Genesis 3:22

3:22 And the Lord God said, “Now ¹  that the man has become like one of us, ²  knowing ³  good and evil, he must not be allowed ⁴  to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

Genesis 11:7

11:7 Come, let’s go down and confuse ⁵  their language so they won’t be able to understand each other.” ⁶ 

Job 35:10

35:10 But no one says, ‘Where is God, my Creator,

who gives songs in the night, ⁷ 

Psalms 100:3

100:3 Acknowledge that the Lord is God!

He made us and we belong to him; ⁸ 

we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Psalms 149:2

149:2 Let Israel rejoice in their Creator!

Let the people ⁹  of Zion delight in their king! ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 64:8

64:8 Yet, ¹¹  Lord, you are our father.

We are the clay, and you are our potter;

we are all the product of your labor. ¹² 

John 5:17

5:17 So he ¹³  told ¹⁴  them, “My Father is working until now, and I too am working.” ¹⁵ 

John 14:23

14:23 Jesus replied, ¹⁶  “If anyone loves me, he will obey ¹⁷  my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and take up residence with him. ¹⁸ 

John 14:1

Jesus’ Parting Words to His Disciples

14:1 “Do not let your hearts be distressed. ¹⁹  You believe in God; ²⁰  believe also in me.

John 5:7

5:7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, ²¹  I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. While I am trying to get into the water, ²²  someone else ²³  goes down there ²⁴  before me.”

[3:22]  ¹ tn The particle הֵן (hen) introduces a foundational clause, usually beginning with “since, because, now.”

[3:22]  ² sn The man has become like one of us. See the notes on Gen 1:26 and 3:5.

[3:22]  ³ tn The infinitive explains in what way the man had become like God: “knowing good and evil.”

[3:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “and now, lest he stretch forth.” Following the foundational clause, this clause forms the main point. It is introduced with the particle פֶּן (pen) which normally introduces a negative purpose, “lest….” The construction is elliptical; something must be done lest the man stretch forth his hand. The translation interprets the point intended.

[11:7]  ⁵ tn The cohortatives mirror the cohortatives of the people. They build to ascend the heavens; God comes down to destroy their language. God speaks here to his angelic assembly. See the notes on the word “make” in 1:26 and “know” in 3:5, as well as Jub. 10:22-23, where an angel recounts this incident and says “And the Lord our God said to us…. And the Lord went down and we went down with him. And we saw the city and the tower which the sons of men built.” On the chiastic structure of the story, see G. J. Wenham, Genesis (WBC), 1:235.

[11:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “they will not hear, a man the lip of his neighbor.”

[35:10]  ⁷ tn There have been several attempts to emend the line, none of which are particularly helpful or interesting. H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 225) says, “It is a pity to rob Elihu of a poetic line when he creates one.”

[100:3]  ⁸ tn The present translation (like most modern translations) follows the Qere (marginal reading), which reads literally, “and to him [are] we.” The Kethib (consonantal text) has “and not we.” The suffixed preposition לו (“to him”) was confused aurally with the negative particle לא because the two sound identical.

[149:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “sons.”

[149:2]  ¹⁰ sn The Lord is the king here, as the parallelism in the previous line (“their creator”) indicates.

[64:8]  ¹¹ tn On the force of וְעַתָּה (vÿ’attah) here, see HALOT 902 s.v. עַתָּה.

[64:8]  ¹² tn Heb “the work of your hand.”

[5:17]  ¹³ tc ‡ Most witnesses (Ì⁶⁶ A D L Θ Ψ Ë^1,13 33 Ï latt co) have ᾿Ιησοῦς (Ihsou", “Jesus”) here, while generally better witnesses (Ì⁷⁵ א B W {0141} 892 1241 pbo) lack the name. Although it is possible that Alexandrian scribes deleted the name due to proclivities to prune, this is not as likely as other witnesses adding it for clarification, especially since multiple strands of the Alexandrian text are represented in the shorter reading. NA²⁷ places the word in brackets, indicating some doubts as to authenticity.

[5:17]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “answered.”

[5:17]  ¹⁵ sn “My Father is working until now, and I too am working.” What is the significance of Jesus’ claim? A preliminary understanding can be obtained from John 5:18, noting the Jewish authorities’ response and the author’s comment. They sought to kill Jesus, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling God his own Father, thus making himself equal with God. This must be seen in the context of the relation of God to the Sabbath rest. In the commandment (Exod 20:11) it is explained that “In six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth…and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Philo, based on the LXX translation of Exod 20:11, denied outright that God had ever ceased his creative activity. And when Rabban Gamaliel II, R. Joshua, R. Eleazar ben Azariah, and R. Akiba were in Rome, ca. a.d. 95, they gave as a rebuttal to sectarian arguments evidence that God might do as he willed in the world without breaking the Sabbath because the entire world was his private residence. So even the rabbis realized that God did not really cease to work on the Sabbath: Divine providence remained active on the Sabbath, otherwise, all nature and life would cease to exist. As regards men, divine activity was visible in two ways: Men were born and men died on the Sabbath. Since only God could give life and only God could deal with the fate of the dead in judgment, this meant God was active on the Sabbath. This seems to be the background for Jesus’ words in 5:17. He justified his work of healing on the Sabbath by reminding the Jewish authorities that they admitted God worked on the Sabbath. This explains the violence of the reaction. The Sabbath privilege was peculiar to God, and no one was equal to God. In claiming the right to work even as his Father worked, Jesus was claiming a divine prerogative. He was literally making himself equal to God, as 5:18 goes on to state explicitly for the benefit of the reader who might not have made the connection.

[14:23]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “answered and said to him.”

[14:23]  ¹⁷ tn Or “will keep.”

[14:23]  ¹⁸ 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.

[14:1]  ¹⁹ 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.

[14:1]  ²⁰ 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.”

[5:7]  ²¹ tn Or “Lord.” The Greek κύριος (kurios) means both “Sir” and “Lord.” In this passage the paralytic who was healed by Jesus never acknowledges Jesus as Lord – he rather reports Jesus to the authorities.

[5:7]  ²² tn Grk “while I am going.”

[5:7]  ²³ tn Grk “another.”

[5:7]  ²⁴ tn The word “there” is not in the Greek text but is implied.