John 3:4

3:4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time, can he?” ¹ 

John 3:9

3:9 Nicodemus replied, ²  “How can these things be?” ³ 

John 4:11

4:11 “Sir,” ⁴  the woman ⁵  said to him, “you have no bucket and the well ⁶  is deep; where then do you get this ⁷  living water? ⁸ 

Acts 17:32

17:32 Now when they heard about ⁹  the resurrection from the dead, some began to scoff, ¹⁰  but others said, “We will hear you again about this.”

Acts 17:1

Paul and Silas at Thessalonica

17:1 After they traveled through ¹¹  Amphipolis ¹²  and Apollonia, ¹³  they came to Thessalonica, ¹⁴  where there was a Jewish synagogue. ¹⁵ 

Colossians 2:14

2:14 He has destroyed ¹⁶  what was against us, a certificate of indebtedness ¹⁷  expressed in decrees opposed to us. He has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

¹ tn The grammatical structure of the question in Greek presupposes a negative reply.

² tn Grk “Nicodemus answered and said to him.”

³ sn “How can these things be?” is Nicodemus’ answer. It is clear that at this time he has still not grasped what Jesus is saying. Note also that this is the last appearance of Nicodemus in the dialogue. Having served the purpose of the author, at this point he disappears from the scene. As a character in the narrative, he has served to illustrate the prevailing Jewish misunderstanding of Jesus’ teaching about the necessity of a new, spiritual birth from above. Whatever parting words Nicodemus might have had with Jesus, the author does not record them.

⁴ tn Or “Lord.” The Greek term κύριος (kurios) means both “Sir” and “Lord.” In this passage there is probably a gradual transition from one to the other as the woman’s respect for Jesus grows throughout the conversation (4:11, 15, 19).

⁵ tc ‡ Two early and important Greek mss along with two versional witnesses (Ì⁷⁵ B sy^s ac²) lack ἡ γυνή (Jh gunh, “the woman”) here; א* has ἐκείνη (ekeinh, “that one” or possibly “she”) instead of ἡ γυνή. It is possible that no explicit subject was in the original text and scribes added either ἡ γυνή or ἐκείνη to make the meaning clear. It is also possible that the archetype of Ì⁷⁵ א B expunged the subject because it was not altogether necessary, with the scribe of א later adding the pronoun. However, ἡ γυνή is not in doubt in any other introduction to the woman’s words in this chapter (cf. vv. 9, 15, 17, 19, 25), suggesting that intentional deletion was not the motive for the shorter reading in v. 11 (or else why would they delete the words only here?). Thus, the fact that virtually all witnesses (Ì⁶⁶ א² A C D L W^s Θ Ψ 050 083 086 Ë^1,13 Ï latt sy^c,p,h sa bo) have ἡ γυνή here may suggest that it is a motivated reading, conforming this verse to the rest of the pericope. Although a decision is difficult, it is probably best to regard the shorter reading as authentic. NA²⁷ has ἡ γυνή in brackets, indicating doubts as to their authenticity. For English stylistic reasons, the translation also includes “the woman” here.

⁶ tn The word for “well” has now shifted to φρέαρ (frear, “cistern”); earlier in the passage it was πηγή (phgh).

⁷ tn The anaphoric article has been translated “this.”

⁸ sn Where then do you get this living water? The woman’s reply is an example of the “misunderstood statement,” a technique appearing frequently in John’s Gospel. Jesus was speaking of living water which was spiritual (ultimately a Johannine figure for the Holy Spirit, see John 7:38-39), but the woman thought he was speaking of flowing (fresh drinkable) water. Her misunderstanding gave Jesus the opportunity to explain what he really meant.

⁹ tn The participle ἀκούσαντες (akousante") has been taken temporally.

¹⁰ tn L&N 33.408 has “some scoffed (at him) Ac 17:32” for ἐχλεύαζον (ecleuazon) here; the imperfect verb has been translated as an ingressive imperfect (“began to scoff”).

¹¹ tn BDAG 250 s.v. διοδεύω 1 has “go, travel through” for this verse.

¹² sn Amphipolis. The capital city of the southeastern district of Macedonia (BDAG 55 s.v. ᾿Αμφίπολις). It was a military post. From Philippi this was about 33 mi (53 km).

¹³ sn Apollonia was a city in Macedonia about 27 mi (43 km) west southwest of Amphipolis.

¹⁴ sn Thessalonica (modern Salonica) was a city in Macedonia about 33 mi (53 km) west of Apollonia. It was the capital of Macedonia. The road they traveled over was called the Via Egnatia. It is likely they rode horses, given their condition in Philippi. The implication of v. 1 is that the two previously mentioned cities lacked a synagogue.

¹⁵ sn See the note on synagogue in 6:9.

¹⁶ tn The participle ἐξαλείψας (exaleiyas) is a temporal adverbial participle of contemporaneous time related to the previous verb συνεζωοποίησεν (sunezwopoihsen), but has been translated as a finite verb because of the complexity of the Greek sentence and the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences. For the meaning “destroy” see BDAG 344-45 s.v. ἐξαλείφω 2.

¹⁷ tn On the translation of χειρόγραφον (ceirografon), see BDAG 1083 s.v. which refers to it as “a certificate of indebtedness.”