John 9:1

Healing a Man Born Blind

9:1 Now as Jesus was passing by, ¹  he saw a man who had been blind from birth.

John 12:41

12:41 Isaiah said these things because he saw Christ’s ²  glory, and spoke about him.

John 8:56

8:56 Your father Abraham was overjoyed ³  to see my day, and he saw it and was glad.” ⁴ 

John 1:47

1:47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and exclaimed, ⁵  “Look, a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” ⁶ 

John 11:33

11:33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the people ⁷  who had come with her weeping, he was intensely moved ⁸  in spirit and greatly distressed. ⁹ 

John 20:8

20:8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, came in, and he saw and believed. ¹⁰ 

John 6:24

6:24 So when the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats ¹¹  and came to Capernaum ¹²  looking for Jesus.

[9:1]  ¹ tn Or “going along.” The opening words of chap. 9, καὶ παράγων (kai paragwn), convey only the vaguest indication of the circumstances.

[12:41]  ² tn Grk “his”; the referent (Christ) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The referent supplied here is “Christ” rather than “Jesus” because it involves what Isaiah saw. It is clear that the author presents Isaiah as having seen the preincarnate glory of Christ, which was the very revelation of the Father (see John 1:18; John 14:9).

[8:56]  ³ tn Or “rejoiced greatly.”

[8:56]  ⁴ tn What is the meaning of Jesus’ statement that the patriarch Abraham “saw” his day and rejoiced? The use of past tenses would seem to refer to something that occurred during the patriarch’s lifetime. Genesis Rabbah 44:25ff, (cf. 59:6) states that Rabbi Akiba, in a debate with Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai, held that Abraham had been shown not this world only but the world to come (this would include the days of the Messiah). More realistically, it is likely that Gen 22:13-15 lies behind Jesus’ words. This passage, known to rabbis as the Akedah (“Binding”), tells of Abraham finding the ram which will replace his son Isaac on the altar of sacrifice – an occasion of certain rejoicing.

[1:47]  ⁴ tn Grk “said about him.”

[1:47]  ⁵ tn Or “treachery.”

[11:33]  ⁵ tn Or “the Judeans”; Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the friends, acquaintances, and relatives of Lazarus or his sisters who had come to mourn, since the Jewish religious authorities are specifically mentioned as a separate group in John 11:46-47. See also the notes on the phrase “the Jewish leaders” in v. 8, “the Jewish people of the region” in v. 19, and the word “people” in v. 31.

[11:33]  ⁶ tn Or (perhaps) “he was deeply indignant.” The verb ἐνεβριμήσατο (enebrimhsato), which is repeated in John 11:38, indicates a strong display of emotion, somewhat difficult to translate – “shuddered, moved with the deepest emotions.” In the LXX, the verb and its cognates are used to describe a display of indignation (Dan 11:30, for example – see also Mark 14:5). Jesus displayed this reaction to the afflicted in Mark 1:43, Matt 9:30. Was he angry at the afflicted? No, but he was angry because he found himself face-to-face with the manifestations of Satan’s kingdom of evil. Here, the realm of Satan was represented by death.

[11:33]  ⁷ tn Or “greatly troubled.” The verb ταράσσω (tarassw) also occurs in similar contexts to those of ἐνεβριμήσατο (enebrimhsato). John uses it in 14:1 and 27 to describe the reaction of the disciples to the imminent death of Jesus, and in 13:21 the verb describes how Jesus reacted to the thought of being betrayed by Judas, into whose heart Satan had entered.

[20:8]  ⁶ sn What was it that the beloved disciple believed (since v. 7 describes what he saw)? Sometimes it is suggested that what he believed was Mary Magdalene’s report that the body had been stolen. But this could hardly be the case; the way the entire scene is narrated such a trivial conclusion would amount to an anticlimax. It is true that the use of the plural “they” in the following verse applied to both Peter and the beloved disciple, and this appears to be a difficulty if one understands that the beloved disciple believed at this point in Jesus’ resurrection. But it is not an insuperable difficulty, since all it affirms is that at this time neither Peter nor the beloved disciple had understood the scripture concerning the resurrection. Thus it appears the author intends his reader to understand that when the beloved disciple entered the tomb after Peter and saw the state of the graveclothes, he believed in the resurrection, i.e., that Jesus had risen from the dead.

[6:24]  ⁷ tn Or “embarked in the boats.”

[6:24]  ⁸ map For location see Map1 D2; Map2 C3; Map3 B2.