1:47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and exclaimed, 14 “Look, a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” 15 1:48 Nathanael asked him, “How do you know me?” Jesus replied, 16 “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, 17 I saw you.” 1:49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king 18 of Israel!” 19
1 tn Grk “to shout and to say.” The infinitive λέγειν (legein) is redundant here and has not been translated.
2 sn Jesus was more than a Nazarene to this blind person, who saw quite well that Jesus was Son of David. There was a tradition in Judaism that the Son of David (Solomon) had great powers of healing (Josephus, Ant. 8.2.5 [8.42-49]).
3 sn Have mercy on me is a request for healing. It is not owed the man. He simply asks for God’s kind grace.
4 sn Nazareth was a very small village in the region of Galilee (Galilee lay north of Samaria and Judea). The town was located about 15 mi (25 km) west of the southern edge of the Sea of Galilee. According to Luke 1:26, Mary was living in Nazareth when the birth of Jesus was announced to her.
5 tn There is no expressed subject of the third person singular verb here; the pronoun “he” is implied. Instead of this pronoun the referent “Jesus” has been supplied in the text to clarify to whom this statement refers.
6 tn The Greek could be indirect discourse (as in the text), or direct discourse (“he will be called a Nazarene”). Judging by the difficulty of finding OT quotations (as implied in the plural “prophets”) to match the wording here, it appears that the author was using a current expression of scorn that conceptually (but not verbally) found its roots in the OT.
7 map For location see Map1-D3; Map2-C2; Map3-D5; Map4-C1; Map5-G3.
8 sn Nathanael is traditionally identified with Bartholomew (although John never describes him as such). He appears here after Philip, while in all lists of the twelve except in Acts 1:13, Bartholomew follows Philip. Also, the Aramaic Bar-tolmai means “son of Tolmai,” the surname; the man almost certainly had another name.
9 tn “Also” is not in the Greek text, but is implied.
10 tn Grk “And Nathanael.”
11 tn Grk “said to him.”
12 sn Can anything good come out of Nazareth? may be a local proverb expressing jealousy among the towns.
13 tn Grk “And Philip said to him.”
14 tn Grk “said about him.”
15 tn Or “treachery.”
16 tn Grk “answered and said to him.” This is somewhat redundant in English and has been simplified in the translation to “replied.”
17 sn Many have speculated about what Nathanael was doing under the fig tree. Meditating on the Messiah who was to come? A good possibility, since the fig tree was used as shade for teaching or studying by the later rabbis (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 5:11). Also, the fig tree was symbolic for messianic peace and plenty (Mic 4:4, Zech 3:10.)
18 tn Although βασιλεύς (basileus) lacks the article it is definite due to contextual and syntactical considerations. See ExSyn 263.
19 sn Nathanael’s confession – You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel – is best understood as a confession of Jesus’ messiahship. It has strong allusions to Ps 2:6-7, a well-known messianic psalm. What Nathanael’s exact understanding was at this point is hard to determine, but “son of God” was a designation for the Davidic king in the OT, and Nathanael parallels it with King of Israel here.
20 tn Or “an inscription.”
21 tn Grk “Pilate also wrote a notice and placed it on the cross.” The two verbs should be read as causatives, since it is highly unlikely that the Roman governor would perform either of these actions himself. He ordered them to be done.
22 tn Grk “Now it was written.”
23 sn The somewhat awkward naming of Jesus as from Nazareth here is actually emphatic. He is the key subject of these key events.
24 tn Or “how.” The use of ὡς (Jws) as an equivalent to ὅτι (Joti) to introduce indirect or even direct discourse is well documented. BDAG 1105 s.v. ὡς 5 lists Acts 10:28 in this category.
25 tn Grk “power, who.” The relative pronoun was replaced by the pronoun “he,” and a new sentence was begun in the translation at this point to improve the English style, due to the length of the sentence in Greek.
26 tn The translation “healing all who were oppressed by the devil” is given in L&N 22.22.
27 sn See Acts 7:9.