John 1:27

1:27 who is coming after me. I am not worthy ¹  to untie the strap ²  of his sandal!”

John 2:19

2:19 Jesus replied, ³  “Destroy ⁴  this temple and in three days I will raise it up again.”

John 7:23

7:23 But if a male child ⁵  is circumcised ⁶  on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses is not broken, ⁷  why are you angry with me because I made a man completely well ⁸  on the Sabbath?

John 10:35

10:35 If those people to whom the word of God came were called ‘gods’ (and the scripture cannot be broken), ⁹ 

John 5:18

5:18 For this reason the Jewish leaders ¹⁰  were trying even harder to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling God his own Father, thus making himself equal with God.

John 11:44

11:44 The one who had died came out, his feet and hands tied up with strips of cloth, ¹¹  and a cloth wrapped around his face. ¹²  Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him ¹³  and let him go.”

[1:27]  ¹ tn Grk “of whom I am not worthy.”

[1:27]  ² tn The term refers to the leather strap or thong used to bind a sandal. This is often viewed as a collective singular and translated as a plural, “the straps of his sandals,” but it may be more emphatic to retain the singular here.

[2:19]  ³ tn Grk “answered and said to them.”

[2:19]  ⁴ tn The imperative here is really more than a simple conditional imperative (= “if you destroy”); its semantic force here is more like the ironical imperative found in the prophets (Amos 4:4, Isa 8:9) = “Go ahead and do this and see what happens.”

[7:23]  ⁵ tn Grk “a man.” See the note on “male child” in the previous verse.

[7:23]  ⁶ tn Grk “receives circumcision.”

[7:23]  ⁷ sn If a male child is circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses is not broken. The Rabbis counted 248 parts to a man’s body. In the Talmud (b. Yoma 85b) R. Eleazar ben Azariah (ca. a.d. 100) states: “If circumcision, which attaches to one only of the 248 members of the human body, suspends the Sabbath, how much more shall the saving of the whole body suspend the Sabbath?” So absolutely binding did rabbinic Judaism regard the command of Lev 12:3 to circumcise on the eighth day, that in the Mishnah m. Shabbat 18.3; 19.1, 2; and m. Nedarim 3.11 all hold that the command to circumcise overrides the command to observe the Sabbath.

[7:23]  ⁸ tn Or “made an entire man well.”

[10:35]  ⁷ sn The parenthetical note And the scripture cannot be broken belongs to Jesus’ words rather than the author’s. Not only does Jesus appeal to the OT to defend himself against the charge of blasphemy, but he also adds that the scripture cannot be “broken.” In this context he does not explain precisely what is meant by “broken,” but it is not too hard to determine. Jesus’ argument depended on the exact word used in the context of Ps 82:6. If any other word for “judge” had been used in the psalm, his argument would have been meaningless. Since the scriptures do use this word in Ps 82:6, the argument is binding, because they cannot be “broken” in the sense of being shown to be in error.

[5:18]  ⁹ tn Or “the Jewish authorities”; Grk “the Jews.” See the note on the phrase “Jewish leaders” in v. 10.

[11:44]  ¹¹ sn Many have wondered how Lazarus got out of the tomb if his hands and feet were still tied up with strips of cloth. The author does not tell, and with a miracle of this magnitude, this is not an important fact to know. If Lazarus’ decomposing body was brought back to life by the power of God, then it could certainly have been moved out of the tomb by that same power. Others have suggested that the legs were bound separately, which would remove the difficulty, but the account gives no indication of this. What may be of more significance for the author is the comparison which this picture naturally evokes with the resurrection of Jesus, where the graveclothes stayed in the tomb neatly folded (20:6-7). Jesus, unlike Lazarus, would never need graveclothes again.

[11:44]  ¹² tn Grk “and his face tied around with cloth.”

[11:44]  ¹³ tn Grk “Loose him.”