John 1:29

1:29 On the next day John¹ saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God² who takes away the sin of the world!

John 7:36

7:36 What did he mean by saying,³ ‘You will look for me⁴ but will not find me, and where I am you cannot come’?”

John 12:19

12:19 Thus the Pharisees⁵ said to one another, “You see that you can do nothing. Look, the world has run off after him!”

John 19:5

19:5 So Jesus came outside, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.⁶ Pilate⁷ said to them, “Look, here is the man!”⁸

John 19:14

19:14 (Now it was the day of preparation⁹ for the Passover, about noon.¹⁰)¹¹ Pilate¹² said to the Jewish leaders,¹³ “Look, here is your king!”

John 19:26-27

19:26 So when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing there, he said to his mother, “Woman,¹⁴ look, here is your son!” 19:27 He then said to his disciple, “Look, here is your mother!” From that very time¹⁵ the disciple took her into his own home.

¹tn Grk “he”; the referent (John) has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

²sn Gen 22:8 is an important passage in the background of the title Lamb of God as applied to Jesus. In Jewish thought this was held to be a supremely important sacrifice. G. Vermès stated: “For the Palestinian Jew, all lamb sacrifice, and especially the Passover lamb and the Tamid offering, was a memorial of the Akedah with its effects of deliverance, forgiveness of sin and messianic salvation” (Scripture and Tradition in Judaism [StPB], 225).

³tn Grk “What is this word that he said.”

⁴tn Grk “seek me.”

⁵sn See the note on Pharisees in 1:24.

⁶sn See the note on the purple robe in 19:2.

⁷tn Grk “He”; the referent (Pilate) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁸sn Look, here is the man! Pilate may have meant no more than something like “Here is the accused!” or in a contemptuous way, “Here is your king!” Others have taken Pilate’s statement as intended to evoke pity from Jesus’ accusers: “Look at this poor fellow!” (Jesus would certainly not have looked very impressive after the scourging). For the author, however, Pilate’s words constituted an unconscious allusion to Zech 6:12, “Look, here is the man whose name is the Branch.” In this case Pilate (unknowingly and ironically) presented Jesus to the nation under a messianic title.

⁹sn The term day of preparation (παρασκευή, paraskeuh) appears in all the gospels as a description of the day on which Jesus died. It could refer to any Friday as the day of preparation for the Sabbath (Saturday), and this is the way the synoptic gospels use the term (Matt 27:62, Mark 15:42, and Luke 23:54). John, however, specifies in addition that this was not only the day of preparation of the Sabbath, but also the day of preparation of the Passover, so that the Sabbath on the following day was the Passover (cf. 19:31).

¹⁰tn Grk “about the sixth hour.”

sn For John, the time was especially important. When the note concerning the hour, about noon, is connected with the day, the day of preparation for the Passover, it becomes apparent that Jesus was going to die on the cross at the very time that the Passover lambs were being slain in the temple courts. Exod 12:6 required that the Passover lamb be kept alive until the 14th Nisan, the eve of the Passover, and then slaughtered by the head of the household at twilight (Grk “between the two evenings”). By this time the slaughtering was no longer done by the heads of households, but by the priests in the temple courts. But so many lambs were needed for the tens of thousands of pilgrims who came to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast (some estimates run in excess of 100,000 pilgrims) that the slaughter could not be completed during the evening, and so the rabbis redefined “between the two evenings” as beginning at noon, when the sun began to decline toward the horizon. Thus the priests had the entire afternoon of 14th Nisan in which to complete the slaughter of the Passover lambs. According to the Fourth Gospel, this is the time Jesus was dying on the cross.

¹¹sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.

¹²tn Grk “And he”; the referent (Pilate) has been specified in the translation for clarity, and the conjunction καί (kai, “and”) has not been translated here in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences.

¹³tn Or “the Jewish authorities”; Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the Jewish leaders, especially members of the Sanhedrin, and their servants (mentioned specifically as “the chief priests and their servants” in John 19:6). See the note on the phrase “Jewish leaders” in v. 7.

¹⁴sn The term Woman is Jesus’ normal, polite way of addressing women (Matt 15:28, Luke 13:12; John 4:21; 8:10; 19:26; 20:15; see BDAG 208-9 s.v. γυνή 1). But it is unusual for a son to address his mother with this term. The custom in both Hebrew (or Aramaic) and Greek would be for a son to use a qualifying adjective or title. Is there significance in Jesus’ use here? Jesus probably used the term here to help establish Mary and the beloved disciple in a new “mother-son” relationship. Someone would soon need to provide for Mary since Jesus, her oldest son, would no longer be alive. By using this term Jesus distanced himself from Mary so the beloved disciple could take his place as her earthly son (cf. John 2:4). See D. A. Carson, John, 617-18, for discussion about symbolic interpretations of this relationship between Mary and the beloved disciple.

¹⁵tn Grk “from that very hour.”