor of decomposition.
19:41. On the locale, see “near the city” in verse 20: according to Jewish custom, burials had to be outside the city walls (one may compare the outrage of pious Jews over Antipas’s building Tiberias on a graveyard). To be buried in a tomb not yet used was no doubt a special honor and would make the tomb difficult to confuse with others in the vicinity. Tombs were sometimes in garden areas (cf. 2 Kings 21:18, 26). Most Judean tombs were private burial sites belonging to families; often caves were used, and often entrances were sealed with a large, disk-shaped stone that could not be removed from within and were moved from outside only with considerable effort. A tomb belonging to a wealthy person such as Joseph might have a stone a full yard or meter in diameter. Other tombs in this area suggest some wealth of the tomb owners (cf. Mt 27:60). On the site, see comment on Matthew 27:60.
19:42. The sabbath (or the coming of Passover—18:28) interrupted all other activities. One could wash and even anoint a body on the sabbath, due to the rapid decomposition of bodies, but more complete burial activities would have to wait. (Because Jesus was condemned as a criminal, there would be no public funeral.) The women needed to return home before dark. Joseph and Nicodemus did not need to “lay” Jesus there very carefully; this would have been only a preliminary burial even had the sabbath not approached, to be completed fully a year later, after the flesh had rotted off the bones.
Some have doubted the empty tomb story simply because Paul does not mention it (although he presupposes it, since by definition Jewish “*resurrection” left no corpse behind; cf. 1 Cor 15:3-4), but the *disciples could not have credibly proclaimed the resurrection in Jerusalem if Jesus’ body were still in the tomb. Although ancient laws of evidence differed somewhat from modern ones (they depended heavily on probability), ancients, like moderns, would not have staked their lives on a report without investigating the tomb! Given how readily holy sites were venerated, many early believers probably also preserved the site of the tomb. Those modern critical scholars who have suggested that the original disciples meant only that they had a spiritual experience but did not claim that Jesus rose bodily read their own modern culture into the *New Testament: “resurrection” meant bodily resurrection and nothing else, and no one would have persecuted the disciples for claiming that they had had merely a spiritual experience. Mere belief in ghosts and apparitions was widespread and would not have embroiled them in significant controversy.
20:1. The nearest of kin would remain home mourning for seven days; Mary Magdalene, who might have grieved as much as the family, might have remained inside had it not been necessary to complete the work left unfinished due to the sabbath (19:42). But Jewish mourners as well as pagans were often known to visit tombs within the three days after the burial.
The first day of the week began at sundown on what we would call Saturday night, so the sabbath had ended hours before she approaches the tomb; going out at night, however, was rare. Although not coming at night, Mary does not wait till full light of dawn; that she would approach the tomb before daylight demonstrates her eager devotion to Jesus. Disk-shaped stones were often rolled in front of the entrances of tombs and were so heavy that they frequently required several men to roll them away.
20:2-3. Romans saw to it that those crucified were dead; on the rare occasion where a crucifixion was stopped and a person taken down and given medical help, they usually died anyway. Apart from a resurrection, which no one expected, Mary could only imagine that the body had been stolen (not very common in Jewish Palestine), that the authorities had confiscated it (to put it temporarily in a criminals’ common grave), or that owners of the site had moved it. Ancient Jewish men did not accept women as reliable witnesses for most legal purposes (their witness was also limited in Roman courts), because many believed they were too moved by emotion. It had also been dark when Mary first reached the tomb. Still, they would in any case want to learn what happened to the body.
20:4. Comparison of characters was important in ancient writing and a standard *rhetorical technique; it could often elevate one person without denigrating the other, especially if they were friends. Athletic prowess was one ancient basis for comparison, especially concerning young men. Depictions of physical prowess were part of *narratives extolling characters (e.g., *Josephus outswims most others in Life 15). That the beloved disciple is faster than Peter fits some other comparisons in the Gospel (13:23-24; 21:7).
20:5. The stooping suggests a tomb with a low entrance leading to a lower pit; the lighting or the positioning of Jesus’ body (e.g., on shelves to either side) would explain why the head veil was not visible before entering.
20:6-7. Had robbers stolen the body (a rare practice) they would have taken it hastily in its wrappings; had they left the wrappings, they would have left them in disarray (and likely left the body with it). Whoever left the wrappings, left them there neatly. The face cloth separate from the linen is not merely “folded up” (ESV) but “rolled up” (NASB, NRSV, GNT). Again, this could be an indication of neatness, but some think that it was still rolled the way it had been when it was wrapped around Jesus’ head—that his body had risen straight out of the wrappings and cloth.
The skeptic’s proposal that Jesus had only swooned and then recovered would not explain how he could have loosed the strips tied around him or escaped a sealed tomb, but it also ignores the nature of crucifixion: Josephus had three of his friends taken down alive from a cross, but two of them died despite medical attention because their bodies had been so weakened from the crucifixion.
20:8-10. This disciple’s faith may have been due to parallels with John 11 or to the way the cloths were laid (20:6-7) or to how this event climaxed the disciples’ earlier experience with Jesus; John implies that they would have already believed it from Scripture had they understood.
Ancient Mediterranean culture did not value highly the witness of women; that Jesus first appears to a woman would not have been fabricated and shows us how Jesus’ values differ from those of his culture. Even the later *church did not always maintain Jesus’ countercultural stance, and they would hardly have chosen such initial witnesses in an environment where this account would reinforce pagan prejudices against Christians (see comments on Eph 5:22-33).
20:11. Jewish people took the first seven days of mourning so seriously that mourners could not wash, work, have intercourse or even study the *law. Jewish culture was serious about expressing rather than repressing grief. That the body is missing and thus people are prevented from bestowing final acts of love would be regarded as intolerably tragic; even Gentile tomb robbers usually left the body behind.
20:12-13. Among the many associations of white, angels were normally thought to be arrayed in white; see further comment on 19:40; black garments were used for mourning.
20:14. In Jewish tradition, angels could appear in different forms (e.g., Tobit 5:4; 12:19). Jewish traditions in *Pseudo-Philo also speak of God changing the appearance of some *Old Testament human characters so they would not be recognized, and this evidence might reflect more widespread Jewish tradition.
20:15. Gardeners were at the bottom of the social scale, and a gardener there would have tended to the gardening (cf. 19:41), rather than to the tomb itself. But Mary has no better guess concerning his identity. (That he could be a tomb robber does not occur to Mary; tomb robbers were unlikely to come during the mourning period, when visits to the tomb were still frequent, and such robbers would be extremely rare in Jewish Palestine.)
20:16. “Rabboni” means “my teacher” and is more personal and less formal than the title “Rabbi.”
20:17. It may be relevant (depending on one’s interpretation of 20:17) that ancient texts sometimes included predictions of events fulfilled only after the close of the *narrative. On ascensions, see comment on Acts 1:9-11. The verb translated “Touch me not” (KJV) is a present imperative and might be better translated “Stop clinging to me” (NASB). The reason she must release him is that she must go testify for him in the short time remaining in view of his coming ascension—despite the cultural opposition to sending a woman to testify to such an important event and one so impossible for unbelievers to accept. “Brothers” suggests that 3:3 is now in effect. People applied sibling language figuratively to members of one’s people, fellow disciples, friends, and others.
20:18. Ancient Mediterranean culture esteemed the testimony of women far less than that of men (and in some circles did not normally accept it). Jesus’ sending Mary with the message transcended usual cultural expectations.
20:19. Even aside from the Feast of Unleavened Bread still going on, the heaviest period of mourning normally lasted seven days, so none of them would have left Jerusalem for Galilee yet anyway. The *disciples would remain inside to mourn. Residences often were equipped with bolts and locks. Bolted doors would prevent anyone from entering (a heavy bolt could be slid through rings attached to the door and its frame), unless one could walk through closed doors. Jesus’ appearance in the locked room suggests a *resurrection body whose nature is superior to that often envisioned in other ancient Jewish literature. “Peace be with you” (i.e., may God cause it to be well with you) was the standard Jewish greeting, but it was meant to communicate peace (like a thoughtful “God bless you” today).
20:20. Wounds were sometimes used as evidence in court or to show how much one had sacrificed for the cause. Here their function is to identify that it is the same Jesus who died; scars could be employed to identify someone. In much of Jewish tradition, the dead would be resurrected in the same form in which they died before God healed them, so that everyone would recognize that the person who stood before them was the same one who had died (cf. *2 Baruch 50:2-4; *rabbis). “Hands” includes one’s wrists, which was presumably where the spikes would have been driven; a nail through the palm would not have secured the person in place on the cross, since the victim’s weight would have ripped the hand open (though they were also tied).
20:21. In Jewish tradition prophets often appointed their successors. Judaism sometimes conceived of prophets as God’s agents; the sender authorized agents with his authority to the extent that they accurately represented him (see “*apostle” in the glossary).
20:22. Jesus’ breathing on them recalls Genesis 2:7, when God breathed into Adam the breath of life (it might also be relevant that later Jewish tradition sometimes connected this passage with Ezek 37, when God’s Spirit or wind revives the dead). Jewish literature especially connected the *Holy Spirit with the power to prophesy, or speak for God. In the *Old Testament and early Judaism, God himself is the sole giver of the Spirit.
20:23. Acting as God’s agents (20:21) the disciples could pronounce the divine prerogative on his authority (i.e., pronouncing it when he would do so).
20:24-25. In different languages, both “Thomas” and “Didymus” mean “twin,” possibly a nickname. Only the evidence of his senses would persuade Thomas that the other *disciples had not seen merely a phantom or apparition; a ghost or spiritual vision as in pagan tradition, or an image produced by a magician, would not be corporeal. The *resurrection body, by contrast, was clearly corporeal, although the exact nature of such corporeality may have been debated among early Christians. Thomas does not doubt that his friends think they saw something; he doubts only the nature of their experience.
20:26. See comment on 20:19. Now that a week had passed, the feast would be over and the disciples would thus soon be ready to return to Galilee unless they received orders to the contrary.
20:27. Soldiers could bind victims to crosses with rope, but also could nail them to crosses through their wrists.
20:28. Thomas’s response, the climactic confession of Jesus’ identity in this Gospel, is a confession of Jesus’ deity; cf. Revelation 4:11. Pliny, a governor writing near the probable location of John’s readers two or three decades after John, reports that Christians sing hymns to *Christ “as to a god.” By contrast, the Roman historian *Suetonius reports that the emperor Domitian (probably reigning when John was writing) wanted to be honored as “Lord God” (Life of Domitian 13). Most importantly, “Lord” and “God” appear together repeatedly in the *Septuagint as divine titles, including in forms similar to “my Lord and my God” (Ps 35:23 [34:23 LXX]; Hos 2:23 [2:25 LXX]).
20:29-31. Jesus’ blessing (v. 29) applies to the readers of John who believe through the apostolic testimony (v. 31), and Thomas’s confession (v. 28) helps define the content of saving faith in verse 31. Verse 30 is the culmination of John’s signs motif: signs sometimes lead to faith and sometimes lead to opposition. Narrators sometimes noted that they had many more stories than they could recount (v. 30).
Some modern scholars have thought that John 21 was not part of the original Gospel of John because it seems anticlimactic. But the conclusion (book 24) of the most popularly read work of Greco-Roman antiquity, the Iliad, is also anticlimactic; ancient readers and writers would not have viewed epilogues as “later additions” or the like because of their anticlimactic character.
21:1-3. Even around the lake of Galilee, agriculture constituted the primary occupation; fishing was nevertheless a major industry there, and fishing there often provided an ample income. Fishing was often done at night (cf. Lk 5:5). Some people have reported that fish are more easily caught at night than in the day on the Sea of Galilee (here called Tiberias); they could then be sold in the morning. Nets were probably made of rope woven from substances like flax or hemp. At night fish tended to be in the deep water, so were more easily caught with a dragnet, a net with a narrow end pulled by the men in the boat and a wider end sunk by attached weights. Fishermen working at night could use torches to illumine their work. We do not know for certain what tools the *disciples had used—only that they had not caught anything.
21:5-6. Jewish tradition recognized God as sovereign over fish (e.g., Tobit 6:2-5), which no doubt encouraged many fishermen’s prayers. Some suggest that the steering oar was normally on the right side of the boat, so that casting was normally done from the left. In any case, Jesus’ command is unusual, given their failure to catch fish all night.
21:7. Peter should not need help recognizing Jesus, but cf. 20:4-5. For comparisons of Peter and the beloved disciple, see comment on 20:4-5. Many hearers in antiquity respected youthful or athletic prowess, and many also viewed fishermen as tough; they might also view Peter swimming to Jesus as an athletic expression of his devotion to him. “Naked” was used as a relative term (it could mean “without an outer garment”). Greeks stripped for strenuous work, but religious Palestinian Jews avoided nakedness in public. Peter has an inner garment or at least a loincloth on; but even in the cool of dawn he may have worked up enough of a sweat to have kept his outer garment off. (The Sea of Galilee is lower in elevation than Jerusalem.) The term that John uses for Peter girding on his outer garment suggests that he wrapped it around his waist.
21:8. Deep fishing with a dragnet was often better for the night, but a single boat’s net was usually more useful for fishing in shallower waters during day. Peter swam; a hundred yards is too far out for Peter to have waded.
21:9-10. Although Jesus provides as he did in chapter 6, this time he gives them a chance to share as the lad had in 6:9. The very small class of leisured, wealthy landowners in the Roman Empire despised manual labor, but most manual laborers seem to have taken pride in their work (they mention their occupations on their tombstones); Jesus affirms their fishing, even though that too had been his provision (21:5-6).
21:11. On Peter’s lavish display of physical prowess devoted to Jesus, see comment on 21:7. Jerome claimed that ancient zoologists counted 153 kinds of fish, but extant copies of their writings do not support his hypothesis, which may have stemmed from an attempt to explain this verse; various counts of their number circulated. Various symbolic interpretations of “153” have been offered (from Hebrew words that total 153 when their numerical value is reckoned, to it being a triangular number that would have impressed ancient *Pythagorean philosophers). But ancient miracle stories would stress numbers to heighten the reality of the miracle (e.g., 2 Kings 19:35); 153 is no doubt used because the disciples were impressed enough to have counted the fish. (What fishermen would not have counted such a catch?) The risen Lord has provided them more fish than they could possibly eat by themselves.
21:12-14. The host or the head of the household would usually pass out the bread; cf. 6:11. The term for the meal here in this period could also apply to a light midday meal, though it had earlier applied to a light morning meal (cf. 21:4).
21:15-17. Most scholars view the two Greek words for “love” here as being used interchangeably, as they are elsewhere in John and generally in the literature of this period; use of synonyms for *rhetorical variation was common in antiquity. The point is not (against some popular interpreters) in the different terms, but that love for Jesus must be demonstrated by obedience to his call and service to his people. As a “follower,” Peter is one of the sheep himself (10:4; on “sheep,” see comment on Jn 10:1-18; for the background on faithful shepherds to feed them, see Jer 23:4; cf. Ezek 34).
21:18-19. Predictions in antiquity were often enigmatic; this one indicates that Peter will not have control even over dressing himself (cf. 21:7) for a journey—in this case, being prepared for execution. Some others employed dependence as an image of powerlessness. Stretching out hands could apply to supplication, but in this context may fit instead voluntary submission to binding, which preceded execution. Some early Christian texts, perhaps developing the idea here, apply “stretching out hands” to crucifixion. For “glorifying” God like Jesus in martyrdom, see 12:23-27; strong tradition declares that Peter was crucified in Rome under Nero about A.D. 64.
21:20-23. Jesus told Peter that the beloved disciple’s call was not a matter for Peter to know about, but this tradition was misinterpreted to mean that the beloved disciple would live till Jesus’ return. The point is that Jesus has the right to choose who will be martyred and who will survive. According to strong (though not unanimous) tradition, John was one of the few original *apostles to escape martyrdom.
21:24. Greco-Roman and Jewish legal documents typically ended with attestation by witnesses. “We know that his witness is true” may be a postscript added by John’s own *disciples, attesting to the veracity of his eyewitness, although it is not beyond John to write such words himself (19:35; cf. the plural witness in 1 John, e.g., 1:1-4).
21:25. When writers had more data before them than they could record, they often noted that they were being selective. Thus, for example, the exploits of Judas Maccabeus were too many to narrate all of them (so 1 Maccabees 9:22), or no human could recount all the sufferings of the Achaians (Homer, Odyssey 3.113-17). Greek, Jewish and *Samaritan writers often included *hyperboles like this one as well, sometimes speaking of how the world could not contain the knowledge a particular *rabbi had of the *law, and so forth.