John 7:21-23

7:21 Jesus replied, ¹  “I performed one miracle ²  and you are all amazed. ³  7:22 However, because Moses gave you the practice of circumcision ⁴  (not that it came from Moses, but from the forefathers), you circumcise a male child ⁵  on the Sabbath. 7:23 But if a male child ⁶  is circumcised ⁷  on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses is not broken, ⁸  why are you angry with me because I made a man completely well ⁹  on the Sabbath?

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¹ tn Grk “Jesus answered and said to them.”

² tn Grk “I did one deed.”

³ sn The “one miracle” that caused them all to be amazed was the last previous public miracle in Jerusalem recorded by the author, the healing of the paralyzed man in John 5:1-9 on the Sabbath. (The synoptic gospels record other Sabbath healings, but John does not mention them.)

⁴ tn Grk “gave you circumcision.”

⁵ tn Grk “a man.” While the text literally reads “circumcise a man” in actual fact the practice of circumcising male infants on the eighth day after birth (see Phil 3:5) is primarily what is in view here.

⁶ tn Grk “a man.” See the note on “male child” in the previous verse.

⁷ tn Grk “receives circumcision.”

⁸ sn If a male child is circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses is not broken. The Rabbis counted 248 parts to a man’s body. In the Talmud (b. Yoma 85b) R. Eleazar ben Azariah (ca. a.d. 100) states: “If circumcision, which attaches to one only of the 248 members of the human body, suspends the Sabbath, how much more shall the saving of the whole body suspend the Sabbath?” So absolutely binding did rabbinic Judaism regard the command of Lev 12:3 to circumcise on the eighth day, that in the Mishnah m. Shabbat 18.3; 19.1, 2; and m. Nedarim 3.11 all hold that the command to circumcise overrides the command to observe the Sabbath.

⁹ tn Or “made an entire man well.”