John 1:49-51

1:49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king ¹  of Israel!” ²  1:50 Jesus said to him, ³  “Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” ⁴  1:51 He continued, ⁵  “I tell all of you the solemn truth ⁶  – you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” ⁷ 

[1:49]  ¹ tn Although βασιλεύς (basileus) lacks the article it is definite due to contextual and syntactical considerations. See ExSyn 263.

[1:49]  ² 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.

[1:50]  ³ tn Grk “answered and said to him.” This has been simplified in the translation to “said to him.”

[1:50]  ⁴ sn What are the greater things Jesus had in mind? In the narrative this forms an excellent foreshadowing of the miraculous signs which began at Cana of Galilee.

[1:51]  ⁵ tn Grk “and he said to him.”

[1:51]  ⁶ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[1:51]  ⁷ sn The title Son of Man appears 13 times in John’s Gospel. It is associated especially with the themes of crucifixion (3:14; 8:28), revelation (6:27; 6:53), and eschatological authority (5:27; 9:35). The title as used in John’s Gospel has for its background the son of man figure who appears in Dan 7:13-14 and is granted universal regal authority. Thus for the author, the emphasis in this title is not on Jesus’ humanity, but on his heavenly origin and divine authority.