John 3:29

3:29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly ¹  when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. This then is my joy, and it is complete. ² 

John 4:39

The Samaritans Respond

4:39 Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the report of the woman who testified, ³  “He told me everything I ever did.”

John 4:42

4:42 They said to the woman, “No longer do we believe because of your words, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this one ⁴  really is the Savior of the world.” ⁵ 

John 5:18

5:18 For this reason the Jewish leaders ⁶  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 11:4

11:4 When Jesus heard this, he said, “This sickness will not lead to death, ⁷  but to God’s glory, ⁸  so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” ⁹ 

John 12:9

12:9 Now a large crowd of Judeans ¹⁰  learned ¹¹  that Jesus ¹²  was there, and so they came not only because of him ¹³  but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead.

John 12:27

12:27 “Now my soul is greatly distressed. And what should I say? ‘Father, deliver me ¹⁴  from this hour’? ¹⁵  No, but for this very reason I have come to this hour. ¹⁶ 

John 15:19

15:19 If you belonged to the world, ¹⁷  the world would love you as its own. ¹⁸  However, because you do not belong to the world, ¹⁹  but I chose you out of the world, for this reason ²⁰  the world hates you. ²¹ 

John 16:21

16:21 When a woman gives birth, she has distress ²²  because her time ²³  has come, but when her child is born, she no longer remembers the suffering because of her joy that a human being ²⁴  has been born into the world. ²⁵ 

John 19:11

19:11 Jesus replied, “You would have no authority ²⁶  over me at all, unless it was given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you ²⁷  is guilty of greater sin.” ²⁸ 

John 19:23

19:23 Now when the soldiers crucified ²⁹  Jesus, they took his clothes and made four shares, one for each soldier, ³⁰  and the tunic ³¹  remained. (Now the tunic ³²  was seamless, woven from top to bottom as a single piece.) ³³ 

[3:29]  ¹ tn Grk “rejoices with joy” (an idiom).

[3:29]  ² tn Grk “Therefore this my joy is fulfilled.”

[4:39]  ³ tn Grk “when she testified.”

[4:42]  ⁵ tn Or “this.” The Greek pronoun can mean either “this one” or “this” (BDAG 740 s.v. οὗτος 1).

[4:42]  ⁶ sn There is irony in the Samaritans’ declaration that Jesus was really the Savior of the world, an irony foreshadowed in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel (1:11): “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.” Yet the Samaritans welcomed Jesus and proclaimed him to be not the Jewish Messiah only, but the Savior of the world.

[5:18]  ⁷ tn Or “the Jewish authorities”; Grk “the Jews.” See the note on the phrase “Jewish leaders” in v. 10.

[11:4]  ⁹ tn Grk “This sickness is not to death.”

[11:4]  ¹⁰ tn Or “to God’s praise.”

[11:4]  ¹¹ sn So that the Son of God may be glorified through it. These statements are highly ironic: For Lazarus, the sickness did not end in his death, because he was restored to life. But for Jesus himself, the miraculous sign he performed led to his own death, because it confirmed the authorities in their plan to kill Jesus (11:47-53). In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ death is consistently portrayed as his ‘glorification’ through which he accomplishes his return to the Father.

[12:9]  ¹¹ tn Grk “of the Jews.” In NT usage the term ᾿Ιουδαῖοι (Ioudaioi) may refer to the entire Jewish people, the residents of Jerusalem and surrounding territory (“Judeans”; cf. BDAG 479 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαῖος 2.e), the authorities in Jerusalem, or merely those who were hostile to Jesus. (For further information see R. G. Bratcher, “‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John,” BT 26 [1975]: 401-9.) Here the phrase refers to the residents of Jerusalem and the surrounding area who by this time had heard about the resurrection of Lazarus and were curious to see him.

[12:9]  ¹² tn Grk “knew.”

[12:9]  ¹³ tn Grk “he”; normal English clause structure specifies the referent first and substitutes the pronoun in subsequent references to the same individual, so the referent (Jesus) has been specified here.

[12:9]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “Jesus”; normal English clause structure specifies the referent first and substitutes the pronoun in subsequent references to the same individual, so the pronoun (“him”) has been substituted here.

[12:27]  ¹³ tn Or “save me.”

[12:27]  ¹⁴ tn Or “this occasion.”

[12:27]  ¹⁵ tn Or “this occasion.”

[15:19]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “if you were of the world.”

[15:19]  ¹⁶ tn The words “you as” are not in the original but are supplied for clarity.

[15:19]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “because you are not of the world.”

[15:19]  ¹⁸ tn Or “world, therefore.”

[15:19]  ¹⁹ sn I chose you out of the world…the world hates you. Two themes are brought together here. In 8:23 Jesus had distinguished himself from the world in addressing his Jewish opponents: “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.” In 15:16 Jesus told the disciples “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you.” Now Jesus has united these two ideas as he informs the disciples that he has chosen them out of the world. While the disciples will still be “in” the world after Jesus has departed, they will not belong to it, and Jesus prays later in John 17:15-16 to the Father, “I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” The same theme also occurs in 1 John 4:5-6: “They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us.” Thus the basic reason why the world hates the disciples (as it hated Jesus before them) is because they are not of the world. They are born from above, and are not of the world. For this reason the world hates them.

[16:21]  ¹⁷ sn The same word translated distress here has been translated sadness in the previous verse (a wordplay that is not exactly reproducible in English).

[16:21]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “her hour.”

[16:21]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “that a man” (but in a generic sense, referring to a human being).

[16:21]  ²⁰ sn Jesus now compares the situation of the disciples to a woman in childbirth. Just as the woman in the delivery of her child experiences real pain and anguish (has distress), so the disciples will also undergo real anguish at the crucifixion of Jesus. But once the child has been born, the mother’s anguish is turned into joy, and she forgets the past suffering. The same will be true of the disciples, who after Jesus’ resurrection and reappearance to them will forget the anguish they suffered at his death on account of their joy.

[19:11]  ¹⁹ tn Or “power.”

[19:11]  ²⁰ tn Or “who delivered me over to you.”

[19:11]  ²¹ tn Grk “has the greater sin” (an idiom).

[19:23]  ²¹ sn See the note on Crucify in 19:6.

[19:23]  ²² sn Four shares, one for each soldier. The Gospel of John is the only one to specify the number of soldiers involved in the crucifixion. This was a quaternion, a squad of four soldiers. It was accepted Roman practice for the soldiers who performed a crucifixion to divide the possessions of the person executed among themselves.

[19:23]  ²³ tn Or “shirt” (a long garment worn under the cloak next to the skin). The name for this garment (χιτών, citwn) presents some difficulty in translation. Most modern readers would not understand what a ‘tunic’ was any more than they would be familiar with a ‘chiton.’ On the other hand, attempts to find a modern equivalent are also a problem: “Shirt” conveys the idea of a much shorter garment that covers only the upper body, and “undergarment” (given the styles of modern underwear) is more misleading still. “Tunic” was therefore employed, but with a note to explain its nature.

[19:23]  ²⁴ tn Or “shirt” (a long garment worn under the cloak next to the skin). See the note on the same word earlier in this verse.

[19:23]  ²⁵ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.