Psalms 27:1

Psalm 27 ¹ 

By David.

27:1 The Lord delivers and vindicates me! ² 

I fear no one! ³ 

The Lord protects my life!

I am afraid of no one! ⁴ 

Psalms 36:9

36:9 For you are the one who gives

and sustains life. ⁵ 

Psalms 84:11

84:11 For the Lord God is our sovereign protector. ⁶ 

The Lord bestows favor ⁷  and honor;

he withholds no good thing from those who have integrity. ⁸ 

Isaiah 60:19

60:19 The sun will no longer supply light for you by day,

nor will the moon’s brightness shine on you;

the Lord will be your permanent source of light –

the splendor of your God will shine upon you. ⁹ 

John 1:4

1:4 In him was life, ¹⁰  and the life was the light of mankind. ¹¹ 

John 1:9

1:9 The true light, who gives light to everyone, ¹²  was coming into the world. ¹³ 

John 8:12

Jesus as the Light of the World

8:12 Then Jesus spoke out again, ¹⁴  “I am the light of the world. ¹⁵  The one who follows me will never ¹⁶  walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

John 9:5

9:5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” ¹⁷ 

John 12:35-36

12:35 Jesus replied, ¹⁸  “The light is with you for a little while longer. ¹⁹  Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. ²⁰  The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. 12:36 While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become sons of light.” ²¹  When Jesus had said these things, he went away and hid himself from them.

John 12:1

Jesus’ Anointing

12:1 Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom he ²²  had raised from the dead.

John 6:16

Walking on Water

6:16 Now when evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, ²³ 

James 1:17

1:17 All generous giving and every perfect gift ²⁴  is from above, coming down ²⁵  from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or the slightest hint of change. ²⁶ 

Revelation 21:23

21:23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God lights it up, and its lamp is the Lamb.

Revelation 22:5

22:5 Night will be no more, and they will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will shine on them, and they will reign forever and ever.

[27:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 27. The author is confident of the Lord’s protection and asks the Lord to vindicate him.

[27:1]  ² tn Heb “the Lord [is] my light and my deliverance.” “Light” is often used as a metaphor for deliverance and the life/blessings it brings. See Pss 37:6; 97:11; 112:4; Isa 49:6; 51:4; Mic 7:8. Another option is that “light” refers here to divine guidance (see Ps 43:3).

[27:1]  ³ tn Heb “Whom shall I fear?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”

[27:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “Of whom shall I be afraid?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”

[36:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “for with you is the fountain of life, in your light we see light.” Water (note “fountain”) and light are here metaphors for life.

[84:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “[is] a sun and a shield.” The epithet “sun,” though rarely used of Israel’s God in the OT, was a well-attested royal title in the ancient Near East. For several examples from Ugaritic texts, the Amarna letters, and Assyrian royal inscriptions, see R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 131, n. 2.

[84:11]  ⁷ tn Or “grace.”

[84:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “he does not withhold good to those walking in integrity.”

[60:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “and your God for your splendor.”

[1:4]  ¹⁰ tn John uses ζωή (zwh) 37 times: 17 times it occurs with αἰώνιος (aiwnios), and in the remaining occurrences outside the prologue it is clear from context that “eternal” life is meant. The two uses in 1:4, if they do not refer to “eternal” life, would be the only exceptions. (Also 1 John uses ζωή 13 times, always of “eternal” life.)

[1:4]  ¹¹ tn Or “humanity”; Grk “of men” (but ἄνθρωπος [anqrwpo"] is used in a generic sense here, not restricted to males only, thus “mankind,” “humanity”).

[1:9]  ¹² tn Grk “every man” (but in a generic sense, “every person,” or “every human being”).

[1:9]  ¹³ tn Or “He was the true light, who gives light to everyone who comes into the world.” The participle ἐρχόμενον (ercomenon) may be either (1) neuter nominative, agreeing with τὸ φῶς (to fw"), or (2) masculine accusative, agreeing with ἄνθρωπον (anqrwpon). Option (1) results in a periphrastic imperfect with ἦν (hn), ἦν τὸ φῶς… ἐρχόμενον, referring to the incarnation. Option (2) would have the participle modifying ἄνθρωπον and referring to the true light as enlightening “every man who comes into the world.” Option (2) has some rabbinic parallels: The phrase “all who come into the world” is a fairly common expression for “every man” (cf. Leviticus Rabbah 31.6). But (1) must be preferred here, because: (a) In the next verse the light is in the world; it is logical for v. 9 to speak of its entering the world; (b) in other passages Jesus is described as “coming into the world” (6:14, 9:39, 11:27, 16:28) and in 12:46 Jesus says: ἐγὼ φῶς εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἐλήλυθα (egw fw" ei" ton kosmon elhluqa); (c) use of a periphrastic participle with the imperfect tense is typical Johannine style: 1:28, 2:6, 3:23, 10:40, 11:1, 13:23, 18:18 and 25. In every one of these except 13:23 the finite verb is first and separated by one or more intervening words from the participle.

[8:12]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “Then again Jesus spoke to them saying.”

[8:12]  ¹⁵ sn The theory proposed by F. J. A. Hort (The New Testament in the Original Greek, vol. 2, Introduction; Appendix, 87-88), that the backdrop of 8:12 is the lighting of the candelabra in the court of women, may offer a plausible setting to the proclamation by Jesus that he is the light of the world. The last time that Jesus spoke in the narrative (assuming 7:53-8:11 is not part of the original text, as the textual evidence suggests) is in 7:38, where he was speaking to a crowd of pilgrims in the temple area. This is where he is found in the present verse, and he may be addressing the crowd again. Jesus’ remark has to be seen in view of both the prologue (John 1:4, 5) and the end of the discourse with Nicodemus (John 3:19-21). The coming of Jesus into the world provokes judgment: A choosing up of sides becomes necessary. The one who comes to the light, that is, who follows Jesus, will not walk in the darkness. The one who refuses to come, will walk in the darkness. In this contrast, there are only two alternatives. So it is with a person’s decision about Jesus. Furthermore, this serves as in implicit indictment of Jesus’ opponents, who still walk in the darkness, because they refuse to come to him. This sets up the contrast in chap. 9 between the man born blind, who receives both physical and spiritual sight, and the Pharisees (John 9:13, 15, 16) who have physical sight but remain in spiritual darkness.

[8:12]  ¹⁶ tn The double negative οὐ μή (ou mh) is emphatic in 1st century Hellenistic Greek.

[9:5]  ¹⁷ sn Jesus’ statement I am the light of the world connects the present account with 8:12. Here (seen more clearly than at 8:12) it is obvious what the author sees as the significance of Jesus’ statement. “Light” is not a metaphysical definition of the person of Jesus but a description of his effect on the world, forcing everyone in the world to ‘choose up sides’ for or against him (cf. 3:19-21).

[12:35]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “Then Jesus said to them.”

[12:35]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “Yet a little while the light is with you.”

[12:35]  ²⁰ sn The warning Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you operates on at least two different levels: (1) To the Jewish people in Jerusalem to whom Jesus spoke, the warning was a reminder that there was only a little time left for them to accept him as their Messiah. (2) To those later individuals to whom the Fourth Gospel was written, and to every person since, the words of Jesus are also a warning: There is a finite, limited time in which each individual has opportunity to respond to the Light of the world (i.e., Jesus); after that comes darkness. One’s response to the Light decisively determines one’s judgment for eternity.

[12:36]  ²¹ tn The idiom “sons of light” means essentially “people characterized by light,” that is, “people of God.”

[12:1]  ²² tn Grk “whom Jesus,” but a repetition of the proper name (Jesus) here would be redundant in the English clause structure, so the pronoun (“he”) is substituted in the translation.

[6:16]  ²³ tn Or “sea.” The Greek word indicates a rather large body of water, but the English word “sea” normally indicates very large bodies of water, so the word “lake” in English is a closer approximation.

[1:17]  ²⁴ tn The first phrase refers to the action of giving and the second to what is given.

[1:17]  ²⁵ tn Or “All generous giving and every perfect gift from above is coming down.”

[1:17]  ²⁶ tn Grk “variation or shadow of turning” (referring to the motions of heavenly bodies causing variations of light and darkness).