John 4:30

4:30 So ¹  they left the town and began coming ²  to him.

John 7:46

7:46 The officers replied, “No one ever spoke like this man!”

John 8:27

8:27 (They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father.) ³ 

John 18:27

18:27 Then Peter denied it again, and immediately a rooster crowed. ⁴ 

[4:30]  ¹ tn “So” is supplied for transitional smoothness in English.

[4:30]  ² sn The imperfect tense is here rendered began coming for the author is not finished with this part of the story yet; these same Samaritans will appear again in v. 35.

[8:27]  ³ sn They did not understand…about his Father is a parenthetical note by the author. This type of comment, intended for the benefit of the reader, is typical of the “omniscient author” convention adopted by the author, who is writing from a postresurrection point of view. He writes with the benefit of later knowledge that those who originally heard Jesus’ words would not have had.

[18:27]  ⁵ tn It seems most likely that this refers to a real rooster crowing, although a number of scholars have suggested that “cockcrow” is a technical term referring to the trumpet call which ended the third watch of the night (from midnight to 3 a.m.). This would then be a reference to the Roman gallicinium (ἀλεκτοροφωνία, alektorofwnia; the term is used in Mark 13:35 and is found in some mss [Ì^37vid,45 ˹] in Matt 26:34) which would have been sounded at 3 a.m.; in this case Jesus would have prophesied a precise time by which the denials would have taken place. For more details see J. H. Bernard, St. John (ICC), 2:604. However, in light of the fact that Mark mentions the rooster crowing twice (Mark 14:72) and in Luke 22:60 the words are reversed (ἐφώνησεν ἀλέκτωρ, efwnhsen alektwr), it is more probable that a real rooster is in view. In any event natural cockcrow would have occurred at approximately 3 a.m. in Palestine at this time of year (March-April) anyway.