¹ sn Pharisees were members of one of the most important and influential religious and political parties of Judaism in the time of Jesus. There were more Pharisees than Sadducees (according to Josephus, Ant. 17.2.4 [17.42] there were more than 6,000 Pharisees at about this time). Pharisees differed with Sadducees on certain doctrines and patterns of behavior. The Pharisees were strict and zealous adherents to the laws of the OT and to numerous additional traditions such as angels and bodily resurrection.

² sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.

³ sn Passover. According to John’s sequence of material, considerable time has elapsed since the feast of 5:1. If the feast in 5:1 was Pentecost of a.d. 31, then this feast would be the Passover of a.d. 32, just one year before Jesus’ crucifixion.

⁴ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.

⁵ tn Or “feast of the Tents” (the feast where people lived in tents or shelters, which was celebrated in the autumn after harvest). John’s use of σκηνοπηγία (skhnophgia) for the feast of Tabernacles constitutes the only use of this term in the New Testament.

⁶ sn Since the present verse places these incidents at the feast of Tabernacles (a.d. 29 or 32, depending on whether one dates the crucifixion in a.d. 30 or 33) there would have been a 6-month interval during which no events are recorded. The author is obviously selective in his approach; he is not recording an exhaustive history (as he will later tell the reader in John 21:25). After healing the paralytic on the Sabbath in Jerusalem (John 5:1-47), Jesus withdrew again to Galilee because of mounting opposition. In Galilee the feeding of the 5,000 took place, which marked the end of the Galilean ministry for all practical purposes. John 7:1-9 thus marks Jesus’ final departure from Galilee.

⁷ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author. It was necessary for the author to reaffirm Jesus’ love for Martha and her sister and Lazarus here because Jesus’ actions in the following verse appear to be contradictory.

⁸ tn Or “three kilometers”; Grk “fifteen stades” (a stade as a unit of linear measure is about 607 feet or 187 meters).

⁹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.