14:15 “If you love me, you will obey 12 my commandments. 13
14:22 “Lord,” Judas (not Judas Iscariot) 18 said, 19 “what has happened that you are going to reveal 20 yourself to us and not to the world?” 14:23 Jesus replied, 21 “If anyone loves me, he will obey 22 my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and take up residence with him. 23 14:24 The person who does not love me does not obey 24 my words. And the word 25 you hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me.
14:1 “Do not let your hearts be distressed. 26 You believe in God; 27 believe also in me.
1 tn The verb אָהַב (’ahav, “to love”) in this setting communicates not so much an emotional idea as one of covenant commitment. To love the
2 tn Heb “heart.” In OT physiology the heart (לֵב, לֵבָב; levav, lev) was considered the seat of the mind or intellect, so that one could think with one’s heart. See A. Luc, NIDOTTE 2:749-54.
3 tn Heb “soul”; “being.” Contrary to Hellenistic ideas of a soul that is discrete and separate from the body and spirit, OT anthropology equated the “soul” (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh) with the person himself. It is therefore best in most cases to translate נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) as “being” or the like. See H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 10-25; D. Fredericks, NIDOTTE 3:133-34.
4 sn For NT variations on the Shema see Matt 22:37-39; Mark 12:29-30; Luke 10:27.
5 tn Heb “the commandments of the
6 tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute before the finite verb to emphasize the statement. The imperfect verbal form is used here with an obligatory nuance that can be captured in English through the imperative. Cf. NASB, NRSV “diligently keep (obey NLT).”
7 tn Heb “the
8 tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NRSV, NLT); likewise in v. 15.
9 tn Heb “or dreamer of dreams.” See note on this expression in v. 1.
10 tn Heb “the
11 tn Heb “all your heart and soul” (so NRSV, CEV, NLT); or “heart and being” (NCV “your whole being”). See note on the word “being” in Deut 6:5.
12 tn Or “will keep.”
13 sn Jesus’ statement If you love me, you will obey my commandments provides the transition between the promises of answered prayer which Jesus makes to his disciples in vv. 13-14 and the promise of the Holy Spirit which is introduced in v. 16. Obedience is the proof of genuine love.
14 tn Or “keeps.”
15 tn Grk “obeys them, that one is the one who loves me.”
16 tn Grk “And the one.” Here the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated to improve the English style.
17 tn Or “will disclose.”
18 tn Grk “(not Iscariot).” The proper noun (Judas) has been repeated for clarity and smoothness in English style.
19 tn Grk “said to him.”
20 tn Or “disclose.”
21 tn Grk “answered and said to him.”
22 tn Or “will keep.”
23 tn Grk “we will come to him and will make our dwelling place with him.” The context here is individual rather than corporate indwelling, so the masculine singular pronoun has been retained throughout v. 23. It is important to note, however, that the pronoun is used generically here and refers equally to men, women, and children.
24 tn Or “does not keep.”
25 tn Or “the message.”
26 sn The same verb is used to describe Jesus’ own state in John 11:33, 12:27, and 13:21. Jesus is looking ahead to the events of the evening and the next day, his arrest, trials, crucifixion, and death, which will cause his disciples extreme emotional distress.
27 tn Or “Believe in God.” The translation of the two uses of πιστεύετε (pisteuete) is difficult. Both may be either indicative or imperative, and as L. Morris points out (John [NICNT], 637), this results in a bewildering variety of possibilities. To complicate matters further, the first may be understood as a question: “Do you believe in God? Believe also in me.” Morris argues against the KJV translation which renders the first πιστεύετε as indicative and the second as imperative on the grounds that for the writer of the Fourth Gospel, faith in Jesus is inseparable from faith in God. But this is precisely the point that Jesus is addressing in context. He is about to undergo rejection by his own people as their Messiah. The disciples’ faith in him as Messiah and Lord would be cast into extreme doubt by these events, which the author makes clear were not at this time foreseen by the disciples. After the resurrection it is this identification between Jesus and the Father which needs to be reaffirmed (cf. John 20:24-29). Thus it seems best to take the first πιστεύετε as indicative and the second as imperative, producing the translation “You believe in God; believe also in me.”
28 tn Regarding the use of the present tense ἐστιν (estin) and its implications for the dating of the Gospel of John, see the article by D. B. Wallace, “John 5,2 and the Date of the Fourth Gospel,” Bib 71 (1990): 177-205.
29 tn The site of the miracle is also something of a problem: προβατικῇ (probatikh) is usually taken as a reference to the Sheep Gate near the temple. Some (R. E. Brown and others) would place the word κολυμβήθρα (kolumbhqra) with προβατικῇ to read “in Jerusalem, by the Sheep Pool, there is (another pool) with the Hebrew name.” This would imply that there is reference to two pools in the context rather than only one. This does not seem necessary (although it is a grammatical possibility). The gender of the words does not help since both are feminine (as is the participle ἐπιλεγομένη [epilegomenh]). Note however that Brown’s suggestion would require a feminine word to be supplied (for the participle ἐπιλεγομένη to modify). The traditional understanding of the phrase as a reference to the Sheep Gate near the temple appears more probably correct.
30 tc Some
31 tn Grk “in Hebrew.”
32 tn Or “porticoes,” or “colonnades”; Grk “stoas.”