2:6 Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washing, 4 each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 5
9:40 Some of the Pharisees 9 who were with him heard this 10 and asked him, 11 “We are not blind too, are we?” 12
1 tn Or “made”; Grk “came into existence.”
2 tn Or “made”; Grk “nothing came into existence.”
3 tc There is a major punctuation problem here: Should this relative clause go with v. 3 or v. 4? The earliest
tn Or “made”; Grk “that has come into existence.”
4 tn Grk “for the purification of the Jews.”
5 tn Grk “holding two or three metretes” (about 75 to 115 liters). Each of the pots held 2 or 3 μετρηταί (metrhtai). A μετρητῆς (metrhths) was about 9 gallons (40 liters); thus each jar held 18-27 gallons (80-120 liters) and the total volume of liquid involved was 108-162 gallons (480-720 liters).
sn Significantly, these jars held water for Jewish ceremonial washing (purification rituals). The water of Jewish ritual purification has become the wine of the new messianic age. The wine may also be, after the fashion of Johannine double meanings, a reference to the wine of the Lord’s Supper. A number have suggested this, but there does not seem to be anything in the immediate context which compels this; it seems more related to how frequently a given interpreter sees references to the sacraments in John’s Gospel as a whole.
6 tn Grk “They answered and said to him.” This has been simplified in the translation to “They replied.”
7 tn Or “From birth you have been evil.” The implication of this insult, in the context of John 9, is that the man whom Jesus caused to see had not previously adhered rigorously to all the conventional requirements of the OT law as interpreted by the Pharisees. Thus he had no right to instruct them about who Jesus was.
8 tn Grk “and are you teaching us?”
9 sn See the note on Pharisees in 1:24.
10 tn Grk “heard these things.”
11 tn Grk “and said to him.”
12 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 English (here the tag is “are we?”).
13 tn Grk “are” (present tense).
14 tn Or “the sheep did not hear them.”
15 sn The parenthetical note And the scripture cannot be broken belongs to Jesus’ words rather than the author’s. Not only does Jesus appeal to the OT to defend himself against the charge of blasphemy, but he also adds that the scripture cannot be “broken.” In this context he does not explain precisely what is meant by “broken,” but it is not too hard to determine. Jesus’ argument depended on the exact word used in the context of Ps 82:6. If any other word for “judge” had been used in the psalm, his argument would have been meaningless. Since the scriptures do use this word in Ps 82:6, the argument is binding, because they cannot be “broken” in the sense of being shown to be in error.
16 tn Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the residents of Jerusalem who had heard about the resurrection of Lazarus and as a result were embracing Jesus as Messiah. See also the note on the phrase “Judeans” in v. 9.
map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
17 tn Grk “They answered and said to him.”
18 tn Grk “this one.”
19 tn Or “an evildoer”; Grk “one doing evil.”
20 tn Or “would not have delivered him over.”
21 sn The other disciple (the ‘beloved disciple’) ran on ahead more quickly than Peter, so he arrived at the tomb first. This verse has been a chief factor in depictions of John as a young man (especially combined with traditions that he wrote last of all the gospel authors and lived into the reign of Domitian). But the verse does not actually say anything about John’s age, nor is age always directly correlated with running speed.
22 tn Grk “and came first to the tomb.”