Isaiah 49:7

49:7 This is what the Lord,

the protector ¹  of Israel, their Holy One, ²  says

to the one who is despised ³  and rejected ⁴  by nations, ⁵ 

a servant of rulers:

“Kings will see and rise in respect, ⁶ 

princes will bow down,

because of the faithful Lord,

the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you.”

Isaiah 63:3

63:3 “I have stomped grapes in the winepress all by myself;

no one from the nations joined me.

I stomped on them ⁷  in my anger;

I trampled them down in my rage.

Their juice splashed on my garments,

and stained ⁸  all my clothes.

Zechariah 11:8

11:8 Next I eradicated the three shepherds in one month, ⁹  for I ran out of patience with them and, indeed, they detested me as well.

Matthew 27:21-25

27:21 The ¹⁰  governor asked them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas!” 27:22 Pilate said to them, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Christ?” ¹¹  They all said, “Crucify him!” ¹²  27:23 He asked, “Why? What wrong has he done?” But they shouted more insistently, “Crucify him!”

Jesus is Condemned and Mocked

27:24 When ¹³  Pilate saw that he could do nothing, but that instead a riot was starting, he took some water, washed his hands before the crowd and said, “I am innocent of this man’s blood. You take care of it yourselves!” ¹⁴  27:25 In ¹⁵  reply all the people said, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”

John 15:23-24

15:23 The one who hates me hates my Father too. 15:24 If I had not performed ¹⁶  among them the miraculous deeds ¹⁷  that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. ¹⁸  But now they have seen the deeds ¹⁹  and have hated both me and my Father. ²⁰ 

¹ tn Heb “redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

² sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

³ tc The Hebrew text reads literally “to [one who] despises life.” It is preferable to read with the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a לבזוי, which should be vocalized as a passive participle, לִבְזוּי (livzuy, “to the one despised with respect to life” [נֶפֶשׁ is a genitive of specification]). The consonantal sequence וי was probably misread as ה in the MT tradition. The contextual argument favors the 1QIsa^a reading. As J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 2:294) points out, the three terse phrases “convey a picture of lowliness, worthlessness, and helplessness.”

⁴ tn MT’s Piel participle (“to the one who rejects”) does not fit contextually. The form should be revocalized as a Pual, “to the one rejected.”

⁵ tn Parallelism (see “rulers,” “kings,” “princes”) suggests that the singular גּוֹי (goy) be emended to a plural or understood in a collective sense (see 55:5).

⁶ tn For this sense of קוּם (qum), see Gen 19:1; 23:7; 33:10; Lev 19:32; 1 Sam 20:41; 25:41; 1 Kgs 2:19; Job 29:8.

⁷ sn Nations, headed by Edom, are the object of the Lord’s anger (see v. 6). He compares military slaughter to stomping on grapes in a vat.

⁸ tn Heb “and I stained.” For discussion of the difficult verb form, see HALOT 170 s.v. II גאל. Perhaps the form is mixed, combining the first person forms of the imperfect (note the alef prefix) and perfect (note the תי- ending).

⁹ sn Zechariah is only dramatizing what God had done historically (see the note on the word “cedars” in 11:1). The “one month” probably means just any short period of time in which three kings ruled in succession. Likely candidates are Elah, Zimri, Tibni (1 Kgs 16:8-20); Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem (2 Kgs 15:8-16); or Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, Zedekiah (2 Kgs 24:1–25:7).

¹⁰ tn Grk “answering, the governor said to them.” This construction is somewhat redundant in English and has been simplified in the translation. Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

¹¹ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

¹² tn Grk “Him – be crucified!” The third person imperative is difficult to translate because English has no corresponding third person form for the imperative. The traditional translation “Let him be crucified” sounds as if the crowd is giving consent or permission. “He must be crucified” is closer, but it is more natural in English to convert the passive to active and simply say “Crucify him.”

¹³ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

¹⁴ sn You take care of it yourselves! Compare the response of the chief priests and elders to Judas in 27:4. The expression is identical except that in 27:4 it is singular and here it is plural.

¹⁵ tn Grk “answering, all the people said.” This construction is somewhat redundant in English and has been simplified in the translation.

¹⁶ tn Or “If I had not done.”

¹⁷ tn Grk “the works.”

¹⁸ tn Grk “they would not have sin” (an idiom).

¹⁹ tn The words “the deeds” are supplied to clarify from context what was seen. Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when clear from the context.

²⁰ tn Or “But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.” It is possible to understand both the “seeing” and the “hating” to refer to both Jesus and the Father, but this has the world “seeing” the Father, which seems alien to the Johannine Jesus. (Some point out John 14:9 as an example, but this is addressed to the disciples, not to the world.) It is more likely that the “seeing” refers to the miraculous deeds mentioned in the first half of the verse. Such an understanding of the first “both – and” construction is apparently supported by BDF §444.3.