17:34 David replied to Saul, “Your servant has been a shepherd for his father’s flock. Whenever a lion or bear would come and carry off a sheep from the flock, 17:35 I would go out after it, strike it down, and rescue the sheep from its mouth. If it rose up against me, I would grab it by its jaw, strike it, and kill it.
10:11 “I am the good 10 shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life 11 for the sheep. 10:12 The hired hand, 12 who is not a shepherd and does not own sheep, sees the wolf coming and abandons 13 the sheep and runs away. 14 So the wolf attacks 15 the sheep and scatters them.
1 tn Grk “What man.” The Greek word ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") is used here in a somewhat generic sense.
2 sn This individual with a hundred sheep is a shepherd of modest means, as flocks often had up to two hundred head of sheep.
3 tn Or “desert,” but here such a translation might suggest neglect of the 99 sheep left behind.
4 tn Grk “go after,” but in contemporary English the idiom “to look for” is used to express this.
5 sn Until he finds it. The parable pictures God’s pursuit of the sinner. On the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, see John 10:1-18.
6 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.
7 tn Grk “And coming into his…” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
8 sn A touch of drama may be present, as the term calls together can mean a formal celebration (1 Kgs 1:9-10).
9 tn Grk “the”; in context the article is used as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215). It occurs before “neighbors” as well (“his friends and his neighbors”) but has not been translated the second time because of English style.
10 tn Or “model” (see R. E. Brown, John [AB], 1:386, who argues that “model” is a more exact translation of καλός [kalos] here).
11 tn Or “The good shepherd dies willingly.”
12 sn Jesus contrasts the behavior of the shepherd with that of the hired hand. This is a worker who is simply paid to do a job; he has no other interest in the sheep and is certainly not about to risk his life for them. When they are threatened, he simply runs away.
13 tn Grk “leaves.”
14 tn Or “flees.”
15 tn Or “seizes.” The more traditional rendering, “snatches,” has the idea of seizing something by force and carrying it off, which is certainly possible here. However, in the sequence in John 10:12, this action precedes the scattering of the flock of sheep, so “attacks” is preferable.