John 10:31-39

10:31 The Jewish leaders ¹  picked up rocks again to stone him to death. 10:32 Jesus said to them, ²  “I have shown you many good deeds ³  from the Father. For which one of them are you going to stone me?” 10:33 The Jewish leaders ⁴  replied, ⁵  “We are not going to stone you for a good deed ⁶  but for blasphemy, ⁷  because ⁸  you, a man, are claiming to be God.” ⁹ 

10:34 Jesus answered, ¹⁰  “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? ¹¹  10:35 If those people to whom the word of God came were called ‘gods’ (and the scripture cannot be broken), ¹²  10:36 do you say about the one whom the Father set apart ¹³  and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 10:37 If I do not perform ¹⁴  the deeds ¹⁵  of my Father, do not believe me. 10:38 But if I do them, even if you do not believe me, believe the deeds, ¹⁶  so that you may come to know ¹⁷  and understand that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” 10:39 Then ¹⁸  they attempted ¹⁹  again to seize him, but he escaped their clutches. ²⁰ 

[10:31]  ¹ tn Or “the Jewish authorities”; Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the Jewish leaders. See the notes on the phrases “Jewish people” in v. 19 and “Jewish leaders” in v. 24.

[10:32]  ² tn Grk “Jesus answered them.”

[10:32]  ³ tn Or “good works.”

[10:33]  ⁴ tn Or “the Jewish authorities”; Grk “the Jews.” Here again the phrase refers to the Jewish leaders. See the notes on the phrase “Jewish people” in v. 19 and “Jewish leaders” in vv. 24, 31.

[10:33]  ⁵ tn Grk “answered him.”

[10:33]  ⁶ tn Or “good work.”

[10:33]  ⁷ sn This is the first time the official charge of blasphemy is voiced openly in the Fourth Gospel (although it was implicit in John 8:59).

[10:33]  ⁸ tn Grk “and because.”

[10:33]  ⁹ tn Grk “you, a man, make yourself to be God.”

[10:34]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “answered them.”

[10:34]  ¹¹ sn A quotation from Ps 82:6. Technically the Psalms are not part of the OT “law” (which usually referred to the five books of Moses), but occasionally the term “law” was applied to the entire OT, as here. The problem in this verse concerns the meaning of Jesus’ quotation from Ps 82:6. It is important to look at the OT context: The whole line reads “I say, you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.” Jesus will pick up on the term “sons of the Most High” in 10:36, where he refers to himself as the Son of God. The psalm was understood in rabbinic circles as an attack on unjust judges who, though they have been given the title “gods” because of their quasi-divine function of exercising judgment, are just as mortal as other men. What is the argument here? It is often thought to be as follows: If it was an OT practice to refer to men like the judges as gods, and not blasphemy, why did the Jewish authorities object when this term was applied to Jesus? This really doesn’t seem to fit the context, however, since if that were the case Jesus would not be making any claim for “divinity” for himself over and above any other human being – and therefore he would not be subject to the charge of blasphemy. Rather, this is evidently a case of arguing from the lesser to the greater, a common form of rabbinic argument. The reason the OT judges could be called gods is because they were vehicles of the word of God (cf. 10:35). But granting that premise, Jesus deserves much more than they to be called God. He is the Word incarnate, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world to save the world (10:36). In light of the prologue to the Gospel of John, it seems this interpretation would have been most natural for the author. If it is permissible to call men “gods” because they were the vehicles of the word of God, how much more permissible is it to use the word “God” of him who is the Word of God?

[10:35]  ¹² 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.

[10:36]  ¹³ tn Or “dedicated.”

[10:37]  ¹⁴ tn Or “do.”

[10:37]  ¹⁵ tn Or “works.”

[10:38]  ¹⁶ tn Or “works.”

[10:38]  ¹⁷ tn Or “so that you may learn.”

[10:39]  ¹⁸ tc It is difficult to decide between ἐζήτουν οὖν (ezhtoun oun, “then they were seeking”; Ì⁶⁶ א A L W Ψ Ë^1,13 33 pm lat), ἐζήτουν δέ (ezhtoun de, “now they were seeking”; Ì⁴⁵ and a few versional witnesses), καὶ ἐζήτουν (kai ezhtoun, “and they were seeking”; D), and ἐζήτουν (Ì^75vid B Γ Θ 700 pm). Externally, the most viable readings are ἐζήτουν οὖν and ἐζήτουν. Transcriptionally, the οὖν could have dropped out via haplography since the verb ends in the same three letters. On the other hand, it is difficult to explain the readings with δέ or καί if ἐζήτουν οὖν is original; such readings would more likely have arisen from the simple ἐζήτουν. Intrinsically, John is fond of οὖν, using it some 200 times. Further, this Gospel begins relatively few sentences without some conjunction. The minimal support for the δέ and καί readings suggests that they arose either from the lone verb reading (which would thus be prior to their respective Vorlagen but not necessarily the earliest reading) or through carelessness on the part of the scribes. Indeed, the ancestors of Ì⁴⁵ and D may have committed haplography, leaving later scribes in the chain to guess at the conjunction needed. In sum, the best reading appears to be ἐζήτουν οὖν.

[10:39]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “they were seeking.”

[10:39]  ²⁰ tn Grk “he departed out of their hand.”