Psalms 71:3

71:3 Be my protector and refuge, ¹ 

a stronghold where I can be safe! ² 

For you are my high ridge ³  and my stronghold.

Psalms 90:1

Book 4
(Psalms 90-106)

Psalm 90 ⁴ 

A prayer of Moses, the man of God.

90:1 O Lord, you have been our protector ⁵  through all generations!

Psalms 91:9

91:9 For you have taken refuge in the Lord,

my shelter, the sovereign One. ⁶ 

Isaiah 33:16

33:16 This is the person who will live in a secure place; ⁷ 

he will find safety in the rocky, mountain strongholds; ⁸ 

he will have food

and a constant supply of water.

John 6:56

6:56 The one who eats ⁹  my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him. ¹⁰ 

John 6:1

The Feeding of the Five Thousand

6:1 After this ¹¹  Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (also called the Sea of Tiberias). ¹² 

John 4:12

4:12 Surely you’re not greater than our ancestor ¹³  Jacob, are you? For he gave us this well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock.” ¹⁴ 

John 4:15-16

4:15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw ¹⁵  water.” ¹⁶  4:16 He ¹⁷  said to her, “Go call your husband and come back here.” ¹⁸ 

[71:3]  ¹ tc Heb “become for me a rocky summit of a dwelling place.” The Hebrew term מָעוֹן (ma’on, “dwelling place”) should probably be emended to מָעוֹז (ma’oz, “refuge”; see Ps 31:2).

[71:3]  ² tc Heb “to enter continually, you commanded to deliver me.” The Hebrew phrase לָבוֹא תָּמִיד צִוִּיתָ (lavo’ tamid tsivvita, “to enter continually, you commanded”) should be emended to לְבֵית מְצוּדוֹת (lÿvet mÿtsudot, “a house of strongholds”; see Ps 31:2).

[71:3]  ³ sn You are my high ridge. This metaphor pictures God as a rocky, relatively inaccessible summit, where one would be able to find protection from enemies. See 1 Sam 23:25, 28.

[90:1]  ⁴ sn Psalm 90. In this communal lament the worship leader affirms that the eternal God and creator of the world has always been Israel’s protector. But God also causes men, who are as transient as grass, to die, and in his fierce anger he decimates his covenant community, whose brief lives are filled with suffering and end in weakness. The community asks for wisdom, the restoration of God’s favor, a fresh revelation of his power, and his blessing upon their labors.

[90:1]  ⁵ tn Or “place of safety.” See Ps 71:3.

[91:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “for you, the Lord, my shelter, the Most High, you have made your dwelling place.”

[33:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “he [in the] exalted places will live.”

[33:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “mountain strongholds, cliffs [will be] his elevated place.”

[6:56]  ⁹ tn Or “who chews.” On the alternation between ἐσθίω (esqiw, “eat,” v. 53) and τρώγω (trwgw, “eats,” vv. 54, 56, 58; “consumes,” v. 57) see the note on “eats” in v. 54.

[6:56]  ¹⁰ sn Resides in me, and I in him. Note how in John 6:54 eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood produces eternal life and the promise of resurrection at the last day. Here the same process of eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood leads to a relationship of mutual indwelling (resides in me, and I in him). This suggests strongly that for the author (and for Jesus) the concepts of ‘possessing eternal life’ and of ‘residing in Jesus’ are virtually interchangeable.

[6:1]  ¹¹ tn Again, μετὰ ταῦτα (meta tauta) is a vague temporal reference. How Jesus got from Jerusalem to Galilee is not explained, which has led many scholars (e.g., Bernard, Bultmann, and Schnackenburg) to posit either editorial redaction or some sort of rearrangement or dislocation of material (such as reversing the order of chaps. 5 and 6, for example). Such a rearrangement of the material would give a simple and consistent connection of events, but in the absence of all external evidence it does not seem to be supportable. R. E. Brown (John [AB], 1:236) says that such an arrangement is attractive in some ways but not compelling, and that no rearrangement can solve all the geographical and chronological problems in John.

[6:1]  ¹² sn This is a parenthetical note by the author. Only John in the New Testament refers to the Sea of Galilee by the name Sea of Tiberias (see also John 21:1), but this is correct local usage. In the mid-20’s Herod completed the building of the town of Tiberias on the southwestern shore of the lake; after this time the name came into use for the lake itself.

[4:12]  ¹³ tn Or “our forefather”; Grk “our father.”

[4:12]  ¹⁴ tn Questions prefaced with μή (mh) in Greek anticipate a negative answer. This can sometimes be indicated by using a “tag” at the end. In this instance all of v. 12 is one question. It has been broken into two sentences for the sake of English style (instead of “for he” the Greek reads “who”).

[4:15]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “or come here to draw.”

[4:15]  ¹⁶ tn The direct object of the infinitive ἀντλεῖν (antlein) is understood in Greek but supplied for clarity in the English translation.

[4:16]  ¹⁷ tc Most witnesses have “Jesus” here, either with the article (א^c C² D L W^s Ψ 086 Ï lat) or without (א* A Θ Ë^1,13 al), while several important and early witnesses lack the name (Ì^66,75 B C* 33^vid pc). It is unlikely that scribes would have deliberately expunged the name of Jesus from the text here, especially since it aids the reader with the flow of the dialogue. Further, that the name occurs both anarthrously and with the article suggests that it was a later addition. (For similar arguments, see the tc note on “woman” in 4:11).

[4:16]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “come here” (“back” is implied).