11:5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people 1 had started 2 building.
19:20 The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, on the top of the mountain, and the Lord summoned Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.
6:41 Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus 4 began complaining about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,”
1 tn Heb “the sons of man.” The phrase is intended in this polemic to portray the builders as mere mortals, not the lesser deities that the Babylonians claimed built the city.
2 tn The Hebrew text simply has בָּנוּ (banu), but since v. 8 says they left off building the city, an ingressive idea (“had started building”) should be understood here.
3 tn Or “he who.”
4 tn Grk “Then the Jews.” In NT usage the term ᾿Ιουδαῖοι (Ioudaioi) may refer to the entire Jewish people, the residents of Jerusalem and surrounding territory, the authorities in Jerusalem, or merely those who were hostile to Jesus. (For further information see R. G. Bratcher, “‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John,” BT 26 [1975]: 401-9.) Here the translation restricts the phrase to those Jews who were hostile to Jesus (cf. BDAG 479 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαῖος 2.e.β), since the “crowd” mentioned in 6:22-24 was almost all Jewish (as suggested by their addressing Jesus as “Rabbi” (6:25). Likewise, the designation “Judeans” does not fit here because the location is Galilee rather than Judea.
5 tn Grk “And the bread.”
6 tn Or “This one.”
7 tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”
8 tn Grk “This is the bread that came down from heaven, not just like your ancestors ate and died.” The cryptic Greek expression has been filled out in the translation for clarity.
9 tn Or “who chews.” On the alternation between ἐσθίω (esqiw, “eat,” v. 53) and τρώγω (trwgw, “eats,” vv. 54, 56, 58; “consumes,” v. 57) see the note on “eats” in v. 54.
10 tn Grk “Jesus answered and said to them.”
11 tn The word “people” is supplied in the translation to indicate that the pronoun (“you”) and verb (“do not know”) in Greek are plural.
12 sn You people do not know where I came from or where I am going. The ignorance of the religious authorities regarding Jesus’ origin works on two levels at once: First, they thought Jesus came from Galilee (although he really came from Bethlehem in Judea) and second, they did not know that he came from heaven (from the Father), and this is where he would return. See further John 7:52.
13 tc A number of early
14 tn Or “into the world; again.” Here πάλιν (palin) functions as a marker of contrast, with the implication of a sequence.
15 sn The statement I am leaving the world and going to the Father is a summary of the entire Gospel of John. It summarizes the earthly career of the Word made flesh, Jesus of Nazareth, on his mission from the Father to be the Savior of the world, beginning with his entry into the world as he came forth from God and concluding with his departure from the world as he returned to the Father.