Proverbs 8:35

8:35 For the one who finds me finds ¹  life

and receives ²  favor from the Lord.

John 17:24

17:24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, ³  so that they can see my glory that you gave me because you loved me before the creation of the world ⁴ .

John 17:1

Jesus Prays for the Father to Glorify Him

17:1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he looked upward ⁵  to heaven ⁶  and said, “Father, the time ⁷  has come. Glorify your Son, so that your ⁸  Son may glorify you –

John 5:9

5:9 Immediately the man was healed, ⁹  and he picked up his mat ¹⁰  and started walking. (Now that day was a Sabbath.) ¹¹ 

John 5:1

Healing a Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda

5:1 After this ¹²  there was a Jewish feast, ¹³  and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ 

John 1:13-14

1:13 – children not born ¹⁵  by human parents ¹⁶  or by human desire ¹⁷  or a husband’s ¹⁸  decision, ¹⁹  but by God.

1:14 Now ²⁰  the Word became flesh ²¹  and took up residence ²²  among us. We ²³  saw his glory – the glory of the one and only, ²⁴  full of grace and truth, who came from the Father.

John 1:1

The Prologue to the Gospel

1:1 In the beginning ²⁵  was the Word, and the Word was with God, ²⁶  and the Word was fully God. ²⁷ 

John 2:10

2:10 and said to him, “Everyone ²⁸  serves the good wine first, and then the cheaper ²⁹  wine when the guests ³⁰  are drunk. You have kept the good wine until now!”

[8:35]  ¹ tc The Kethib reads plurals: “those who find me are finders of life”; this is reflected in the LXX and Syriac. But the Qere is singular: “whoever finds me finds life.” The Qere is generally favored as the original reading in such cases as these.

[8:35]  ² tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive carries the same nuance as the perfect tense that came before it, setting out the timeless principle.

[17:24]  ³ tn Grk “the ones you have given me, I want these to be where I am with me.”

[17:24]  ⁴ tn Grk “before the foundation of the world.”

[17:1]  ⁵ tn Grk “he raised his eyes” (an idiom).

[17:1]  ⁶ tn Or “to the sky.” The Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated “sky” or “heaven” depending on the context.

[17:1]  ⁷ tn Grk “the hour.”

[17:1]  ⁸ tc The better witnesses (א B C* W 0109 0301) have “the Son” (ὁ υἱός, Jo Juios) here, while the majority (C³ L Ψ Ë¹³ 33 Ï) read “your Son also” (καὶ ὁ υἱὸς σου, kai Jo Juio" sou), or “your Son” (ὁ υἱὸς σου; A D Θ 0250 1 579 pc lat sy); the second corrector of C has καὶ ὁ υἱός (“the Son also”). The longer readings appear to be predictable scribal expansions and as such should be considered secondary.

[5:9]  ⁹ tn Grk “became well.”

[5:9]  ¹⁰ tn Or “pallet,” “mattress,” “cot,” or “stretcher.” See the note on “mat” in the previous verse.

[5:9]  ¹¹ tn Grk “Now it was Sabbath on that day.”

[5:1]  ¹² sn The temporal indicator After this is not specific, so it is uncertain how long after the incidents at Cana this occurred.

[5:1]  ¹³ tc The textual variants ἑορτή or ἡ ἑορτή (Jeorth or Jh Jeorth, “a feast” or “the feast”) may not appear significant at first, but to read ἑορτή with the article would almost certainly demand a reference to the Jewish Passover. The article is found in א C L Δ Ψ Ë¹ 33 892 1424 pm, but is lacking in {Ì^66,75 A B D T W^s Θ Ë¹³ 565 579 700 1241 pm}. Overall, the shorter reading has somewhat better support. Internally, the known proclivity of scribes to make the text more explicit argues compellingly for the shorter reading. Thus, the verse refers to a feast other than the Passover. The incidental note in 5:3, that the sick were lying outside in the porticoes of the pool, makes Passover an unlikely time because it fell toward the end of winter and the weather would not have been warm. L. Morris (John [NICNT], 299, n. 6) thinks it impossible to identify the feast with certainty.

[5:1]  ¹⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[1:13]  ¹⁵ tn The Greek term translated “born” here also involves conception.

[1:13]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “of blood(s).” The plural αἱμάτων (Jaimatwn) has seemed a problem to many interpreters. At least some sources in antiquity imply that blood was thought of as being important in the development of the fetus during its time in the womb: thus Wis 7:1: “in the womb of a mother I was molded into flesh, within the period of 10 months, compacted with blood, from the seed of a man and the pleasure of marriage.” In John 1:13, the plural αἱμάτων may imply the action of both parents. It may also refer to the “genetic” contribution of both parents, and so be equivalent to “human descent” (see BDAG 26 s.v. αἷμα 1.a). E. C. Hoskyns thinks John could not have used the singular here because Christians are in fact ‘begotten’ by the blood of Christ (The Fourth Gospel, 143), although the context would seem to make it clear that the blood in question is something other than the blood of Christ.

[1:13]  ¹⁷ tn Or “of the will of the flesh.” The phrase οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος σαρκός (oude ek qelhmato" sarko") is more clearly a reference to sexual desire, but it should be noted that σάρξ (sarx) in John does not convey the evil sense common in Pauline usage. For John it refers to the physical nature in its weakness rather than in its sinfulness. There is no clearer confirmation of this than the immediately following verse, where the λόγος (logos) became σάρξ.

[1:13]  ¹⁸ tn Or “man’s.”

[1:13]  ¹⁹ tn The third phrase, οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος ἀνδρός (oude ek qelhmato" andros), means much the same as the second one. The word here (ἀνηρ, anhr) is often used for a husband, resulting in the translation “or a husband’s decision,” or more generally, “or of any human volition whatsoever.” L. Morris may be right when he sees here an emphasis directed at the Jewish pride in race and patriarchal ancestry, although such a specific reference is difficult to prove (John [NICNT], 101).

[1:14]  ²⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic, the incarnation of the Word. Greek style often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” but English style generally does not.

[1:14]  ²¹ tn This looks at the Word incarnate in humility and weakness; the word σάρξ (sarx) does not carry overtones of sinfulness here as it frequently does in Pauline usage. See also John 3:6.

[1:14]  ²² tn Grk “and tabernacled.”

[1:14]  ²³ tn Grk “and we saw.”

[1:14]  ²⁴ tn Or “of the unique one.” Although this word is often translated “only begotten,” such a translation is misleading, since in English it appears to express a metaphysical relationship. The word in Greek was used of an only child (a son [Luke 7:12, 9:38] or a daughter [Luke 8:42]). It was also used of something unique (only one of its kind) such as the mythological Phoenix (1 Clem. 25:2). From here it passes easily to a description of Isaac (Heb 11:17 and Josephus, Ant., 1.13.1 [1.222]) who was not Abraham’s only son, but was one-of-a-kind because he was the child of the promise. Thus the word means “one-of-a-kind” and is reserved for Jesus in the Johannine literature of the NT. While all Christians are children of God, Jesus is God’s Son in a unique, one-of-a-kind sense. The word is used in this way in all its uses in the Gospel of John (1:14, 1:18, 3:16, and 3:18).

[1:1]  ²⁵ sn In the beginning. The search for the basic “stuff” out of which things are made was the earliest one in Greek philosophy. It was attended by the related question of “What is the process by which the secondary things came out of the primary one (or ones)?,” or in Aristotelian terminology, “What is the ‘beginning’ (same Greek word as beginning, John 1:1) and what is the origin of the things that are made?” In the New Testament the word usually has a temporal sense, but even BDAG 138 s.v. ἀρχή 3 lists a major category of meaning as “the first cause.” For John, the words “In the beginning” are most likely a conscious allusion to the opening words of Genesis – “In the beginning.” Other concepts which occur prominently in Gen 1 are also found in John’s prologue: “life” (1:4) “light” (1:4) and “darkness” (1:5). Gen 1 describes the first (physical) creation; John 1 describes the new (spiritual) creation. But this is not to play off a false dichotomy between “physical” and “spiritual”; the first creation was both physical and spiritual. The new creation is really a re-creation, of the spiritual (first) but also the physical. (In spite of the common understanding of John’s “spiritual” emphasis, the “physical” re-creation should not be overlooked; this occurs in John 2 with the changing of water into wine, in John 11 with the resurrection of Lazarus, and the emphasis of John 20-21 on the aftermath of Jesus’ own resurrection.)

[1:1]  ²⁶ tn The preposition πρός (pros) implies not just proximity, but intimate personal relationship. M. Dods stated, “Πρός …means more than μετά or παρά, and is regularly employed in expressing the presence of one person with another” (“The Gospel of St. John,” The Expositor’s Greek Testament, 1:684). See also Mark 6:3, Matt 13:56, Mark 9:19, Gal 1:18, 2 John 12.

[1:1]  ²⁷ tn Or “and what God was the Word was.” Colwell’s Rule is often invoked to support the translation of θεός (qeos) as definite (“God”) rather than indefinite (“a god”) here. However, Colwell’s Rule merely permits, but does not demand, that a predicate nominative ahead of an equative verb be translated as definite rather than indefinite. Furthermore, Colwell’s Rule did not deal with a third possibility, that the anarthrous predicate noun may have more of a qualitative nuance when placed ahead of the verb. A definite meaning for the term is reflected in the traditional rendering “the word was God.” From a technical standpoint, though, it is preferable to see a qualitative aspect to anarthrous θεός in John 1:1c (ExSyn 266-69). Translations like the NEB, REB, and Moffatt are helpful in capturing the sense in John 1:1c, that the Word was fully deity in essence (just as much God as God the Father). However, in contemporary English “the Word was divine” (Moffatt) does not quite catch the meaning since “divine” as a descriptive term is not used in contemporary English exclusively of God. The translation “what God was the Word was” is perhaps the most nuanced rendering, conveying that everything God was in essence, the Word was too. This points to unity of essence between the Father and the Son without equating the persons. However, in surveying a number of native speakers of English, some of whom had formal theological training and some of whom did not, the editors concluded that the fine distinctions indicated by “what God was the Word was” would not be understood by many contemporary readers. Thus the translation “the Word was fully God” was chosen because it is more likely to convey the meaning to the average English reader that the Logos (which “became flesh and took up residence among us” in John 1:14 and is thereafter identified in the Fourth Gospel as Jesus) is one in essence with God the Father. The previous phrase, “the Word was with God,” shows that the Logos is distinct in person from God the Father.

[2:10]  ²⁸ tn Grk “every man” (in a generic sense).

[2:10]  ²⁹ tn Or “poorer.”

[2:10]  ³⁰ tn Grk “when they”; the referent (the guests) has been specified in the translation for clarity.