CHAPTER 1

1. Originally, there existed the Expression, and the Expression was with Elohim, and the Expression was elohim.

Originally: or, in the beginning, a direct allusion to the creation account in Gen. 1:1. Expression: Greek, logos: the substantive idea behind all particulars, which gives the universe coherence; a precise thought ready to be expressed; a speaker's self-revelation and what lies behind his words. The Aramaic targums interpose this concept of His Memra (“living Word”), this aspect of YHWH’s nature that “was given a life of its own” and was the mediator whenever YHWH needed to appear to men, so that they would not be destroyed by exposure to YHWH’s full force. (Verse 18 below fits well with this concept.) It was, in a sense, within YHWH, yet distinguishable from Him. This is how the Renewed Covenant portrays this unique man, Y’shua. Elohim: the first occurrence here has the definite article, denoting a proper title of YHWH; the second does not, denoting “of the same character as Elohim”. (Some render it “divine” for lack of a better translation, though this term is a pagan one.)  When referring to Genesis 31:13, Philo agrees: “Holy Scripture…indicates that it is the true Elohim that is meant by the use of the article…Without the article,…what He here calls elohim is His most ancient Word.” (On Dreams 1:229-230)

2. This same one was with Elohim at the origin.

Origin: of the universe; the Rabbis long believed both the Messiah and Torah existed prior to creation of our world. Philo, an Egyptian Jew who lived a generation before Yeshua, identified the Logos with YHWH's “firstborn son”, "the second YHWH", so to speak, a mediator between YHWH and man as ambassador and interpreter, and the Ideal Man, thus an entity both united with Elohim and distinct from Him, as we see in His earlier titles such as the Arm of YHWH, the Righteous Branch, and YHWH's Right Hand. All of YHWH’s fullness is embodied in Him. (Col. 1:19; 2:9) Philo also writes, “There is *one* true God only; but they who are called "Gods" are numerous [Gen. 31`:13]; on which account the holy scripture on the present occasion indicates that it is *the* (only) true God that is meant by the use of the article, the expression being, "I am *the* God (ho Theos)"; but when the word is used [alternately], it is put without the article with the expression being, "He who was seen by you in the place", *not* of *the* God (tou Theou), but simply "of God" (Theou). And what He calls "God" (without the article) is His chief Word....” [On Dreams, Book 1. 227-230] Playfair writes, “The distinction between the single Creator referred to as "the God" (ton Theon) and His firstborn Word called "God" (Theos) is not found again throughout the rest of the chapter or the book of John, therefore it is unnecessary to further distinguish the two in this manner.”

3. Through it everything came into being, and without it not even one thing that was created came into being.

Through it: literally him, but simply because logos is a masculine term and there is no neuter form in Greek. Philo describes YHWH as ruling and controlling creation through His Word, His instrument of creation, whom He set over creation as His viceroy, and of actually having patterned mankind after the “Archetype, the Word of the First Cause”. (“On Dreams” I:241; “Noah’s Work as a Planter” I:8-9; 18-20; “On Creation” XLVIII:139) Paul says it is in Him that “all things hold together”. (Col. 1:17)  

4. In it was life, and the life was the Light of humankind,

Philo (“On Dreams” I:75, 239) describes the Logos as “light, in fact”, saying that “just as those who are unable to see the sun itself, see the gleam of the perihelion and take it for the sun… so some regard the image of YHWH, His messenger, the Word, as His very self.” It is easy to see why when Gentiles strong-armed the Jews out of church leadership, this conclusion would come to be prevalent.  

5. and the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overtaken it.

Overtaken: overcome, seized hold of, or taken into itself, made its own. The Qumran community, as evidenced by many of the Dead Sea Scrolls, had a strong emphasis on the war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness.  This "light shining in darkness" is the description of creation within Jewish mysticism, in which the Endless One, wanting to share Himself, yet being All in all, created a "vacuum"--a space within Himself, yet that was "not Himself", so He could fill it with creatures who could know and enjoy Him. A mother's womb is an excellent illustration of this idea. Into this empty space, He sent a single point of light, the maximum amount of His nature that this new universe could tolerate. But Y'shua said that we, like Himself, could be the "light of the world", having been "chosen in Him before the foundation of the world". (Eph. 1:4) This light, the rabbis say, was what YHWH created first as a means of sustaining life before there were “lights” like the sun, since the grass and trees were created before the sun was. Yochanan is saying, in an allegorical manner, that Y’shua is as important as the light that upheld all of creation. If we do not learn the lessons He came to bring, then all of creation will have been brought into being for nothing. He overstates his point with such hyperbole so that those who have studied these deeper mystical things will make the connection that the arrival of Y’shua meant we were on the threshold of a “new creation”. For the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which had ceased to exist, it is no less than a new creation! He recreates the House of Yoseyf through the One sent to seek out and rescue the “lost sheep of the House of Israel”. (Luke 19:9-10; Mat. 15:24) The sovereignty of Yehudah will also be restored through Y’shua. (See note on v. 14.)

6. There arose a man, sent by Elohim, whose name was Yochanan. 

Yochanan: Not the same Yochanan who authored this account.  Yochanan means “YHWH has shown favor”.

7. This [man] came for the purpose of being a witness, in order that he might give testimony concerning that Light, so that all might put their trust in the Light because of him.

Testimony: or evidence.

8. Not that he himself was the Light, but rather that he might bear witness concerning the Light:

9. He was the real Light, who gives light to everyone who comes into the world.  

Real light: Light as we think of it is an allegory of His nature, its prototype. Philo described YHWH as the model or archetype for His Word, who is the model for everything else.

10. He was in the world, and through Him the world came into being, yet the world did not perceive who He was.

Through Him: as the Expression of YHWH (v. 1), not as the man in which form it was now embodied. Though He in this sense was the means of YHWH’s creation (He spoke the “word”), Y’shua is still called the “beginning (commencer, first in a series) of Elohim’s creation” (Rev. 3:14) and the “first brought forth of any created thing” (Colossians 1:15), so we must not call Him the Creator, for that would be idolatry. 

11. He came to what was His own, but His own [people] would not receive Him.

His own (neuter plural): probably the world, which he helped make. (v. 10) His own people (masculine in Gk.): not his whole tribe of Yehudah, as is often assumed, which has led to much anti-Semitism, for a great many of them did receive him eagerly and still do today; rather, this Gospel emphasizes his Judean connections (e.g., 4:44) more than his Galilean upbringing, as the other gospels do (Mat. 13:54-57; Mk. 6:1-4; Luke 4:23-24). Dr. Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg suggests that Yeshua was both affiliated with and sharply critical of the Judean sub-group of Pharisees and others who had been given authority by Queen Alexandra Salome of Jerusalem over a hundred years earlier as administrators of public affairs, especially spiritual (Josephus, Jewish Wars 1:5:2; cf. Yoch. 9:22; 12:42; 16:2), and the term “Judeans” as it appears throughout the rest of the book seems to refer to them and all (even in outlying regions like Galilee) who accepted their authority to “bind and loose” and banish from the synagogues. 

12. But to whoever did receive Him--those who put their trust in His name--to them He gave the right to become children of Elohim,

Children: or “sons of Elohim”, the very title YHWH had promised would be given to those He temporarily punished by being “not a people”—the tribes that had left Yehudah. (Hos. 1:9-10)

13. who were "born", not because of bloodline, fleshly desire, or human intention, but from YHWH.

14. And the Word was given physical manifestation and encamped temporarily among us, and we closely inspected His glory—the radiant shining that comes from the presence of the Father's only-begotten Son, overflowing with empowering favor and truth.

Physical manifestation: possibly similar to the Malbim’s concept of hitgalmut (incarnation). In other words, what YHWH intended actually did come about. This is not the first time YHWH was manifested as a man (for he—as the “Messenger YHWH” appeared to many, including Avraham), but these cases were always momentary and did not begin from infancy as He did in this case. Encamped temporarily: pictured by the temporary dwellings at the Feast of Booths/Sukkoth, when He was born, also foreshadowing the age when YHWH will dwell permanently among His people. Glory, radiant shining: aspects of the image of Elohim that had been retracted when Adam sinned, but the Second Adam regained them. Only-begotten son: probably a Greek translation of the Hebrew “yachid”, which means “unique” and specially-beloved, as Yitzhaq was to Avraham, as if his only son, though he actually had other sons. Yeshua bears a special relationship to the Father since he never fell into sin, but faithfully maintained the image of Elohim that Adam (the only other “son of Elohim” who was ever without sin) did not. This term is also used in a special sense of the king of Israel, being first used this way of Shlomo. (Psalm 2:7; 1 Chron. 22:10; 28:6) This is the chief relation Yeshua will have to us. This is not saying Y'shua was the logos; it is saying instead that the "word"--the all the ideas that constitute both creation and the Torah--was "stuck" inside YHWH's mouth, so to speak, until it was fleshed out and brought back "down to earth"--at least for us, who were no longer in a position where the word was so near to us, "on our tongues and in our hearts". We had been so long in a pagan context where the deeper things were always seen as mysterious and far away, so it was as if the word had moved back to heaven, part of YHWH's hiding His face from us because of our sins. If the Father was not manifested again for the House of Israel, how could we know Him? So we are told that the "son" manifests Him. (Yoch. 1:18, the same verse that severely restricts how verse 1 of the same chapter can be understood.) He embodied the Torah by living it out. He makes known to us as much about the Father as our finite beings can tolerate, so that Yeshua can indeed say "He who has seen me has seen the Father" without contradicting the fact that he is another entity sent by the Father, who worships the Father as his Elohim and promises to one day raise us to his level. (1 Yochanan 3:2) He said, "I am the light of the world", and Christians made a mystery doctrine out of that. But he also said, "You are the light of the world." So his "incarnating" of the "word" was not meant to be unique. Yeshua did not intend to be the lone focus, but to be "the firstborn among many brothers" who are conformed to His image. (Romans 8:9) That again emphasizes being brought back into the orderly form that we allowed to become distorted. Not until we flesh out "the word", in the form of the Torah, can it benefit other lost Israelites who are groping in the dark for the way back home. When we live as YHWH said to live, we are again living in His image and we, too, make the Father manifest to them, and the new creation for which they long can begin, because He Himself is that light they are searching for. As Yeshua said, "This is eternal life: that they may know You." (Yochanan 17)

15. Yochanan bore witness concerning Him, when he called out, "This is the One of whom I said, ‘The One coming after me has come to be ahead of me, because He existed before me.'" 

Though physically Yochanan preceded Him by six months, in 8:58 Yeshua claims to have existed before Avraham. The life-force that Y’shua embodied (the creation that did not rebel) existed before there was time.

16. And out of His fullness we have all received, and empowering favor on top of empowering favor,

His fullness: He was the complete white light which was refracted into many colors, which make up His “Body”. Each of us is given gifts (related in Greek to the word for “empowering favor”) that help this whole Body work together, but all comes from him who is the Head. (Eph. 4:16)  

17. because the Torah was given through Moshe; the empowering and the actual [accomplishment] came into manifestation through Yeshua the Messiah.

Torah: described here in Greek as nomos; in Hebrew it means “instruction”. Empowering favor and the actual accomplishment: the ability to carry out the instruction and bring it to fulfillment, as Moshe (whose name Yeshua uses as a shorthand for the whole Torah) could only bring us to the brink of the Promised Land, but the first Y’hoshua brought us all the way to our inheritance. Note that Torah is not presented as in opposition to favor (popularly "grace"), but is one form of favor upon which another form is piled, with Torah as its foundation. (v. 16) Actual: alt., simply, truth, which are David’s description of YHWH's instruction and commands (Ps. 119:142, 151). This might possibly be an allusion to Psalm 85:10.  

18. No one has ever seen YHWH; but the only-begotten Son, who is close at the Father's side—He has made Him known. 

This verse places strict parameters on how we interpret the first few verses of the chapter. It removes any basis for equating Yeshua with YHWH, since he was seen by many. But He shows us exactly what YHWH is like. Philo wrote, "The Logos is to YHWH as the corona is to the sun...which man can look upon when he cannot look directly on the sun itself...The Logos is that alone which can be seen of YHWH...In and through (him), YHWH reaches out to His creation." He is also described as “the outshining of YHWH’s glory”. (Heb. 1:3)


19. Here is Yochanan's testimony: When the Judeans sent priests and Levites from Yerushalayim to ask him, "Who are you?",

Judeans: not just any people from Judea, but specifically the Temple-centered Pharisees, scribes, and Sanhedrin, which for the past century had ruled on public and especially religious matters and had power to banish people from the synagogues (not just religious but community centers outside of Jerusalem) or re-admit them according to their standards, and who wanted to ensure that Yochanan (and later Yeshua) recognized them as “gatekeepers” and submitted to their authority, as they wanted all Jews to do. These are the ones this Gospel and others specifically pit many of Yeshua’s statements against, not the Jewish people in general, many of whom gladly received the messages of both of these servants of YHWH. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

20. he confessed unequivocally, "I am not the Messiah."

21. "Then who are you?", they asked. "Are you Eliyahu?" And he said, "No, I am not." "Are you ‘The Prophet' ?" And he answered, "No."

Eliyahu: see Mal. 4:5. The prophet: the one who would be like Moshe. (Deut. 18:15) While Moshe may not have intended it to mean there would only be one such prophet like him in history, but possibly one or more in every generation as needed, people in Yeshua's day commonly interpreted it as referring to a particular individual.

22. They said to him, "Who are you? We need to know so we can give an answer to the ones who dispatched us. What do you have to say about yourself?"

Their  rapid-fire “rhetorical questions (v. 21) were really a statement from Jerusalem about John’s lack of proper credentials.” Compare 10:24. (Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

23. He answered, "I am ‘a voice crying in the uninhabited land, ‘Clear YHWH’s path! Level off a highway for our Elohim!', as the prophet Yeshayahu said ."

Yeshayahu: the reference is to 40:3. It continues, “…in the Aravah”, the “transitional” area between desert and arable land, but which especially refers to the Great Rift Valley, which includes the Yarden River, where Yochanan was immersing.  The Qumran community believed themselves to be the fulfillment of this prophecy (Dead Sea Scrolls 1QS 8:12b-16a; 9:19-20), and many believe Yochanan may have been raised in this community after his parents were assassinated, but left it when he understood his special calling. (Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

24. Those who had been sent were from the Prushim, 

Prushim: or "Pharisees", the lay successors of the Hasidim, or "loyal ones", who rigorously applied the Torah to all of life. They accepted the Oral Torah as YHWH's Word, and so added many fences to the written Torah, but tried to keep them practicable. Their name means "separated ones", as they would not eat with someone who did not tithe. Their rival sects ceased to be viable after the Temple's destruction, so their interpretation of the Torah prevailed and developed, via the Talmud, into the Judaism of today.

25. and they asked him, "If you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor ‘The Prophet', what are you doing ritually immersing people?"

Ritual immersion (t'vilah) was used on many occasions to signify a change in spiritual status, most commonly when ending a period of ritual uncleanness so they could again participate in the Temple services. A complete immersion, even of the hair, was required in order to correctly present a picture of death and resurrection to a new status. The one who administered it did not physically immerse the person, but acted as a witness that the person had immersed himself properly and fully.  What are you doing: i.e., “Who gave you authority? (We certainly did not!)” Yochanan, like Yeshua, saw his authority as based on YHWH’s approval, not theirs. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

26. Yochanan answered them by saying, "I am immersing them in water, but in your midst stands someone whom you don't know.

27. He is the One who is coming after me, who has come to rank ahead of me—one whose sandal-thong I am not worthy to unlatch!"

This may be an allusion to the ceremony in which a nearer kinsman who has relinquished his primary right to redeem a widow with no son or a piece of land lost to the family due to debt has his shoe removed by the one he should have redeemed. (Deut. 25:9-10) In Ruth 4:8, however, it appears that in time the next of kin to whom the right of redemption passed came to be the one who would remove the other’s sandal. Yochanan says that, although Y’shua is not as old as he, He is more deserving of the honor of redeeming Israel’s lost sheep, and he is not willing to challenge His position, for Y’shua fully intended to fulfill His obligation.

28. These events took place in Beyth-Avarah on the other side of the Yarden, where Yochanan was immersing. 

Beyth-Avarah: “Place of Crossing Over”, probably the same place where Yehoshua had led the Israelites into Kanaan after Moshe's death--a similar picture of dying to the old and coming into a new status (cf. Matt. 3:9).

29. The next day Yochanan noticed Yeshua coming toward him and said, "Look! The Elohim's lamb, who turns away the sin of the world!

The next day: Follow the succession of days; it has prophetic significance. Matithyahu 3:11ff in Hebrew strongly suggest that the day He was immersed was the inauguration of the 40 days of repentance that precede Yom Kippur. But this may be a later time. (cf. v. 32), probably six months later. (2:14-17) Elohim’s lamb: possibly the one Avraham was promised (Gen. 22:8), coming "after him", as what appeared at that time was a ram, not a lamb. Likewise Yochanan’s emphasis here may be on YHWH Himself providing the Lamb, as Avraham had prophesied. Turns away: or turns aside, causes to shun or avoid.  Shmuel Playfair writes, “this is the conquering lamb who overcomes the evil beasts and crushes them underfoot, as we read in “the Testament of Joseph” found in the apocryphal scriptures. [19.8] Yeshua is also identified as the lamb who conquers evil in the book of Revelation. Here the lamb is portrayed as the leader who will crush the evil powers of the earth. [cf.7.17; 17.14]…The lamb who destroys, eliminates or takes away sin has nothing to do with the much later Christian doctrine of “substitutionary sacrifice”. John's portrayal of Yeshua as the lamb who will destroy (conquer) or eliminate sin in the world is collaborated by John's messages of warning regarding the coming wrath of God against sin: "Even now the ax is laid at the root of the tree. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire". [cf. Luke 3.7-9] And John warns that the one who is more powerful than himself has "his winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing flour and to gather the wheat..., but he will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire". [cf. Luke 3.16-17] Also, … note the parallel meaning of "take away" and "destroy" found in 1 John where we read, "The reason he (Yeshua) revealed himself was to *take away* (conquer) sins" and "the son of God revealed himself to *destroy* the devil's works". [3.5,8]”

30. "This is the man about whom I said earlier, 'After me is coming a man who has come to be before me, because he existed prior to me.'

Yochanan was born six months before Yeshua, but the Word of Elohim, which he embodied (verses 1-3 above), existed prior to creation. Thus one born in Beyth Lekhem is said to have had origins in antiquity. (Mikha 5:1)  

31. "And I did not know him, but in order that he should be revealed to Israel—that is the reason I came ritually immersing people in water."

32. And Yochanan bore witness, saying, "I have seen the Spirit descending as [like] a dove out of the heavens, and it settled upon Yeshua.  

Settled: or rested, alighted: a fulfillment of “A twig will shoot forth from Yishai, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit, and the Spirit of YHWH will alight upon Him--the spirit of wisdom and discernment, the spirit of counsel and bravery, the spirit of knowledge and the [reverential] fear of YHWH.” (Yeshayahu/Isaiah 11:1, 2) The Aramaic targum interprets this "branch" specifically as the Messiah, so this event is the visible sign that Y’shua is the one being spoken of by the prophet.  An alighting dove associated with a twig appears in the story of Noakh after the Flood (Gen. 8), and has come to be a symbol of safety, hope, peace, and a future—exactly what Yeshua brought. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

33. "And I did not know him, but He who sent me to immerse in water—He had told me, "Whomever you see the Spirit descending and settling upon—he is the one who immerses people into a spirit of holiness.

Spirit of holiness: The only place other than the Renewed Covenant where this term was widely used in that time was in the sectarian writings of Qumran, from which this Yochanan may have come out. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

34. "And I have seen, and borne witness, that this man is the Son of Elohim." 

Son of Elohim: A previously-recognized title of the Messiah, as the antitype to the Kings of Israel, who were also given this title (e.g. Psalm 2:7).

35. Again on the next morning [the third day], Yochanan and two of his disciples were standing there,

36. and noticing Yeshua walking nearby, he said, "Look! It's Elohim's own Lamb!" 

Elohim’s own Lamb: The Lamb Avraham said Elohim Himself would provide; Gen. 22:8, 13. He was the antitype to all the lambs people who sinned had to sacrifice, and to the Passover lamb without spot or blemish. This time Elohim was the one who would sacrifice a Lamb. (Compare Yeshayahu 53:7)

37. And the two disciples understood what he was talking about, and they followed behind Yeshua.

38. But noticing that they were following him, Yeshua turned around and asked them, "What are you looking for?" And they said to him, "Rabbi (which translates as ‘teacher’), where are you staying?"

Rabbi: At that time, the term did not refer only to ordained leaders of a synagogue, but as a title of respect acknowledging that this was someone who had things to teach others. But this may be one of the earliest references to the term, though the office it would later refer to was still in its infancy. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

39. And He said, "Come and see." They went and saw where he was staying, and they remained there with him for the rest of that day. And it was about the tenth hour.

Tenth hour: four o'clock in the afternoon. Aramaic: and ten hours had passed, when...

40. Andreas, one of the two who had heard what Yochanan said and followed Y’shua, had a brother named Shim'on (the one Y’shua would later nickname "the Rock").

41. The first thing he did was to find his brother Shim'on, and he told him, "We have found the Messiah [which by translation is known as the "Anointed One"].

42. And he led him to where Yeshua was. When he saw him, Y’shua said, "You are Shim'on, the son of Yonah; you will be called Kefa. 

Kefa: Aramaic for the Greek Petros, or Peter, "the Rock". 

43. On the next day Y’shua decided to go out to the Galil, and there he discovered a man named Filippos, and told him, "Follow me!"

The next day: the fourth day described here. Galil: or Galilee, a mountainous region west of Lake Kinnereth, separated from Yehudah/Judea by Samaria, with the Yezreel Valley as its southern boundary. Filippos means “horse-lover”.

44. And Filippos was from Beyth-Tzaida, the town Andrew and Kefa came from.

Beyth-Tzaida: “House of Fishing” or “Fishermen”, built by Herodus the Tetrarch and named Julias by him, in honor of Caesar Augustus’ daughter Julia. It is on the shoreline of Lake Kinnereth where the Jordan River feeds into it from the north, and very close to Kfar Nahum.

45. Filippos found Nathan’el ["Elohim gave"] and told him, "We have found Y’shua the Natzri, the Son of Yoseyf!"

How would they have known Yeshua's adoptive father was named Yoseyf? More likely, this was a reference to the Messiah Ben-Yoseyf, the first of two expected Messiahs, as some saw it--the one who would suffer for the sake of Israel, Yeshayahu 53. Natzri: one from Natzereth, with perhaps a Hebrew play on the word n’tziri, which means “Faithfully-guarded or preserved”.

46. And Nathan’el said, "Can anything beneficial come from Natzereth?" 

Natzereth was then an insignificant and infamous suburb of Tsippori/Sepphoris, the Roman capital of the Galil.  Filippos said to him, "Come and see." Come from: alt., “Come out of”, for some believe it was an Essene colony, and no one of any caliber of piety would leave there.  Others say it was the home of a number of sons of Dawid who had moved up from Beyth Lekhem.

47. When Yeshua saw Nathan’el coming toward him, he said concerning him, "Behold, this man is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceitfulness!"

Israelite: a true son of Yaaqov after his character was changed, or perhaps a specific reference to one from the Northern Kingdom, which retained the name Israel when the kingdom split. Yeshua specifically said He had only come for the “lost sheep of the House of Israel”. (Mat. 15:24) He is alluding to Yeshayahu 63:9.  He might say “Israelite” and not “Jew” because his intended audience included many Samaritans, who were not Jews but were remnants of the Northern Kingdom who had not been exiled. This emphasis on Israel rather than the Jews alone is also seen in v. 49. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

48. Nathan’el asked him, "Where do you know me from?" Yeshua answered him, "Before Filippos went to call you, I saw you under the fig tree." 

He is saying, "I know you are righteous because I have already seen you in the Messianic Kingdom, when 'everyone will sit under his own vine and his own fig tree'." --Mic. 4:4; Zech. 3:8. This could also be an allusion to Proverbs 27:18: "He who watches his fig tree shall eat its fruit; likewise, he who watches for his master is honored."

49. Nathan’el answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of Elohim! You are the King of Israel!"

Son of Elohim…King of Israel: Both titles were common eschatological synonyms for the Messiah in those days. King of Israel: in the direct line for David’s throne, but at present that would only qualify Him to be King of Yehudah, which is what He would later be called derogatorily. But for one from Yehudah to be King of Israel necessitates the reunification of both Houses of Israel, the very thing He was sent to do. (Yeshayahu 49:6; Acts 1:6)

50. Yeshua responded by saying, "Do you believe because I said I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these!"

51. He told him further, "Truly, truly, I tell you, from this time forth you will see Heaven opened, and messengers ascending and descending on the Son of Man! 

He is the route to the truest House of Elohim, linking YHWH and man, which Yaaqov's dream pictured. (Gen. 28:12) In the Temple, Levites would stand on the stairway and chant psalms while the priests oversaw the slaughter of sacrifices and offerings, but after they ascended to Yerushalayim for their two weeks’ stint of service each year in the Temple, they would descend again to their local regions and teach those who lived there about the things of YHWH. So these messengers are not necessarily “angelic” beings. Yeshua indeed likens his body to the Temple in the next chapter, and his “other” Body—those who complete the restoration of the fallen Adam, of which he is the Head—is also called a Temple of YHWH. (1 Cor. 3:17; Eph. 2:21) Beyth El was what Yaaqov called the place where he had his dream. (Gen. 28) The Samaritans considered that to be the same as Mt. G’rizim, where they built their temple. They accepted the leading role of Yehudah, since the Torah stipulated this in Gen. 49:10, but not of Dawid’s family, since 2 Shmu’el 7:8-9 was not included in their canon. That they were one of Yochanan’s target audiences may be why he emphasizes the terms “Son of Man” and “King of [all] Israel” rather than “Son of Dawid” as is common in the other Gospels. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)


CHAPTER 2

1. On the third day there was a wedding in Kfar Kana in the Galil, and Yeshua's mother was in attendance.

Kfar Kana: a stone's throw east of Natzereth.

2. And Yeshua and his disciples were also invited.

3. And, since they had run short of wine, Yeshua's mother told him, "They have no wine."

Wine: the Aramaic clarifies that it was indeed fermented.

4. And Yeshua said to her, "What [does that have] to [do with] Me and you, woman? My hour has not arrived yet. 

What is that to Me and you: He does not perform on demand or even necessarily meet felt needs. As part of our redemption from the curse, a major responsibility was to be sure He did not heed the voice of the woman as Adam did, starting the whole process of disorder in the human race. So quite literally, here, Y’shua deliberately distances Himself from her advice, though He ends up doing what she wanted. He does everything according to a schedule set by His Father, a series of appointments written into the Hebrew calendar far in advance. We, too, need to await His timing and not rush ahead of Him. My hour: compare 7:30; 8:20; 12:23, 27; 13:1; 17:1; Luke 19:44. Since this is shortly before Passover (v. 12-13), this incident may have come on the third day (v. 1) of the religious year, which begins at the New Moon just prior to Passover. A new year cannot be declared at that new moon unless the unmistakable sign, some Aviv (green barley that will be ripe enough to harvest by the day after the Sabbath following Passover), is found by then. He did not believe the time was yet ripe, but there must have been some firstfruits ready to bring, though the rest of the harvest was not ready. (For this was the firstfruits of His signs, v. 11; see also note on v. 6.) Woman: Not a rude way to address a mother in those days. Yet Trimm renders His question, “What do we have in common?” He is beginning to manifest the leaving of His mother for the sake of His bride. (Mat. 19:5; compare Mat. 10:37)

5. His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever He tells you."

She submits to His rebuke, yet still indirectly presses Him to act.

6. And there were six stone water jars standing there, according to the requirements for the Jewish purification rituals, each containing two or three baths.

Jewish purification rituals: or Judean method of ceremonial washings, to which the Galileans would defer if guests came from Judea. Or this may have been a town where the Judean methods (not as simple as the Galilean adherence more to the plain commands of Torah) were already practiced. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)  Some believe they were related to the water mixed with the ashes of the red heifer, which was used for the purification of the high priests. They may have been added to a miqveh (ritual bath pool) to render the rest of the water “living”. Numbers 19:17-19 specifies that” for the ceremonially unclean they shall take the ashes from where the sin offering was burnt, along with living water in a vessel, and a ceremonially clean man shall take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle it …on the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh. Then on the seventh day, he shall purify him[self] from uncleanness, launder his clothes, and bathe himself in water. Then he shall be ceremonially pure at evening.” This was the third day (v. 1) and Yeshua was the only truly “clean man” alive at that time. But it is also the seventh day in the succession of days recorded in chapter 1. Thus while by one count the time was not ripe, by another it was, so He honored His mother’s request. Baths, Gk., metretas: The historian Josephus says they are the same and each contained about 8.5 gallons (40 liters). Ezra 7:22 tells us that 10 baths are equal to a liquid khomer. A bath is thus the liquid equivalent of an eyfah (stated overtly in Yehezqel 45:11). An eyfah is ten omers (the amount of seed fruit produced by ten arm-load sheaves of standing grain), and thus symbolizes a whole congregation and a tithe of the world. Thus the total was at least 12 baths (which also means "daughters" in Hebrew).  

7. Yeshua told them to fill the jars with water, and they filled them to the rim.

8. And he said, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast, and they took it to him.

Master of the feast: literally, of the three-couched tables, as distinct from the toastmaster, the guest selected by lot to prescribe the mode of drinking; it was the former's duty to taste the wine before it was served.

9. And when the master of the feast tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it had come from (though the servants who drew the water knew), he called the bridegroom

10. and told him, "Everybody else puts out the better wine first, then uses the lower-grade after the guests have drunk enough. But you have kept the better wine until now!"

Drunk enough: i.e., to not notice it anymore. Water symbolizes the Word of YHWH, the Torah; wine symbolizes joy. Turning water into wine symbolizes making the Torah a thing of pure joy. Saving the best for last is a picture of the Kingdom, which comes like a Sabbath after the week of humdrum, ordinary days.  

11. This, his opening sign [of a series], Y’shua did in Kana of the Galil, and it plainly evidenced his authority; thus his disciples came to have confidence in him.

Sign: a portent of remarkable events about to happen, as well as a mark of authenticity. Plainly evidenced: made manifest, made what was latent actual and overt, realized, made recognizable. His supremacy: or superiority over everyone else (v. 10; compare 10:8)


12. After this, he went down to Kfar Nahum—he and his mother, his brothers, and his disciples, that is. And he did not stay there for very many days,

Kfar Nahum means "village of consolation" or "comfortable town".  It is on the northern shore of Lake Kinnereth, which is down from the mountains to this lakeshore, which is well below sea level.

13. as the Judean Passover was near, so Y’shua went up to Yerushalayim. 

Judean: possibly contrasted with the Samaritan or Tzadoqite (practiced at Qumran) or even based on the new moon rather than a calendar figured in advance as is used today, which might all fall on different dates. Went up to Yerushalayim: as all able-bodied Israelite men are required to do (Ex. 23:17), though the Samaritans disagreed. (ch. 4) 

14. And he found [people] selling oxen, sheep, and doves in the Temple area, and the moneychangers sitting there.

15. And, making a whip out of some ropes, he threw them all out of the Temple courts, both the sheep and oxen and the moneychangers, dumping out the money and overturning the tables.

Temple courts: Aramaic, priestal precincts.

16. And to the ones selling the doves, he said, "Take these things away from here! Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise!"  

He treats the latter more leniently, possibly because doves were sold to those too poor to afford cattle for sacrifices, and thus may not have been overcharging people so exorbitantly. He was fulfilling a duty of the eldest son of a household, cleansing his father's house of all leaven just before Passover. He repeated this act three years later, Matt. 21:12. Merchandise: Compare Zecharyah 14:21.  While the other Gospels emphasize Yeshayahu’s message that the Temple was to be a house of prayer for all nations (as a light to the world), the emphasis in Yochanan seems to be on the purity of the Temple. The Qumran community believed that it was indeed already unfit for divine worship due to the apostate stewards of the sanctuary. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

17. And His disciples remembered that it had been written, "The zeal of your house has consumed Me." [Psalm 69:9]

18. Then the Judean religious leaders responded by saying to him, "What sign will you show us, since You are doing these things?"

Judean: as contrasted with Galileans, who held to a much simpler, Torah-only faith without the complex added religious requirements by which the Judean sects had redefined the Torah lifestyle. Yeshua was trying to call them back to the basic, unvarnished relationship with YHWH. Sign: i.e., to prove His authority, as opposed to their ambition to exclusively rule YHWH’s people. But He had already brought proof to the few who were chosen to have it revealed to them. (v. 11) As the right one in line to be king should David’s throne again become available, he did have some jurisdiction over the financial dealings in the Temple (a precedent set by David Yoshiyahu in 2 Kings 22). 

19. So Yeshua told them, "[All right]; destroy this Temple, and in three days I’ll raise it back up."

20. Then the Jewish leaders said, "Yeah, right. This Temple was 46 years in the building, and you can raise it up in three days?!"

46 years: c. 17-19 B.C., Herodus had begun renovation of the second Temple that was initiated under Ezra and Nehemyah. He greatly enlarged the courts and made it much more splendid. In fact, construction was still in progress when the Temple was destroyed some 43 years later still!

21. But he was talking about the Temple of his body.

Yaaqov set up a stone which was to serve as the cornerstone of the House of Elohim on the site of the Temple. He anointed it with oil, so it represents the Messiah (the “anointed one”), who is indeed called the Chief Cornerstone (Eph. 2:20; Mat. 21:42) of the “house” YHWH is building of “living stones”. (1 Kefa/Peter 2:5)

22. Then when he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled that he had said this to them, and they came to have confidence in the Writings, that is, the [passage] that Y’shua had mentioned.

Writings: In particular, the accuracy of those Scriptures other than the Torah (including the Psalms, which He had quoted), in contrast to the teaching of the Tzadduqim that only the Torah was inspired. (Note His opinion toward another of their teachings in Mat. 22:29; however, on a few points, such as when the firstfruits of barley should be brought, the Tzadduqim were more Scripturally sound than their arch-rivals, the Prushim.)

23. Now since he was in Yerushalayim during the Passover, many, seeing the miracles that he did at the feast, came to trust his reputation,

24. but Yeshua did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all [about them],

Entrust himself to them: speak plainly to them or put himself in their care; Aramaic, commit his soul to them.

25. that is, because he had no need for anyone to tell him about humanity, since he knew what was within human beings. 

What was within: impure motives at worst and an unclear understanding of YHWH's purposes at best. But this knowledge was YHWH’s prerogative alone. (1 Kings 8:39) Thus the Father had given him every aspect of His authority over men. (3:35)


CHAPTER 3

1. However, there was among the Prushim a man named Nakdimon, a chief among the Jewish leaders. 

The Talmud says Nakdimon Ben-Guryon was among the four richest men in Yerushalayim in the second Temple period. Gk., Nicodemus, meaning “conqueror of the people”.  A chief: or ruler, among the Sanhedrin, the highest religious ruling body. (7:50) Unlike some of the Prushim who only wanted to discredit Yeshua, Nakdimon was truly seeking the Kingdom and came to learn from him.

2. This man came to Yeshua by night, and told him, "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from Elohim, because no one is able to perform these signs that you do, unless Elohim is with him.”

By night: possibly so as not to be seen and therefore questioned, for he was only an honored member of the closed network of Judean leaders as long as he complied with their agenda and abided by their rules. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

3. Yeshua responded by saying to him, "It is true and certain, I tell you: Unless someone is born again, he is not able to see the Kingdom of YHWH. 

Born again: or, born from above; Aramaic, birthed from the hierarch. The idea of rebirth is celebrated in the new moon festivals, and, it being night (v. 2), Y’shua was probably gesturing toward the moon as he said these words. The moon disappears for three days, then is “reborn”. The Hebrew word for “month” is “renewal”, and likewise, this renewal is not a one-time event…  

4. Nakdimon said to him, "How is it possible for a man to be born when he is old? He can't enter into his mother's womb a second time and be born, can he?

5. Yeshua answered, "I tell you the absolute truth: If one does not receive birth from water and spirit, he is not able to enter the Kingdom of YHWH.

Water: both the immersion waters of ritual purification, which are a symbol of being buried and “born again” to new life, as well as the letter of the Torah, often symbolized by water yet incomplete without the spirit that underlies them (the theme of Mat. 5-7). This is an allusion to Yehezq’el 36:25-27, where YHWH promises to sprinkle the scattered Israelites with pure water and put a new heart and spirit in them, causing us to walk in His statutes.  Early Eastern Christianity saw baptism as the time that (as with Yeshua’s) the Holy Spirit entered into and transformed a person into a holier person, also paralleling Yeshua’s death and resurrection. (Mary Joan Wynn Leith)  A Talmudic commentary on Exodus 19:16 portrays Rabbi Yossi as saying that the two letter “vavs” missing from the word for “voices” heard on Mt. Sinai represent two voices which come back together as one: water and the spirit, and the term “water” (mayim) in Hebrew often represents the Messiah. (Rabbi Itzhak Shapiro) Thus one needs the spiritual birth of Messiah into oneself to fully live out the Torah given at Sinai in both letter and spirit, which is the basis for the Kingdom.

6. "Whatever receives its birth from natural flesh is natural flesh, and that which receives its birth from the Spirit is spirit.

7. "Don't be amazed because I told you that you must be born again.

8. "The wind blows wherever it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. Everyone who has been born of the Spirit is just like this."

Wind: the same word for "spirit" and "breath" in Hebrew. Wherever it wishes: submitting to YHWH’s leadership alone. (Lizorkin-Eyzeberg) It was YHWH who breathed into Adam the breath of life initially (Gen. 2:7), and Yeshua would breathe the Spirit into his followers after he was promoted to his higher position as head over all creation after having passed all his tests (20:22 below). Our flesh retains Adam’s legacy of fallenness, and must die before we can be resurrected to what we are meant to be, but we can partake of this Spirit even now, and thus participate in the new “human race” that Yeshua made possible by obeying where Adam did not. (e.g., Phil. 2:5ff) As we are born into this constantly-renewing wind, we, like Melkhitzedeq, will seem to have “no beginning and no end” (Heb. 7:3). Melkhitzedeq is identified with Shem, so he originated from Noakh, and we know how old he was when he died, but in the text, when he met Avraham, his lineage is not given. In that sense, he as no parentage, and so it is with those who follow Yeshua. There will be a change in who is counted as our mother and father and sisters and brothers (Mat. 12:50)—possibly more than once! 1 Keyfa 1:22-23 supports this, showing that what being born again through the Word of YHWH and obeying the truth through the spirit means loving one another sincerely and with a pure heart. As we increasingly walk in YHWH’s ways, we will be a mystery to those who do not; they will say, “Where are they coming from?” Those who used to know us will not know where we have gone.  

9. Nakdimon responded to him by saying, "How can these things take come to be?"

10. Yeshua answered him by saying, "You are the teacher of Israel, and even you don't understand these things?

Teacher of Israel: Being a wealthy merchant did not disqualify one from being a rabbi. Yet the position may have been more one of prestige for him, since he did not yet seem to have much spiritual understanding. However, as we follow his life later, we see this changing. Another reason he may not have paid much attention to the cycles of the moon is that there were already people (often Samaritans, about whom we will read in the next chapter) and Boethusian Tzadoqim (who opposed the Prushim) who were interfering with the messengers who spread the word about the new moon throughout the Land by means of fire-signals visible from one city to another. They therefore had moved to a system of calculation of the date of the new moon (not the one currently used among Yehudah, for it was also confirmed by actual sightings). Those not responsible for notifying others of the new moon might therefore have felt they did not need to watch it as closely as earlier generations had. Yeshua is saying, however, that he will therefore miss many of the pictures the moon is intended to teach us (Gen. 1:14), which form a basis for understanding the spiritual principles behind them. (v. 12)

11. "I tell you, one thing is for sure, we talk about what we know, and what we have seen we bear witness to, and you are not grasping what we are telling you.

12. “If I tell you earthly things and you are not persuaded, how will you believe [me] if I tell you heavenly things?

He is not yet ready for the deeper knowledge that comes from above. Yeshua is saying that he has to get these things straight before he can really teach him what it symbolizes.

13. “Indeed, no one has gone up to heaven except him who came down out of heaven—the Son of Adam, who is in heaven.

Is: not was. The Adam Qadmon (“primeval Adam”, in whose image both the first Adam and Yeshua were created) existed since creation in the higher “worlds” in the mystical framework Yochanan so often highlights, and remains there even when the Word is “fleshed out” in the “world of action” (the physical realm).  The book of 1 Hanokh (Enoch) includes several visions of one called the “Son of Adam” as well as “the Elect One” being by the side of the Ancient of Days (YHWH Himself) even before the Flood (and even if that book was not written down until later, as some claim, it existed at least a few centuries before Yeshua was born). It also speaks of the Son of Adam being named before the Lord of Spirits before sun and stars were created. (ch. 48)   Dani’el also uses the same term, but emphasizes that his vision is about the end of the age. Both Y’hezq’El and Hanokh were also called “son of Adam” by heavenly messengers, but the term is used in a special way as referring to the Messiah in 1 Hanokh. 

14. “But just as Moshe lifted up the snake in the desert, in the same way it is necessary for the Son of Adam to be lifted up,

Lifted up: a prophecy about how he would die. The event he alludes to is in Numbers 21:6-9.  What was on the pole resembled what afflicted us (snakes in that case, sinful flesh in ours, for that is what Yeshua was the "likeness" of, though without sin, per Romans 8:3)--the One doing the healing being, of course, YHWH in both cases, using a focus for our faith (Michael Card’s description) which, however, had to ultimately be in YHWH to actually work.  "“Lifted up” may also refer to YHWH’s appointment of Yeshua to rule over Israel (Psalm 2) in lieu of the current shepherds who were proving incompetent for the task. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)
15. “so that anyone who puts confidence in him may not be done away with, but have never-ending life,

16. “because Elohim was committed to this extent  to the welfare of the [inhabitants of the] world, so as to provide His Son (the only one He "fathered"), in order that anyone who puts confidence in him may not be done away with, but have never-ending life,

The only one: or His uniquely-loved son; Aramaic, His only birthed Son. “Fathered”: Many others are His sons by adoption, but only Yeshua shared His nature the same way a son shares his father’s makeup. (1:1) Not since Adam had this been seen on earth (Luke 3:38), and Adam forfeited the image of Elohim when he chose to disobey.

17. “since Elohim did not send His Son into the [inhabited] world for the purpose of passing judgment on civilization, but so that through him the world might be rescued [from destruction].

This judgment will come, and his next coming will be largely for that purpose, but his first coming was to provide an “ark of safety” by which to survive that judgment.

18. “The one who places confidence in him is not condemned, but the one who does not put confidence in him is [even now] already condemned, because he has not placed his confidence into the name of the unique Son of Elohim.

19. “That, then, is the deciding factor: that the light has come into the world, yet people preferred the darkness over the light, because what they were doing was evil,

Deciding factor: point of separation, verdict, watershed.

20. “since someone involved in an evil undertaking detests the light, nor does he come toward the light, so that his actions will not be called to account.

21. On the other hand, someone who is acting [according to] the truth comes toward the light, so that his actions may be shown to be produced by Elohim.”

Truth: in Hebrew, what is firmly rooted in reality, and totally reliable.


22. After these things, Yeshua and His disciples entered the territory of Yehudah, and he was spending time with them and immersing there.

23. Now Yochanan was also immersing in Ainon, near the Salem, since there was ample water there. And [people] were presenting themselves publicly and being immersed,

Ainon: along the Yarden River, meaning “the great spring” in Hebrew.

24. as Yochanan had not yet been thrown into prison.

25. That being the case, there arose a debate among Yochanan’s disciples with the Judeans about [ritual] purification,

Judeans: Often simply translated Jews, but this has tended to breed anti-Semitism, and this was far from representative of all the Jews. There was a notable difference between the Judaism of the Judean rabbis and that practiced in other areas such as Galilee.  Per Rabbi Daniel Boyarin, Yeshua “was a staunch defender of the Torah against what he perceived to be threats to it from the Pharisees [P’rushim]…a kind of reform movement among the Jewish people that was centered on Jerusalem and Judaea. The Pharisees sought to convert other Jews to their way of thinking about God and Torah…that incorporated seeming changes in the written Torah’s practices that were mandated by what the Pharisees called ‘the tradition of the elders’…It is quite plausible, therefore, that other Jews, such as the Galilean [Yeshua], would reject angrily such ideas as an affront top the Torah and a sacrilege.” (The Jewish Gospels)  Peter Schafer notes that “the Galilean peasants allowed themselves to be but little impressed by the religious demands and ideals of rabbis who had come into Galilee from Judea: the rigorous purity and tithe laws of these ‘immigrant rabbis’ could not be enforced in Galilee.” Martin Goodman writes, “ Galileans, it seems, were not prepared to accede to the rabbis’ demands, especially since the rabbis [by] the second century were on the whole artisans unaffected themselves by any of the agricultural laws that they tried to impose on the farmers.” While the Talmud often depicts Galileans as ignorant and backward, Eric Meyers notes that “Josephus… pictures Galilee as mainly consisting of Torah-observant Jews and does not hint at all that Galilee spawned its own sort of assimilated Judaism. [He portrays] them as a people deeply devoted to the Law in theory and practice.” The P’rushim of this day were the precursors to Rabbinic Judaism, which was established as the standard mainly by Rabbi Akiva’s political influence after the two revolts against Rome, and said the rabbis could out-vote even Elohim!

26. and they approached Yochanan and told him, “Rabbi, look! The one who was with you on the other side of the Yarden, about whom you gave testimony—he is [now] immersing, and everyone is coming to him!”

On the other side: Aramaic, at the crossing of the Yarden. Just as Moshe led Israel up to the Yarden but Yehoshua was the one to lead them across, the Yehoshua (for which Y’shua was a shortened, possible Aramaicized, form) had to lead from this point, for Yochanan had done his part:

27. In response, Yochanan said, “A person can by no means receive anything unless it is granted to him out of Heaven.

Receive: Aramaic, take by the will of his soul.

28. “You yourselves are witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but have been sent ahead of him.

29. “The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. Now the bridegroom’s friend, who stands by to hear [his announcement], cheers with gladness when [he hears] the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine has been consummated!

Bridegroom’s friend: a particular title for a role similar to what we call “best man” at weddings today. One of his duties was to stand near the door of the wedding chamber while the guests feasted, and await the groom’s shout that the marriage had been consummated. YHWH said He would allure the people of Israel back out to the wilderness and there speak to their heart. (Hos. 2:16) Yochanan was the attention-getter to bring the people out, but He was not to remain the center of attention. (Yeshayahu/Isa. 62:5)

30. “He [is the one who] has to become greater, while I become less [important].”

31. The one who comes [down from] a higher place is greater than everyone [else]. The one who is from the earth is earthly, and tells about earthly things; the one who comes out of Heaven is greater than everyone [else].

32. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one admits his testimony [as evidence].

33. The one who does accept his testimony has attested to the authenticity [of the fact] that YHWH is [telling the] truth,

The one who does: i.e., Yochanan, who is committing this record to writing. Attested: literally, set his seal upon. Telling the truth: the term includes the connotation of not hiding anything.

34. for the one sent by YHWH utters the word YHWH [has spoken], for YHWH does not bestow the spirit by measure.

I.e., whereas Y’shua measures out gifts to the rest of the members of his Body (Eph. 4:7), YHWH speaks His words to Y’shua without limits, because he is fully tuned in to the right “frequency”, while we, for the time being, understand only in part. (1 Cor. 13:9, 12)

35. The Father loves the Son, and has delivered everything over to his authority to act as agent.

Compare Mat. 28:18. The law of agency allows the agent to make decisions in the name of the one who sent him, indicating his deep trust in the wisdom of the one who is “acting as him” on his behalf. This theme will be prominent throughout the remainder of Yochanan’s account.

36. The one who places confidence in the Son possesses never-ending life, but the one who refuses to be persuaded to comply with the Son will not [make himself available to] see life. Rather, the indignation of YHWH remains on him.


CHAPTER 4

1. Then when the Master knew that the Pharisees had heard, “Yeshua is making and immersing more disciples than Yochanan”

2. (though Yeshua himself was not immersing; only his disciples [were])

3. He left Judea and went away again into the Galil,

He left: He was not in the business of appearing to compete with another who was working toward the same goal. Notice how Paul had the same attitude in Philippians 1:12-18.

4. and he had to pass through Shomron.

He did not skirt Shomron (Samaria) via the land of the Gergeshiins and re-cross the Yarden north of Shomron, as most Jews did then, wanting to avoid the Samaritans, whom they looked down on as semi-pagan. After exiling most of the Northern Kingdom in 72 B.C.E., the king of Ashur (Assyria) transplanted people from other conquered nations to this area to replace the exiled Israelites. They intermarried with the remnant, though the Samaritans have long denied this fact, substantiated by the Assyrian records which are more objective in this case. They say they are the pure descendants of the tribes of Efrayim and Menashe, and there are about 500 remaining today. They had taken on some of the same cultic practices as these other peoples. (2 Kings 17:9) But we know that the newcomers were attacked by wild beasts, and so wished to appease the Elohim of this Land. So Levites were brought in to teach them the Torah.  

5. Thus he came into a city of the Samaritans called Sh’khem, adjacent to the plot of land that Yaaqov had given to his son Yosef.

Samaritans: While Jews called them Kutim (probably based on the region from which the Assyrians brought in foreigners to settle in place of the former Northern Kingdom (e.g., Ezra 4:1-2), the Samaritans called themselves “the sons of Israel” and shomerim (keepers or guardians), rather than merely Shomronim (people of Shomron). There was a small remnant of the Northern Kingdom left ion the land (2 Chron. 30:1-31:6), and they believed they were them. They use a script based on Paleo Hebrew rather than the alphabet Yehudah brought back from Babylon. (Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)  Sh’khem (see photo), where Yosef (ancestor of much of the Northern Kingdom, and father of Efrayim, its nickname) was buried, was rebuilt in the 4th century B.C.E. after long being desolate. After the region of Shomron was completely Hellenized, H.G.M. Williamson suggests that a group of religious purists joined by priests who would have been unwelcome in Yerushalayim due to their having married Northerners made a fresh start where they could practice their religion undisturbed. Sh’khem was the first place Yaaqov settled when returning to the Land, and the place Yehoshua took the whole congregation of Israel before they settled down in their various tribal territories after conquering Kanaan. So what Y’shua does there is very symbolic.  Yaaqov said Yosef would be a fruitful vine climbing over a wall. (Gen.49:22) The suffering Messiah was often called “ben Yosef” and Yeshua called himself the “true vine” (15:1). Here he was crossing over the wall of hostility (cf. Eph. 2:14) to unite two parts of his Kingdom... (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

6. Now Yaaqov’s well was there, so Yeshua, being exhausted from his journey, sat down by the well. Now it was nearly the sixth hour.

Sixth hour: high noon, but not the hottest part of the day, and probably the same time Rakhel brought her flocks to a well. (Gen.29:6-9)  Compare Moshe’s experience in Exodus 2:15ff.

7. A woman from Shomron came out to draw water, and Yeshua said to her, “Provide me with [something] to drink.”

This is the same thing Yitzhaq’s servant had asked Rivqah, as the test of which woman would become the patriarch’s bride. (Genesis 24) Yeshua is clearly alluding to this incident, for He was sent to find His bride among the “lost sheep of the House of Israel”. (Mat. 10:6; 15:24) Williamson speaks of the Jews recognizing “an essential affinity of both race and religion with the Samaritans”. They are the first people outside of Judea to whom Yeshua sent His emissaries. (Acts 1:8) Thus we must deduce that they were definitely descendants of the Northern Kingdom of Israel whom Yeshua had come to recall to the Covenant. (Yeshayahu 49:6) Steve Collins cites evidence that other tribes which had been exiled by the Assyrians actually came back to settle in the Land of Israel just prior to Yeshua’s time, then were again scattered. So this was the perfect window in time for Yeshua to contact them while they were nearby.  

8. (Because his disciples had gone away into the city so that they could buy food.)

9. Accordingly, the Samaritan woman said to him, “How is that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, being a Samaritan woman? Because Jews don’t associate with Samaritans!”

The Samaritans had taken on some cultic practices of these other peoples. They remembered the common history they had with the Jews, but they had altered it to fit their special culture, just as the Israelites still in exile (both Jews and the Northern Kingdom) adapted our practices to fit our new environment, but not always in appropriate ways.  Both groups considered the other to have taken the wrong path in their practice of the ancient Israelite faith. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

10. Yeshua responded by telling her, “If you understood Elohim’s gift, and [knew] who it is who is saying to you, ‘Supply me with something to drink’, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water!”

Living water: a Hebrew idiom for running water, or any water which has fresh water running into it so that it is not stagnant. One of the requirements for a ritual immersion pool was that it must have an inlet for living water. Immersion is a picture of rebirth, and thus this is what Y’shua is alluding to, though she does not fully catch his hint:

11. The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep! From where do you get this living water?

Nothing to draw with: Aramaic, no pail/bucket. The woman was using a different kind of vessel (v. 28), symbolizing that she, as a Samaritan, took a different approach to the Torah. They kept it, but differently from the Jews, and this was very offensive to the Jews. They only regarded the five books of Moshe as truly canonical.

12. “Surely you’re not stronger than our ancestor Yaaqov, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, along with his children and his flocks?”

Stronger: Yaaqov moved a stone from the mouth of a well that normally took seven men to move. (Gen. 29:8-10) He also found his bride at that well. Our ancestor: He was the common ancestor of both Yeshua and this woman. Yerushalayim/Judea, Samaria (the Northern Kingdom), and the rest of the world (Acts 1:8) may be the “three flocks” that were waiting by the well for Him to remove the obstacle. (Gen. 29:2-3)

13. Yeshua responded by telling her, “Everyone who drinks from this water will again suffer from thirst.

14. “But whoever may drink of the water that I will give him will by no means become thirsty—[not even] into eternity! Rather, the water that I give him will become within him a fountain of water gushing forth into never-ending life!”

The water that I will give: see 7: 37-39.

15. The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this thing—the water—so I won’t be thirsty, and won’t have to come here to draw [water]!”

Won’t be thirsty: a direct allusion to Hoshea 2:3, ‘I will also make her [the Northern Kingdom] like a wilderness, make her like a desert land, and cause her to be dying of thirst.” (Avi ben Mordechai)

16. Yeshua told her, “Go get your husband and come [back] here.”

17. The woman responded by saying, “I have no husband.” Yeshua told her, “Well put: ‘I have no husband’,

18. “because you have had five husbands, and the one you [already] have now is not your husband. What you said is true!”

As Joseph Good describes it, Yeshua "read this woman's mail". This was a manifestation of the Spirit of YHWH. In I Corinthians 12 these are listed, and one of these is the "word of knowledge"--where one is told something about an individual or situation that you could never have known by natural means. It is not something one can figure out. It is given by the Spirit of Elohim, and you simply relate it. Exodus Rabbah tells us that Yithro had been a pagan priest, but, before Moshe arrived (Exodus 2:16), recognized there could only be one Elohim, and repented. He summoned the townsmen, resigned as priest, and returned all the insignias of his priesthood. They excommunicated him and decided that no man would be allowed to tend his flocks, which is why his daughters ended up being the ones to do it. It then says that they drove away his daughters “like a woman divorced.” It is often assumed that she was ostracized by her community (though Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg suggests that, like Tobit, she may have lost her husbands for less morally-reprehensible reasons, and since Sh’khem was a city of refuge (Y'hoshua 21), she may have been partaking of the special mercy YHWH made available in such places). The woman had literally said, “I have no man”. No man to tend the flock, and no true husband, though she “had” someone at this time. As such she represented the Northern Kingdom, whom YHWH often described through the prophets as adulterous and unfaithful to Him, going after other men who were not her husband. The five books of Moshe were the marriage contract (thus she had “five husbands”). He divorced her (Yirmiyahu 3:8; Yeshayahu 50:1), and she continued to be promiscuous (with the elohim of other nations), but never did marry another. But an Israelite man was permitted to remarry the same woman if she was not married to another in the meantime. (Deut. 24:1-4) As Hoshea was told to take his wife back home but not live with her as a wife for a long period (Hos. 3), Y’shua had come to bring YHWH’s wife back into the household. (Eph. 2:19) The sentence of “No pity” was up, but not until much later when the second sentence of “not being My people” was up would the wedding come, when we again call Him “my man (husband)” instead of “lord”. (Hos. 2:16) The certificate of debt (both the original contract by which our unfaithfulness could be measured, and the divorce document) was taken out of the way through Y’shua. (Col. 2:13-14) How? In ancient Israel when a man went to war, he wrote a divorce document and left it with his wife in case he should die in battle and his body not be found, in which case she was free to marry another. (Avi ben Mordechai; compare Romans 7) Y’shua’s body was not found when searched for after His death “in battle”, and thus the covenant could be renewed. Israel could have a “new” husband—though He was the same, but with all the past offenses erased. (Heb. 9:15)

19. The woman told him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet!

I can see: literally, I theorize.

20. “Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, and you [people] say that the proper place to worship is in Yerushalayim…”

This mountain: Mt. Grizim, the mountain of blessings (Deut. 11:29; Yehoshua 8:33) that sits above Sh’khem (Judges 9:7) opposite Mt. Eval, the mount of curses. When Menashe, the priest who was son-in-law of Sanballat (perhaps the Beth-Horonite governor of Samaria in the late 5th century B.C.E. (Nechemyah 13:28), but probably a later one by the same name), appointed by Daryush of Persia, was told by the elders of Yerushalayim to put away his pagan wife (as in Ezra 10) or forfeit his position, Sanballat offered to build him his own temple just like the one at Yerushalayim, but on Mt. Grizim. (Josephus, Antiquities 11.302-311) This temple was excavated in 1995. Of course this earned them the disrespect of the Jews, as did the fact that they capitulated to the Greeks during the Maccabean revolt and dedicated it to Zeus Xenios. Yochanan Hycanus the Hashmonean captured Sh’khem in 128 B.C.E. and destroyed the temple. However, they continued to worship at this site. In fact, in their version of the Scriptures, this was the tenth commandment! They say that it was Eli the priest who first moved the Tabernacle away from Sh’khem and therefore led Yehudah astray, so that it was the Jews, not they, who were the apostates!  

21. Yeshua told her, “Woman, believe me: an hour is coming; it is already [here], when you are not going to worship the Father either on this mountain or in Yerushalayim.

Note that he did not say this “hour” would last forever, for Yehezqel (Ezekiel) tells us the Temple in Yerushalayim will again be rebuilt and used during his coming kingdom. (Yhzq. 40-44)

22. “You [people] worship One you have not experienced; we know the One we worship, since the deliverance [comes] from the Jews.

YHWH had commanded that certain aspects of His worship (e.g., slaying the Passover lambs) be carried out only at Yerushalayim, “the place where He had set His name”. (Deut. 16) The Jews had maintained obedience to this command. The Samaritans, however, carry on even this particular ritual in Sh’khem (now called Nablus) and Holon until our very own day. They also had syncretistic practices, just as today’s church does as well, and thus did not have the degree of purity of interpretation that the Jews had.  But this gives pause to the commonly-held idea that this book is anti-Semitic in its rhetoric against what turns out to be a small minority of Jews, who nonetheless held disproportionate power. Though they did not respect what the later prophets said about Yehudah or the Messiah, to say “salvation is from the Jews” he could still appeal to a Torah passage that the Samaritans did respect: Genesis 49:8-10. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

23. “But an hour is coming; [indeed] it is already [here], when the genuine worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in reality, because in fact this is the kind [of people] the Father is looking for to be His worshippers.

Reality: from the heart and with the understanding, not just in outward actions like unintelligent but trained animals jumping through hoops under threat of a whip. The Torah is meant to be both listened to and observed (Deut. 6:3, etc.), i.e., to see the spirit behind the letter and carry that still further into analogous situations, not just obey punctiliously, as many of the Prushim were doing.

24. “Elohim is spirit, so it is necessary that His worshippers worship Him in spirit and in reality.”

25. The woman told him, “I know that an anointed one is coming (the one we call the Messiah). When that one comes, he will explain the whole thing to us.”

The Samaritans also believed in the coming Mashiach (Anointed One) who received power specifically from YHWH. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the same term is often used of priests, kings, etc. They might have an anointing, and many ministers and kings may be empowered to carry out a specific task. But there is only one who is THE Anointed One. He was anointed in power to redeem us and bring to fullness the promises of YHWH.  Samaritans accepted only the Torah, not later Scriptures, so what it said about the Messiah is what they emphasized—that he would be a “prophet like Moshe” (cf. v. 19) and a great teacher (Deut. 18:18-19), and did not have the Jewish emphasis on him being a conquering king, as those details were not given until later. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

26. Yeshua told her, “[That is who] I—the one speaking to you—am.”

27. Now at this [point] His disciples arrived, and they were surprised that he was talking with a woman, though none [of them] said, “What are you after?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

Surprised: It was not common in those days for men to hold conversations with women other than their relatives in public places. The Arab world has carried on this custom to our own day. The disciples were discreet in their response, but in fact He was looking for a bride—not this woman in particular, though she turned out to be part of it. In Deut. 18:15, Y’shua is called a prophet like Moshe. Moshe found his wife while resting at a well. (Exodus 2:15ff) The disciples did not drive her away as the shepherds tried to do to the seven daughters of the Midyanite priest in Exodus 2. These shepherds are both “pastors” who tell their flocks that the Torah is not for them, or rabbinical Jews who say that the Sheep lost among the Gentiles (who constitute His bride) only need to be Noachide, obeying the minimal ethical principles, but not the Torah itself, since that is only for themselves. (Avi ben Mordechai) In contrast to these wicked Shepherds (Yehezqel/Ezekiel 34), YHWH said He would send His own Shepherd. (Y’shua goes into great detail about how this is who He is in chapter 10.) Moshe (here a picture of Y’shua) rescued the women from these shepherds, and allowed their flocks to be watered.  

28. Then the woman left her water pot, went away into the city, and told the people,

Left her water pot: a picture of forsaking herself (as the “earthen vessel”, 2 Cor. 4:7) so that others could also benefit from Y’shua’s presence.

29. “Come! Meet a person who told me everything I ever did! Couldn’t this be the Messiah?”

30. So they left the city and came to him.

Y’shua was in search of those who knew they were thirsty for real water (YHWH’s words). Today He is taking His firstfruits from those who come back to the ancient well that does hold real living water (the Torah) rather than those who stay in the city (the system mankind has built).  

31. Now in the meantime his disciples urged him, saying, “Rabbi, eat [something]!”

32. But he told them, "I have food to eat that you don’t know about."

33. Then the disciples said to one another, “Nobody brought him food to eat, did they?”

34. Yeshua told them, "My food is to carry out the wish of the One who sent Me, and to bring His work to completion.

He had gone 40 days without food or water. Technically this is impossible! You can survive 40 days without food, but not without water. You will dehydrate. Moshe did the same thing twice, and Eliyahu once. They were in a supernatural state. There was something to sustain their lives in the midst of unnatural things. There is a separation between the holy (the things that are of YHWH) and the mundane (the things that are of the world). Some interaction with YHWH that our minds cannot comprehend probably took place. He is not only receiving and soaking up spiritual nourishment from YHWH, but He is performing an action. To do the will of the Father is actually to be fed. Sent Me: He is sent to do a task. (Compare this theme in 6:29-44) Commenting on the manna in the desert, the Tzohar says, "All human food comes from above. The food that comes from heaven and earth is for the whole world. It is food for all; it is coarse and dense. The food that comes from higher above is finer food...entering deepest of all into the soul, detached from the body, called ‘angel bread'... the finest of all...As it is written, ‘Wisdom gives life to those who have it.' Happy is the body that can nourish itself on food of the soul! ... Torah derives from Wisdom on high, and those who engage Torah enter the source of her roots, so their food flows down from that high and holy sphere." Yeshua is the Torah put into fleshly form (1:14), so he knows how to eat of this "bread". But he also promises that those who overcome in the face of opposition may also eat of this "hidden manna". (Rev. 2:17)

35. "You should not say, ‘Four more months and then the harvest.’ I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are already white for harvest!

Four months until the harvest: His going to Samaria at this time was directly linked to a message that YHWH put forth in one of His festivals. It is wheat that turns white at harvest time. From this, we can tell that the pilgrimage festival (Ex. 23:14-16) He was returning from (v. 3) was Shavuoth, the time that symbolizes the Father’s work being brought o completion (v. 34). Psalm 67, which was read during the counting of days from Passover to Shavuoth, relates clearly to this "festival of the nations”: “YHWH, be merciful to us and bless us. Cause Your face to shine upon us, that Your way may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations. …Let all the peoples praise You, and let the nations be glad, for You shall judge the people righteously, and govern the nations on the earth...Then the earth shall yield her increase.” This was an agricultural festival that had been practiced for 1500 years before Yeshua. It is at the beginning of the harvest (Shavuoth--in Sivan, around June), four months prior to the ingathering (Sukkoth, in the fall). The Samaritans lived very close to Galilee, in the most fertile land in Israel, even some of the best farmland in the world. It is beautiful; very green and lush, and massive amounts of crops are grown around the Galil. Sukkoth is also historical, commemorating something very significant that happened when Israel came out of Egypt. There was some specific commissioning toward non-Jews at this particular festival. Yeshua went to non-Jews right after this festival. This is the first time we see Him ministering to someone who is not of the Jewish race or religion. Ten days after His resurrection, He says, "Go...into the uttermost parts of the world, starting in Jerusalem, and Judea, and SAMARIA..." (Matt. 28:19; cf. Acts 8) This event in Samaria is a prophecy of what will happen when the Gospel goes out to the non-Jews. His disciples may have thought the harvest only concerned Jerusalem-affiliated Israelites, but “Yeshua challenged them to look outside their box, to the neighboring heretical and adversarial community, for the harvest—a harvest field they had not considered until this encounter…previously thought of as unsuitable for the harvest. He, the King of Israel, will unite the North and the South as part of his restoration program for Israel.” (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

36. “Moreover, the one who reaps receives due reward in addition to gathering fruit toward a never-ending life, so that both the one who sows and the one who reaps may rejoice just the same.

This is an allusion to Psalm 126. 

37. “Indeed, in this [case] the word [holds] true that [says] ‘One sows, and another [of the same kind] reaps.’

One: literally, “another”, highlighting the fact that they are two different people. In Mat. 13:38, Y’shua identifies Himself as the one who did the sowing.

38. “I have sent you to reap what you did not labor over. Others have wearied themselves, and you have entered into their labor.”

39. And out of that city many Samaritans put their confidence in him on account of what the woman who testified said: “He told me everything that I ever did.”

Compare Geneses 29:9: “While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with the sheep which were her father's, because she was a shepherdess.”

40. Then, as the Samaritans approached him, they ask him whether he would stay on with them, so he remained there two days.

This represents the two millennia (cf. Psalm 90) in which Yeshua, being invited, sojourned among the non-Jews while they were still in places other than that which He established as the center of His worship.

41. And many more believed on account of his [own] teaching.

42. They even told the woman, “We no longer trust [him] on account of what you said, because we have heard him [for] ourselves, and we have come to realize that this is most certainly the one who will rescue the world.”

Rescue the world: bring the lost tribes of Israel (of which she counted herself a part) back from all over the world back to their homeland, as the prophets had said, with the proper interpretation of the Torah, over which they were all still arguing.


43. Now after the two days, he departed from there and went away into Galilee,

Who was going to be in the Kingdom when the Go'el came? He would come to Yerushalayim for those who turned from transgression in Yaaqov. (Isa. 59:20--Messiah is seen as the agent of the Basar.) Yeshua was returning from the festival of Shavuoth in Yerushalayim. He stated (4:23) that the time had already come when true worshippers would worship Him in Spirit and truth; He was not yet dead and resurrected. The Jews understood worship in ways that others did not. (v. 22) They very well understood that a spiritual salvation was included in the Gospel, but it also included all of these aspects. Whenever Yeshua said, "Repent, for the Kingdom of YHWH is at hand", they did not just think of a spiritual salvation; they thought of all of these things: YHWH’s kingship over all the earth (Zech. 14:9), the Golden Age of Israel, the regathering of the exiles, the judgment of the nations, and many converts coming from among the nations.  

44. because Yeshua himself affirmed [from his experience] that a prophet does not have the respect [he deserves] in his own native region.

45. Accordingly, when he arrived in the Galil, the Galileans received him [hospitably], having seen all that he did in Yerushalayim at the Feast, because they had gone to the Feast as well.

This must not have been in Natzereth itself, considering v. 44. Or, v. 44 is contrasting the Galil, where he grew up, with Judea, the land of his actual birth and ancestral territory. (v. 47)

46. This being the case, Yeshua again made an appearance in Kana of the Galil, where he had turned the water [to] wine. And there was a certain public chief whose son was sick at Kfar Nahum.

Kana: Aramaic, Qatne. Public chief: or even, king. (Compare Psalm 72:11; Yeshayahu 49:7; 52:15)

47. Hearing that Yeshua had come out of Judea into the Galil, this [man] went out to him, and requested that he would come down and heal his son, because he was on the verge of death.

Come down: There is a major descent from the hills of the Galil to Kfar Nachum, which is on the lake shore in the Rift Valley.

48. So Yeshua told him, “Unless you see prodigious signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.”

49. The public chief said to him, “Sir, come down before my boy dies!”

50. Yeshua told him, “Go on your way; your son is [recovering his] full vigor.” And the man trusted what Yeshua said to him, and went on his way.

51. But even as he was [still] going down, his servants came out to meet him and brought word, saying, “Your son is in full health!”

Brought word: Aramaic, evangelized. (The Greek word is related but slightly different.) The true Gospel is not complete until the “Gentiles” that Y’shua brought back from the point of death are fully back to health, restored to being full-fledged Israelites.

52. So he asked them the specific time in which he his condition had begun to improve. And they told him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour, the fever let go of him.”

Seventh hour: i.e., 1:00 p.m. Old Syriac, ninth hour.

53. Then the father knew that [it was] the same time Yeshua had told him, “Your son is [recovering his] full vigor.” And he, along with his whole household, trusted [him].

54. Again, Yeshua did this second miracle, [after] having come out of Judea into the Galil.

Miracle: or sign. What did it signify? That he does not have to descend (v. 49), i.e., lower himself (not that he is not humble, but that he need not stop being holy in order to heal those who are touching death (and are thereby unclean).


CHAPTER 5

1. After this there was a Jewish festival, and Yeshua went up to Yerushalayim.

2. Now in Yerushalayim, by the sheep market, there is a pool which in Hebrew is called “Beyth-Hes’dah”, and it has five [colonnaded] porticoes.

Beyth-Hes’dah: meaning “place of mercy”, was another name for the two sheep pools just north of the Temple complex, where sheep were washed prior to being used as Levitical offerings or sold to worshippers. Part of this pool complex still remains. It was well-placed in a valley from which there would be significant water run-off, serving also as a reservoir to keep the area below it from flooding.  Five: not a pentagon, as archaeology has found, but four colonnades separated down the middle by another one. (Lizorkin—Eyzenberg)

3. On them lay a large number of diseased people—blind, maimed, or atrophied—waiting for the agitation of the water,

4. because a messenger would come down to the pool at certain occasions and stir up the water, and whoever stepped into the water first after the agitation was healed of whatever sickness he had.

There would have been even larger crowds there at the time of the pilgrimage festivals like this. In the shallower of the two pools, which would be the one this man would have tried to climb into, since the other was very deep, archaeologists excavated hundreds of small images of water-gods, strongly suggesting that this practice was based on a pagan superstition rather than having anything at all to do with YHWH.  It was adjacent to the Asclepion, part of a healing complex (of which there were over 400 in the Roman world) dedicated to the Greco-Roman god of health and well-being, whose mythical daughters were Hygeia and Panacea. Archaeologists have found one right there which evidences foundations of another one as old as this time, probably part of the Hellenization of Jerusalem. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg) Yeshua seems to have been “competing” with this for YHWH’s glory much as Eliyahu did with the people who were “limping” between two opinions, influenced by the prophets of Ba’al. This may be why he does not tell the man in the story below to wash in the pool as he did at another pool (associated with the Temple) in chapter 9.  Verses 3b-4 are not in the earliest extant manuscripts and may have been added by someone who confused the pagan god with an angel of YHWH.

5. But there was a certain person there who had been in his infirmity for 38 years.

38 years is the length of time Israel wandered in the wilderness after forfeiting the privilege of conquering the Promised Land due to fear. (Deut. 2:14) Keep this in mind when considering what Yeshua asked him:

6. Seeing him lying [there] and having ascertained that he had already been there a long time, Yeshua said to him, “Do you want to become healthy?”

Healthy: or whole; from the word from which we derive “hygiene”. Colleen James and Nancy Bowser ask, “Wasn’t it obvious that he did [want to be healed]? Could it be that this man was in some way hiding behind his condition, using it as a defense mechanism? We don’t know what the sin was that brought this upon him [cf. v.14], but the result could have been such guilt, shame, or fear that he was isolating and insulating himself behind his problem. Did he believe the lie that God had abandoned him and that his only hope was in a pagan religion?”Like many who have been in prison for many years, and like those who had eaten manna in the wilderness for so long after having been enslaved but at least fed every day, it was fair to ask him whether he wanted to take on the responsibilities of a normal life, after having been used to having others do things for him. (Compare Y’hoshua 5:12)

7. The infirm [man] answered him, “Sir, I have no one to lower me into the pool when the water has been agitated, but whenever I am going, someone else gets down [into it] before me!”

8. Yeshua said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and go [home]!”

9. And immediately the man became well, and took up his mat and started walking, though it was the Sabbath that day.

Mat: specifically a thin mattress such as one would use when camping or which would be the only thing a very poor person could afford. It would therefore be very lightweight and easy to roll up and carry--by no means a laborious task. Keep this in mind when reading what follows:

​10. So the Judeans said to the man who had been cured, “It’s the Sabbath; it’s not lawful for you to carry your mat!”

Not lawful: by Shammai’s interpretation of the Torah, but not Hillel’s.


11. To which he, however, answered them, “The one who made me well is the one who told me, ‘Pick up your mat and go [home]!’” 

12. So they asked him, “Who is the person who told you, ‘Pick up and go’?”

13. But the one who had been healed did not know who it was, and Yeshua had ducked out, there being a crowd in the place.

He had been infirm longer than Yehsua had been alive, and would not be very familiar with Yeshua’s reputation, which was a relatively recent phenomenon.

14. After these things, Yeshua found him in the Temple, and said to him, Look! You have become well! Don’t sin any longer, so that nothing worse comes upon you!”

Worse: or more severe. He appears to have been implying—or have known—that the man’s affliction was a direct result of some kind of breach of the Torah—possibly a sexually-transmitted disease or tzara’ath (“leprosy”, which appears on people who try to usurp authority that YHWH has given to another).

​15. The man went away and told the Judeans that Yeshua was the one who had made him well.

He must have suspected that he would be getting Yeshua into trouble, since he himself had nearly been punished for what he did, but he may have been more interested in getting the blame off of himself than in Yeshua’s welfare:

16. And because of this the Judeans hunted Yeshua down, because he did these things on a Sabbath.

Yeshua was deliberately making a point about what was lawful to do on the Sabbath by telling the man to carry his lightweight cot. Yet this was a “necessary evil”, a matter of grace when it could not be avoided. But “in one’s house” is the proper place to be on the Sabbath. (Ex. 16:29) The man was sick and needing his indulgence—a picture of our condition while in exile (v. 12)--but once that is taken care of, we need to “elevate what we have been resting on” and truly get back in line with his commands and stay there. They were “trying to discredit him by making him something he was not—a Sabbath-breaker.” But per 11:47-48, they were less concerned about liberal Sabbath-observance than about his claims, which, though the Judaism of that day had a place for, it did not want to allow him in particular to take that place. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)  Yeshua showed that his accusers had over-defined YHWH’s intent for the Sabbath to the point that it was becoming impractical. (Mark 2:27)

17. But he answered them, saying, “My Father is still active now, so I am active.”

Yeshua “defended himself with a well-known Jewish traditional concept: ‘Elohim rested on the Sabbath day after the initial creation…but He has continued to work on each Sabbath ever since.’” (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

18. Because of this, therefore, the Judeans sought all the more to kill him, because not only did he "loosen the Sabbath", but he also called Elohim his own Father, “making himself equal to Elohim”.

Loosen: or “break”, but the Greek word can even mean “set free”! (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg) Indeed, he liberated the Sabbath from those who would make it a burden rather than a blessing. (Mat. 23:4 vs. Yeshayahui/Isa. 58:6; cf. Mark 2:27) Equal to Elohim: This was their charge, but what follows is how Yeshua shows the faultiness of their reasoning.

19. So Yeshua responded by telling them, “I tell you the truth—and this is reliable: The Son is not able to do anything from himself, if it is not something he sees the Father doing, for whatever He may do, the Son also does these same things,

The Son of Man's authority is not innate, but given to him by the Ancient of Days. (Dan. 7:13-14)

20. “for the Father loves the Son and shows him all things that He Himself does, and He will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed,

21. “for just as the Father rouses the dead and gives [them] life, in the same way the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.

22. “The Father does not even judge anyone, but has delegated all judgment to the Son.

​23. “so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, the One who sent him.

24. “I tell you the real truth: the one who hears my word and trusts the One who has sent me has eternal life, and is not brought into judgment, but has passed out of death and into life.

Passed: or has departed or been removed from, having changed his basis or footing; this is a positional change spiritually for now, but at some point it will have a physical manifestation:

25. “I tell you the truth—really—that an hour is coming (and already is even now) when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of Elohim, and those who have heard will come to life!

In a short while the firstfruits of the resurrection would be seen, to demonstrate that the rest would indeed come later. The Scriptural basis for this is Daniel 12:2.  

26. “In exactly the same way as the Father has life in Himself, so also He has granted to the Son to have life in himself.

Granted: given, permitted, allowed--notice well that Yeshua is not claiming to independently have any of these characteristics, but they are derived from Another who is greater than he, whose image he bears to the fullest measure and beyond.

27. “and He gave him authority to exercise judgment because he is the Son of Adam.

Adam: i.e., he is human, providing a dimension that the Father has never experienced directly, though He put in place all that it means to be human and is the pattern on which our every characteristic is based. Still, possibly concerned lest He, in judging, be insensitive to some aspect of our fallenness and frailty, He leaves this task to one who has experienced every kind of temptation, who has seen how difficult it is to overcome, yet who has shown that overcoming is possible (Hebrews 4:15) and therefore judgment is warranted for those who give up trying. (See Hebrews 12:4) Only one who has gone through every nuance can have both the depth of compassion and also know when sarcasm and impatience is truly deserved. In regard to the statement by YHWH that “I kill, and I make alive” (Deut. 32:39, the Jewish mystical book, the Tzohar, says in regard to the “Adam Qadmon”: “Through the s’firoth [character traits of YHWH seen in His image, humanity] on the right side [known as “mother”], I make alive, and through the s’firoth on the left side [father], I kill, but if the central column [“son”] does not concur, sentence cannot be passed, since they form a court of three." (B’reshith, Section 1, page 22b)

28. “Don’t be astonished at this, because an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice,

Tombs: literally, memorials.

29. “and will come out from [them], those who had done good into a resurrection of life, and those who had practiced wickedness into a resurrection of judgment.

This is a clear allusion to Daniel 12:2.

30. “I am not able to do anything from within myself; according to what I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I don’t seek my own agenda, but the agenda of the One who has sent me.

According to: the word denotes in the same manner, extent, and proportion. If he, who had a perfect, open line of communication with the Father, could not act on his own initiative (see v. 19), how much more do we, who have a “fuzzy connection” most of the time need to check in with Him before acting?

31. “If I bear witness to myself, my own witness is not reliable;

Reliable: or credit-worthy; i.e., it is not objective, but subjective. Aside from the fact that one witness is not enough (Deut. 19:15), one’s self-description may or may not be true, but we cannot trust it to be without some intermixing of his own agenda (even if unintended). Even Yeshua, who had no evil motives, still had human desires that needed to be submitted to YHWH’s (Luke 22:42), so he did not ask us to trust his own testimony to himself.

32. “there is Another who bears witness concerning me, and I have come to be sure that the witness which He bears concerning me is reliable.

In Greek there are two words for “another”: this one is allos (another of the same kind) versus heteros (another of a different kind), emphasizing how well-aligned with YHWH was the image of Elohim which he again bore for the first time since Adam.

33. “You have sent [messengers] to Yochanan, and he has borne witness to the truth.

34. “Not that I accept the testimony from the human side; rather, I tell you these things in order that you might be brought to a place where safety is ensured.

Accept the testimony: or, receive reputation. He is speaking particularly of Yochanan, who was the one who introduced him publicly to the world, and one would think he derived his reputation from Yochanan’s testimony, but that was only a sideline issue for Yeshua, whose concern was not for his own reputation except to the extent that it led people to trust his message, which was exclusively for their benefit.  But he did provide a second witness to the Father’s first.

35. “He was the [oil] lamp that burned and was [brightly] visible; you, moreover, were willing to, for a season, be glad for his light.

36. “However, I have the testimony [that is] greater than that of Yochanan—the tasks that the Father has given me to accomplish. These same works that I am doing provide evidence concerning me—that the Father has sent me.

37. “Also, the One who has dispatched me—the [very] Father Himself—has given testimony concerning me. You have never either heard His voice or seen His visible form,

Form: not the word usually translated as such in Philippians 2:6, so seeing Yeshua was not seeing YHWH as such in any literal sense. (6:46) He revealed exactly what the Father is like (14:9), but no one has seen Him (1:18) because our bodies in their present state could not survive that. (Ex. 33:20) It appears that Yeshua, in his condition as a restored human being in its fullest sense, may have been able to see Him in some sense. (6:46)

38. “nor do you have His word remaining in you, because [the One] whom He sent you did not believe.

His word: or possibly, His way of thinking, for the term is the one from which we derive “logic”. They caught a glimpse of it when they accepted Yochanan (v. 35), but it did not stay with them because they went back to their more natural ways of thinking, possibly due to Yochanan’s death which, in their eyes, was the death of his vision as well.

39. “You diligently examine the Writings, because in them you expect to recover eternal life, and they are the very things that testify concerning me,

Writings: possibly the Scriptures as a whole (most likely, based on v. 46 below), but possibly the specialized sense of those which are not part of either the Torah or the prophets as such. Expect: or suppose, have the strong opinion that, “and rightly so”, he is implying. Recover: or grasp, take hold of, possess. Eternal life: based on Deut. 30:15 and 32:47.

40. “yet you are not willing to come toward me, in order that you might recover life!

41. “I do not receive honor from the human side.

42. “I have come to know you—that you do not have the love of Elohim in yourselves.

He might not be saying that they do not love Elohim in the best way they know how, but they are not expressing His kind of love from within themselves, because they, due to the effects of Adam’s consumption of the fruit that changed everything, lack the spiritual connection to Elohim that Yeshua has intact within him.

43. “I have come in my Father’s name, yet you do not accept me; if another should come in his own name, that one you will accept.

His own name: He may have been predicting Bar Kochba (“son of the star”, based on Num. 24:17), a title reworked from the name of Ben Kosiba, whom, 100 years after this, Rabbi Akiva declared to be the Messiah, at which point the Jewish followers of Yeshua withdrew their support from him (knowing the Messiah had already come) and were called traitors, further driving a wedge between what would become what we now call “Judaism and Christianity”. Or he may be speaking in general of any counterfeit Messiah.

44. “How can you possibly believe, when you receive your honor from one another, and do not strive for the honor that [comes] from the side of the only Elohim? 

Strive for: or inquire into, search out diligently, almost demanding, as if to “get the bottom of the matter”.  They keep challenging Yeshua to submit his ministry to their approval, but he consistently refuses, because YHWH’s approval is the authoritative approval that counts. How could he trust them to make a correct judgment about him whe they themselves need each other’s approval to remain in power? That is a conflict of interest that disqualifies them from being able to judge objectively and therefore rightly. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

45. “Don’t expect that I will bring a charge against you; there is one who brings a charge against you: Moshe, into whom you have placed your expectation,

Bring a charge against: literally, categorize, i.e., either as condemned or salvageable. “His job was to save and not condemn (3:17). The chief prosecutor of Israel had long since been appointed by the Elohim of Israel Himself. His name was Moshe.” (Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg) They accepted Moshe as the ultimate measure of truth, and with good reason, so he says Moshe will therefore be allowed to be their judge, because he is their standard, yet they are not even living up to his words.  

46. “for, in any case, if you [really] believed Moshe, you would believe me, because he wrote concerning me. 

The most salient example of this is Deut. 18:18, but there are many more subtle allusions to Messiah in the Torah.

47. “But if you don’t [really] believe his writings, how will you ever believe my words?”

Yeshua’s words are firmly rooted in the Torah, and can never be properly understood apart from it, for it is the only context from which he drew all his authority and it was his standard. Therefore, before attempting to interpret his words, gain a thorough understanding of it.  But they were adding to Moshe’s words—the very thing he forbade (Deut. 4:2), so how could they really believe him?


CHAPTER 6

1. After these things, Yeshua went away to the other side of the Sea of the Galil belonging to Teverya.

Teverya: the Hebrew name for the city named Tiberias, in honor of Rome’s second Caesar, Tiberius.

2. But a great crowd followed him, because they saw they great signs which he had worked on those who were enfeebled [by illness].

They saw them mainly as miracles from which they could benefit, but recognized that they were harbingers of something greater that he could bring about.

3. But Yeshua went up into the hills, and sat down there with his students.

Hills: or mountain. “Like Moshe, he gave his teachings from a mountain and provided his followers with food (vv. 5ff). His teaching was the Torah. Not the new Torah to replace the old, but the new Torah to continue what the Mosaic Torah had already set forth.” (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)  Sat down: assumedly to get some rest.

4. Now the Passover, a holy festival of the Jews, was near.

This verse is missing in its entirety from the oldest extant manuscripts. Michael Rood suggests that it was interpolated, possibly because of the references to bread, because the entire context uses imagery of the “last day”, which Yom T’ruah typifies, and it would be the next festival in order after Shavuoth, referenced in 3:35-43.

5. Then Yeshua lifted up his eyes and, noticing that a big crowd was coming toward him, said to Filippos, “Where will we buy bread so they can [all] eat?”

6. (But he said this to test him, since he knew what he was about to do.)

7. Filippos answered him, “200 denarii’s worth of loaves are not enough if each is to have [even] a little!”

8. One of the students, Andreas, the brother of Shim’on Kefa, said to him, 

9. “Here is a little boy who has five barley loaves and two tiny fish, but what are these for so many?”

10. Yeshua said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place, so the men, numbering about 5,000, sat down.

11. Then Yeshua took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed [them] to those who were seated, and from the fish likewise, as much as they wanted.

12. But when they were satisfied, he said to his students, “Gather up the surplus pieces, so that nothing may be lost.”

13. So they gathered them up and filled twelve [large] hand-baskets from what was left over of the five barley loaves [in addition to] what had been eaten!

Filled: or loaded. Gathered up: related to the word synagogue! This gives us a clue as to the reason for this sign. All the numbers are important as well. The “fish who were to multiply in the midst of the Land” (as this sea is land-locked) tip us off that this has to do with Efrayim and M’nashe (Gen. 48:16 in Hebrew). Five loaves in Yeshua’s hands represents the Torah as he interpreted it—something “digestible” and not unpalatable, and what was left after these people from the tribe of Yehudah had received enough was sufficient to provide for the other twelve tribes (yes, there are 13 in all). (See notes on Mat. 16:11-12 also.)

14. When the people saw the sign he had brought about, they said, “This is certainly the prophet who is to come into the world!”

The prophet: They interpreted Deut. 18:18 as referring only to one specific “super-prophet”, possibly because Moshe, whom this prophet was to be like, also had been the channel through which YHWH provided “bread” from the heavens. (See v. 32.)

15. When Yeshua realized that they were about to take him by force in order to make him king, he withdrew again to [a safe place in] the hills, alone by himself.

This was not the way or the time he was meant to become king, and he would not get caught up in even a “good” mob.  “Not only did [Yeshua] not submit to the power-hungry authority of Jerusalem’s ruling elite; he also did not submit to the blind, often-misguided excitement of the people of the land.” (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

16. But when it became evening, his students went down onto the lake,

17. and, having embarked in a boat, they were going across the lake to Kfar Nahum. Though it had already become dark, Yeshua had not yet come to them.

18. Not only this; the lake was becoming agitated by strong gusts of storm-winds.

19. Then, when they had rowed about 25 or 30 stadia, they noticed Yeshua walking on top of the lake, and when he got close to the boat, they were becoming frightened.

Stadia: each stadion was an eighth of a Roman mile, so this was between three and four miles into the lake. Since they were coming from near Teverya (v. 23) to Kfar Nahum, which is approximately 5.5 nautical miles, they would have gone a little over halfway by this pointNoticed: literally, gazed on for the purpose of analyzing; i.e., their attention was drawn to and fixed on what appeared to be someone walking to them across the water! Iyov 9:8 tells us that YHWH alone treads on the waves of the sea. So this is not just a practical miracle for their rescue, but another sign that he was an authorized spokesman for YHWH, according to the law of agency, in which someone can speak for his master in the first person, as many of the prophets also did, without anyone saying that they were YHWH in the flesh, as has been done with Yeshua, primarily because he bore the complete image of Elohim again for the first time since Adam.

20. But he said to them, “It’s me; don’t be afraid!”

21. Then they were willing to receive him into the boat, and very quickly the boat arrived at the land to which they were heading.

Yeshua, as a restored “Adam”, having understanding of physics beyond what we are normally capable of, was able to do what Adam was commanded to do and “subdue the earth” (Gen. 1:28) in a benevolent way, utilizing properties of matter and time that our limited science has only begun to inquire into. This may give an indication of what we will also be able to experience when we have the image of Elohim fully restored to us in the age to come.


22. The next day, the crowd that had been standing on the other side of the lake, having seen that there was no boat there except one, and that Yeshua had not gotten into the boat with his students, but that his students had departed alone,

23. but [other] boats had come from Teverya, near the place where they at the bread (having given thanks to YHWH)--

24. when the crowd therefore saw that neither Yeshua nor his students were there, they themselves embarked on boats and put in at Kfar Nahum, searching for Yeshua.

25. And, having found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?”

26. Yeshua answered them by saying, “I tell you the truth: you are looking for me not because you discerned [authenticating] signs, but because you ate of the loaves and became full!

This “is not the dichotomy between physical and spiritual [needs], butrather the dichotomy between signs and miracles…The people were only able to see his miracles, which was not enough. They needed to see the signs. A sign always points away from itself to the thing or the person that it signifies.” (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg) Authenticating: He showed that he was sent by YHWH because he did the same thing that a previous prophet, Elisha, had done in multiplying bread with much left over. (2 Kings 4:43ff)

27. “Don’t labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures, [leading] to eternal life, which the Son of Adam will give you; indeed, the Father—that is, Elohim—has set his seal [of validation] on him.”

Eternal life: or, life of the age (to come).

28. So they said to him, “What must we do in order to be accomplishing the works of Elohim?”

29. Yeshua answered and told them, “This is the work of Elohim, that you should put your confidence in the one whom He sent.

I.e., “How can we be faithful to the Covenant God of Israel? …Only by believing in His authorized representative”—Yeshua, not the leaders who would arrogate that position to themselves. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

30. Therefore they said to him, “What sign will you provide so that we can trust you?

31. “Our fathers ate manna in the uninhabited place, as it is written: 'He gave them bread out of the heavens to eat.'”

The quote is similar to Nehemyah 9:15 in the LXX, which addresses YHWH in the second person and says “for their food” instead of “to eat”.

32. Then Yeshua said to them, “I’m really telling you the truth: it wasn't Moshe who gave you that bread from the heavens; my Father gives you the real bread from the heavens,

The “not this, but that” format in Hebrew often instead actually signifies, “This is more important than that.” They were misinterpreting the antecedent for Nehemyah’s “he”. They do not even understand the basic facts of the Torah that they claim as their own. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg) 

33. ‘because the bread from Elohim is that which comes down from the heavens and gives life [and vitality] to the world.”

That which comes down from the heavens: YHWH’s word.

34. And they said to him, “Master, always give us this bread!”

​35. And Yeshua told them, “I am the living bread; whoever comes to me will not be hungry at all, and whoever is committed to me will never be thirsty.

36. “But I told you that although you had seen me, still you were not persuaded.

37. “All whom the Father gives me will come toward me, and the one who comes toward me I will by no means expel [to the] outside,

38. “because I came down from heaven, not to do what I myself want, but what the One who sent me wants.

Came down from heaven: In terms of the Temple and the stairway to the sky that Yaaqov saw on that site, he may be referring to coming away from times of intense communication with or service to YHWH in order to in turn serve His people in “everyday” contexts.

39. “Now this is what the One who sent me wants: that I should lose none of what He has given me, but resurrect it in the last Day.

Lose none: “Not the least grain shall fall to the earth.” (Amos 9:9) “What He has given me” is therefore Israel (with added bonus, Isa. 49:6). Last Day: the seventh millennium (Psalm 90:4) since creation, simultaneous with or near the time of the inauguration of his Kingdom, of which the weekly Sabbath is a foretaste.  

40. “Indeed, this is what my Father wants: “that everyone who contemplates the Son and puts his confidence in him can have eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last Day.”

41. For this reason some of the Judeans started grumbling about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down out of the heavenly [realm]s”,

Grumbling: as their ancestors did with Moshe over the very same thing! (Deut. 1:27; Ps. 106:25) The Greek term implies a whispering or muttering in muffled undertones, which signifies a smoldering discontent. (Souter)

42. and they were saying, “Isn’t this Yeshua the son of Yosef, whose father and mother we know? So how can he now say, ‘I have come down out of the heavens’?”

Son of Yosef: here there is a double entendre, because “Ben Yosef” is a traditional Jewish name for the suffering Messiah, especially in contexts where the data is interpreted as there having to be two Messiahs in order to fulfill all the prophecies.

43. Yeshua responded by saying to them, “Don’t grumble among yourselves;

44. “No one is able to come toward me unless the Father, who has sent me, attracts him, and I will resurrect him in the last Day.

Although our persuasiveness can be a contributing factor to this attracting, and our holy examples an even better one, none of this will be effective if YHWH is not in it and working on their hearts from within, predisposing them to recognize truth when they hear it.

45. “It is written in the prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by Elohim.’ Everyone who hears from the Father and ascertains [the facts] comes toward me.

This seems to be a paraphrase of Yeshayahu 54:13, which says “All your children will be taught by YHWH."

46. “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the one who is from Elohim—he has seen the Father.

Seen: or perceived. But Yeshua, not being a fallen man like the rest of us, would not be overwhelmed by the sight of Him, as would be the case for us in our present condition. (Ex. 33:20)

47. “It is true, it is reliable, I tell you: the one who has faith possesses eternal life.

Even now, because eternity is not a long time or a time after this life, but rather, permanent existence which intersects with time but supersedes it because it is not dependent on the motions of the earth or sun or moon. It is a quality of life that can only be experienced when we are reconnected to our Source, because it is His life flowing from Yeshua, who is rooted in YHWH, into us, the branches.

48. “I am the bread of life.

49. “Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet [still] died.

Manna: a distillation of carbon and hydrogen in the atmosphere from an event accompanying the Exodus, which, of course, formed carbohydrates and provided nourishment to Israel when we were in no position to plant or harvest and had no provisions for our journey. So it was in a very real sense “bread from heaven”, provided by YHWH to sustain us when nothing else was available. But Yeshua emphasizes the fact that its effect was nonetheless temporary, and contrasts it with a provision that will outlast our whole lives:

50. “This [instead] is the [real] bread that comes down out of the sky in order that anyone may eat from it and not die:

51. “I [myself] am the living bread—that which has come down out of heaven; if anyone shall have eaten this bread, he will survive into the Age [to come], and the bread that I will provide toward the life of the [inhabited] world is, in fact, my flesh!”

52. The Judeans were therefore disputing with one another, saying, “How is this one able to give us his own flesh to eat?!”

53. So Yeshua told them, “It is true, it is reliable, I tell you: if you shall not have ‘ingested’ the flesh of the Son of Adam, nor shall have ‘drunk’ his blood, you do not have life I yourselves. 

54. “The one who ‘eats’ my flesh and ‘drinks’ my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him [back] up on the final day.

55. “Indeed, my flesh is [the] true food, and my blood is [the] real beverage.

I.e., more real (because more permanent) than the physical food which sustains our fallen bodies for a short time, but then must be replaced. Instead, his physical body, with its DNA that was immortal until he chose to lay down his life, and his unique blood, which did not carry the genetic defects accrued by the fruit that Adam and Chawwah ate since he was the offspring only of the woman—yes, a descendant of David but from an egg not poisoned by seed carrying that defective blood, and thus a “second Adam” or, as he preferred, “son of Adam” (v. 53) in the sense of being again what the first Adam was before he fell into our current state. He could therefore pour out that perfect blood as an acceptable payment for all the wrongs done by those who did have the defective genes, thus redeeming us to Elohim (5:9) as Elohim’s “lamb”—the antetype which all the animals’ blood on the altar prefigured but could only stand in for until there was a man whose blood could be “legal tender” because it was untainted. A “transfusion” of this blood provides us with uncorrupted life which can survive into the Kingdom where normal flesh and blood cannot. (1 Cor. 15:50) Of course, at this time it is only figurative; drinking any blood, much less human blood, is not kosher, because as a rule all blood carries the soul of another creature. Blood prevents the body’s decomposition as long as it flows through one’s veins, but once the body is dead it is the fastest thing to become corrupt and thus must be removed from the body for it to remain intact even for a few days for the convention of viewing at funerals. Yeshua’s blood indeed also carries his soul, and this must be “ingested” for us to be able to partake of the revived human race which will be reconstituted physically (v. 54) after the spirit that has re-enlivened those who put their confidence in what Yeshua accomplished (v. 47) carries us across the “great divide” from corruptibility to incorruptibility (1 Cor. 15).

56. “The one who ‘eats’ my flesh and ‘drinks’ my blood remains in me, and I in him.

In chapter 15, Yeshua describes this same “remaining” as a branch staying connected to the vine from which its “lifeblood” flows.

57. “Just as the Father, who is alive, sent me, and I [remain’ alive by means of the Father, so also the one who partakes of me will live through me.

58. “This is the bread that comes down out of the sky, not the kind that the ancestors ate and [still] died. The one who partakes of this [kind of] bread will survive into the Age [to come].”

Ate and died: not immediately, or because of it, but it was not enough to sustain them permanently, but only temporarily, as unusual as it was.

59. He said these things in the synagogue, [while] teaching in Kfar Nahum.

Here in the Galil, even when saying such things, he does not seem to be harassed, while in Judea he usually was. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

60. so when they had heard [it], many of his disciples said, “This idea is tough; who can comprehend it?”

Tough: or unyieldingly harsh, stern, stubborn, difficult. It was clearly not to be taken literally, yet what on earth could it mean?  

61. But knowing within himself that his disciples were murmuring [discontentedly] about this, Yeshua said to them, “Does this make you stumble?

62. “Then what if you should witness the Son of Adam going up where he was before?

I.e., “You think that’s hard to wrap your head around? You ain’t seen nothing yet!”

63. “It is the spirit that gives life [to what was dead]; the flesh is of no help. The topics that I talk to you about are spirit, and they are life!

No help: or, no benefit; does no good; profits nothing; Aramaic: the body is of no account. Spirit: or breath, probably referring to what YHWH had to breath into Adam before his body became alive; Adam could not help this come about, lifeless as he still was, and to get us back to where Adam was before he fell is something which no fallen mortal can accomplish on his own, without the direct, deliberate intervention of YHWH once again, for it is nothing short of a “new creation” that is needed to transfer us into the condition suitable for His Kingdom. (3:3; 1 Cor. 15:50; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15) Life: i.e., revitalization, reinstatement into what is incorruptible. (1 Kefa 1:23)

64. “But there are some from among you who do not believe.”--because Yeshua had recognized from the beginning those who were not convinced and who it was who would hand him over.

Hand him over: or, betray into the hands of an adversary.

65. And he was starting to say, “This is why I told you that no one is able to come toward me unless it has been offered to him by the Father…”

He is alluding back to verse 44.

66. At that point many of his disciples left to go back [home], and were no longer walking with him.

That point: This was too much for those who were just along for the entertainment of watching his miracles. Walking with him: He was an itinerant, moving from town to town, and his disciples followed him as such.

67. So he said to the twelve, “You don’t also want to withdraw, [do you]?”

68. And Shim’on “the Stone” answered him, “Master, to whom will we go? You have a grasp of matters [that emanate] from eternal life!”

To whom: or, to what? I.e., “where?” Even if he was hard to understand at times, there was no other teacher who compared even remotely to this one.   

69. “And we have believed, and have come to recognize that you are the one [specially] set apart by YHWH.”

70. Yeshua answered them, “Haven’t I chosen the twelve of you, though one from among you is an adversary?”

Adversary: in Aramaic, the term is satanas, but is not speaking of “THE devil”; the Greek term means more of a slanderer, or one who accuses falsely, but this person does not fit that description as well as the Aramaic:

71. (Now he was speaking of Yehudah, [son of] Shim’on, [of the] Sikarii, one of the twelve, who was about to betray him.)


CHAPTER 7

1. Now after these things, Yeshua was going around the Galil, because he did not want to go about in Judea, because the Judeans were seeking to kill him.

2. Now the Judean festival of Sukkoth was nearing,

Judean: Not Jewish as such, but emphasizing one of several calendars that were in use at that time (i.e., that of the Sanhedrin and priests as opposed to that of the Samaritans or Tzadoqites), which may be an additional reason he did not go up at the same time as others (v. 8).

3. so his brothers told him, “Change your venue from here, and go into Judea, so that your disciples, too, can be spectators of the works you are doing!

4. “Because no one who wants to be in the public eye does anything in private! If you’re doing these things, make yourself known to the world!”

“By now his Galilean disciples have witnessed a number of his miracles, but none were performed in Judea… ‘If you want to be accepted by your own [cf. 1:11], you must also do your signs in Jerusalem’”, where the whole nation can see. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

5. (Because not even his brothers were confident in him.)

Still the members of his household found him a little too familiar (Mat. 13:57) and could not imagine that someone from their own house could be doing things so significant. But after his resurrection this would change: his brother Yaaqov (James) would be the leader of his followers in Yerushalayim (Acts 15:13) and another brother, Yehudah (Jude) would also write one of the Renewed-Covenant epistles.

6. So Yeshua said to them, “The right time hasn’t come for me. But for you the season is always auspicious;

7. “the world order can’t hate you, but it hates me, because I show evidence about it—that what it does is wrong.

What it does is wrong: or, that its accomplishments are worthless.

8. “You go on up to the feast; I am not going up to this feast, because the right time hasn’t fully come [together] for me [yet].”

What? Yeshua is not obeying the command for every male in Israel to go to Yerushalayimand appear before YHWH at this time? (Ex. 23:17) Keep reading…

9. Having told them these things, Yeshua waited in the Galil.

10. However, after his brothers had gone up to the festival, then he also went up, not openly but as if in private.

He was indeed obedient, as could be counted on, but he did it for YHWH’s purposes, not to be in the spotlight, as his worldly-minded brothers imagined he had to intend.

11. Therefore the Judeans were looking for him at the festival, and saying, “Where is that [man]?”

12. And there was much muttering about him among the crowds: some were indeed saying, “He is good”, while others were saying, “No, on the contrary; he is leading the people astray.” 

13. Nevertheless, no one was speaking openly about him, for fear of the Judeans.

Yeshua was a taboo subject. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg) While Pharisaic authority was not as strong as that of its rabbinic successors, it was still very influential already. Judaism (this “Judean” version of the more basic lifestyle given to all of Israel) is as guilty of adding to the Torah as Christianity is of taking away from it.

14. But at length, when the feast was half-over, Yeshua did go up into the Temple, and he started teaching.

He did not disobey the commandment after all!

15. Then the Judeans started admiring him [in amazement], saying, “How does this [man] know [the] writings, when he has not studied?”

Writings: literally, letters. Has not studied: He clearly studied and the knew the Torah, not so much the added oral teachings which would later be written down as the Mishnah, Gemara, and Talmud.  The proto-rabbinic teachers saw those who did not study their form of interpretation as “unlearned” and did not expect this much of them.  But it appears they did not recognize that he was the one many had only heard of—either because his looks were so average or because (since he spent most of his time elsewhere) no one who could have arrested him knew what he looked like—one reason Judas had to identify him to the soldiers. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

16. Yeshua answered them and said, “What I teach is not my own, but from the One who sent me.”

YHWH promised to put His own words into the mouth of a prophet He would raise up from among Israel, and that he would speak all that YHWH ordered him to speak. (Deut. 18:18; compare Yoch. 12:49)  Yeshayahu 48:16-17 specifies that YHWH has sent both the speaker (who implies that he is an eyewitness of what he speaks about) and His Spirit.

17. “If anyone wants to do His will, he will discern whether [my] teaching is from Elohim, or [whether] I speak from off my own self.

18. “The one who speaks from himself is seeking his own renown; the one, however, whose goal is the honor of the one who sent him is genuine—that is, there is no injustice in him.

19. “Hasn’t Moshe given you the Torah? And yet, none of you carries out the Torah, so why do you want to put me to death?

20. The crowds answered, “You do have a demon! Who is trying to kill you?”

21. Yeshua answered and told them, “I did one act, and you are all amazed!

His only miracle in Yerushalayim thus far had been the healing of the man at the Sheep Pool on a prior visit. “Jewish authorities worked under the watchful eye of Roman authority…Jewish beliefs were tolerated as long as they did not infringe on the pagan cults, and this was an infringement. [See note on 5:4]… Both the Temple authorities and the Romans were very concerned. Therefore, in order to distance themselves from [Yeshua], the Temple authorities accused him of Sabbath desecration. [Their] blind commitment to stop Yeshua and strip him of his growing popularity closed their eyes to being able to see the obvious.” (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

22. “Because of the fact that Moshe gave you circumcision—not that it is from Moshe, but from the patriarchs—you circumcise a person even on the Sabbath.

The eighth day of a boy’s life can fall on a Sabbath!

23. “If a person gets circumcised on the Sabbath so that the Torah of Moshe might not be slackened, are you angry with me because I made a whole person healthy on the Sabbath? 

“He didn’t argue with the Ioudaioi about the legitimacy of the Torah of Moses…only…about its interpretation. Here he is…accusing [them] of the sin of inconsistency. (5:22-23)” (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

24. “Don’t judge by [external] appearance, but judge with righteous judgment!”

25. So some Jerusalemites started saying, “Is this the one they are plotting to put to death?

26. “And look! He speaks publicly, yet they never say anything to him. Really? Have the chief rulers recognized that this is the Messiah?

27. “Yet this [man]—we know where he is from, but the Messiah, whenever he may come—no one knows where he is from!”

There was a common expectation that the Messiah would come suddenly and from an unknown place (Rabbi Zera in Sanhedrin 97a; Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho) and not even know who he was himself before Eliyahu came and made him manifest to all. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg) Yet Herodus’ scholars were able to ascertain from the prophet Mikhah where the Messiah was to come from! (Mat. 2:1-5) And one who came “in the spirit and power of Eliyahu” had made his identity public already.  

28. Therefore Yeshua was teaching urgently in the Temple and saying, “You do know me, and you know where I am from, and I have not come on my own initiative, but the One who has sent me—Whom you don’t know--is real.

29. “But I know Him, because I am from close beside Him—and He [is the One who] sent me.”

30. For this reason they were seeking to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.

His hour: compare 2:4; 12:20-24; 17:1-2.

31. Yet many from the crowd put their trust in him, and were saying, “When the Messiah comes, he won’t do more signs than this [man] has done, will he?”

32. The Prushim heard the crowd muttering these things about him, so the head priests and the Prushim sent subordinates in order to seize him.

33. So Yeshua said, “I am still with you for a little while, then I am going to the One who has sent me.

34. “You will search for me and you will not find me, and where I am you are not able to come.”

35. So the Judeans were saying to one another, “Where is he intending to go that we won’t find him? He’s not about to go into the Diaspora among the Hellenists and teach the Greeks, [is he]?

Hellenists: not Greeks per se, but anyone (including Jews) who acted like Greeks. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)  Aramaic: “Is he planning to go to the countries of the Gentiles to teach the pagans?” There may have been more truth to that than anyone realized.

36. “What is the logic of this thing he said—' You will search for me and you will not find me, and where I am you are not able to come’?”


37. On the last day, the high day of the feast, Yeshua stood up and called out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink!

The Feast: when stated without reference to which one, it refers to Sukkoth. On Hoshanah Rabbah (The Great Salvation), the last day of Sukkoth, Yeshua spoke of the Ruach haKodesh, but v. 39 says the Spirit of Holiness had not yet been given since Yeshua had not yet been glorified. He would not empower people as Adam had been empowered until Yeshua was resurrected. The Babylonian Talmud (Sukkah 51a) and Genesis Rabbah 70:8 cite Rabbi Hoshea, who ties the Beyth haShoevah ceremony to bringing down the divine Spirit to dwell among us. (Avi ben Mordechai)  The people had just been singing “You can draw water with joy from the springs of deliverance” (Heb, yeshuah) as the “living water” drawn from the Pool of Shiloakh was poured into one special receptacle on the altar while wine (the symbol of joy) was poured into another to mix with the water as it flowed. As he called out, did they consider the name of this prophet who was disrupting the ceremony on this last occasion he would be able to address the nation as a whole so that they could respond to him corporately? This was the last mandatory festival before the Passover on which he would visit again for the purpose of being the lamb the ceremonies depicted. (Micha’el Washer)

38. “If anyone trusts me, as the Writings have said, ‘Out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water!’  

Living water: i.e., running water, as required in a regulation miqveh--the kind that can keep one from ritual uncleanness, even though something defiled falls into it. (Lev. 11:36)  The scripture he was referring to was “In that Day…living waters will flow out of Yerushalayim” (Zkh. 14:8), and Y’hezq’el 47 specifies that the life-giving river would flow directly out from under the threshold of the Temple and go on to water the trees from whose leaves would come healing. (Compare Rev. 22:2) “There is some indication that these texts were actually read aloud as oart of the water ceremony. It is possible that following the reading of these very words, Yeshua got up and proclaimed that it is in him that the words of the prophets will be fulfilled.” (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)  Since he was to be the rejected cornerstone (Psalm 118:22) of the Temple to be built with living stones, which that one pictures, he was saying that we could be part of this source of life and healing by joining ourselves to him who was the agent of YHWH, with Whom is the fountain of life (Psalm 36:7-9), the water which purifies Israel. (Jer. 17:13)

39. (But he said this in regard to the Spirit, which those who trust in him were to receive, because the Spirit of Holiness had not yet [come], because Yeshua had not yet been granted authority.)

40. So when they heard this saying, many of the people said, “This is most certainly the Prophet!”

The prophet: Many at that time expected just one particular prophet to fulfill the role of the successor Moshe had predicted would come after him. (Deut. 18:18)

41. Others said, “This is the Messiah!” But [still] others said, “The Messiah won’t come out of the Galil!

42. “Didn’t the Scripture say that the Messiah is to come from the seed of David, and out of the village of Beyth Lechem, where David had been?”

They apparently had not checked into where Yeshua was born, assuming that because he lived in the Galil, he had been born there.

43. So there arose a dissension among the people because of him,

44. and some of them intended to apprehend him, but no one laid hands on him.

​45. For this reason the head priests and P’rushim came to [their] subordinates and said, “Why didn’t you bring him in [by force]?”

46. And the subordinates answered, “[There has] never [been] a person who speaks like this person speaks!”

47. Accordingly, the P’rushim responded, “You haven’t been led astray too, have you?

48. “None of the first [string] or the P’rushim has put [any] trust in him, have they?

About this they were mistaken, not knowing about Naqdimon or Shim’on of Ramathayim, a dissenting member of the Sanhedrin. (3:1; v. 50 below; Markos 15:43; Lukas 23:51)

49. “But this crowd that doesn’t know the Torah is cursed!”

50. Naqdimon (who had come to him) said to them (since he had formerly been one of them),

51. “Our law doesn’t judge a man if it hasn’t first heard from him and known what he did, [does it]?”

52. In response, they said to him, “Are you also from the Galil? Investigate diligently and you will see that no prophet is to arise out of the Galil!”

In their own arrogant prejudice, they had missed Yeshayahu 9:1-2.

53. And each of them went into his own home.


CHAPTER 8

1. Yeshua went over to the Mount of Olives,

2. then early in the morning he came back into the Temple and made [another public] appearance, and all of the people came to him, so he sat down and taught them.

This is the day after Sinchat Torah, when one would have expected these leaders to have been joining in the Temple festivities that went late into the night, but instead they were out trying to “dig up dirt” to get Yeshua in trouble:

3. But the scribes and P’rushim brought him a woman caught in adultery, and when they had stood her in their midst, 

4. they said to him, “Master, this woman was caught in the very act of adultery!

5. “Now in the Torah, Moshe commanded us that this kind should be stoned [to death]; so what do you say?”

6. They said this to test him, so that they might have [grounds on which] to make a [legal] accusation against him, but Yeshua stooped down and started writing on the ground,

7. and when they continued questioning him, he raised himself back up and said to them, “Anyone among you who is has not sinned, let him [be the] first [to] throw a stone at her!” 

8. And again he stooped down and started writing on the ground.

This is a direct allusion to Yirmiyahu 17:13, in the context of 7:37 above. What he was writing, then, was their names, for they had rejected the Fountain of Living Waters (YHWH) by rejecting the spokesman He had authorized. As the prophet had said, they were indeed put to shame:

9. And those who heard it, being convicted [by their own] conscience, departed one after another, beginning from the oldest, all the way to the last, and Yeshua was left alone with the woman standing in the middle.

They heard him writing on the ground? This was not dirt; they were in the Temple which Herod had embellished luxuriously. An alternate interpretation is that he was engraving the ten commandments on the paving stones of the Court of Women or Court of Gentiles, whichever they were in, thus exposing their sins—others which are just as against YHWH’s Torah as adultery is. (Micha’el Washer)  

10. When Yeshua got up and saw no one but the woman, he said, “Woman, where are the ones who accused you? Has no one judged you worthy of punishment?”

11. And she said, “No one, sir.” Yeshua said to her, “[Then] I won’t condemn you either; go and don’t sin anymore!”

One reason he did not find her accusable is that the man with whom she was caught in adultery was not brought, so either they had “set her up” for entrapment, or were trying to let the man get away with what they would not exonerate a woman of, showing a deeper-seated problem, for Moshe actually stipulated that both parties should be executed in such a case. (Lev. 20:10)  Verses 1-11 do not appear in the ancient Aramaic Peshitta text, but do appear in later Aramaic texts.  They may not have been in the original Gospel of Yochanan, but may have been a genuine event carried down orally until added in at this point later, because they fit so well with the context of chapter 7 and Jeremiah 17:13.

12. Accordingly, Yeshua spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. The one who accompanies me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life!”

13. The Prushim therefore responded to him, “You are bearing witness to your own self; your testimony is therefore not admissible.”

Admissible: or credible. Additionally, two witnesses are required to establish any matter in Israel. (Num. 35:30; Deut. 19:15) Yeshua alludes to this in verse 18 below.

14. Yeshua answered and told them, “Even if I am bearing witness concerning myself, my testimony is true, because I know where I came from and where I am going, but you don’t know where I come from or where I am going.

15. “You judge according to the flesh; I am not judging anyone,

Flesh: what is physical or natural, according to norms present since Adam fell, but Yeshua was not in that condition and so there were additional factors of which he was aware. 

16. “though if I would judge, my judgment is reliable, because I am not alone; rather, [it is] I and the Father, Who has sent me.

Daniel 7:9-14 speaks of the Ancient of Days giving a kingdom to the Son of Man, to whom 1 Enoch 69:26-27 says was given “the sum of judgment”. Daniel speaks of thrones (plural), probably one for each of these two authorities in heaven—a concept found in the rabbinic writings (Hagigah 14b-15a), notably of Metatron, who was even called “the Lesser YHWH”, since it was written, “My name is in him.” (3 Enoch 12:1-5)

17. “But even in your own law it has been written that the testimony of two persons is admissible.

Your own law: not that it is not his also, but it is the one they recognize and should therefore heed. (Yochanan may also be stating it this way for the Samaritan part of his audience.)  He therefore cites his two witnesses:

18. “I am the one bearing witness to myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness concerning me.”

Since they deny the testimony of witnesses, they disqualified any opinions they might have about him. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

19. So they were saying to him, “Where is your Father?” Yeshua answered, “You recognize neither me nor my Father; if you had appreciated me, you would also have recognized my Father.”

Where? They probably were accusing him of illegitimate birth due to rumors about his mother, who was yet unmarried when he was conceived. (Cf. the implication in v. 41.)  But he ignores this and answers according to the truth, not their speculation.

20. He discussed these matters in the treasury, teaching in the Temple [complex], and no one apprehended him, because his hour had not yet come.

21. Again he said to them, “I am going away, and you will search for me, but you will die off in your errors; where I am going you are not able to come.”

22. So the Judeans were saying, “He’s not going to kill himself, is he, since he says, ‘where I am going you are not able to come’?”

23. And he was saying to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are from the present world [order]; I am not from this world order.

24. “That’s why I told you that you will die off in your errors, for if you do not believe that I am [he], you will die off in your errors.”

I am he: i.e., the Messiah, for he later told them that he had already informed them of what they were asking. (10:24-25)

25. So they were saying to him, “You are whom?” Yeshua told them, “Just what I have been telling you since the beginning!

26. “I have many things to say and judge concerning you, but the One who has sent me is [undeniably] real, and whatever I have heard from Him, those are the things I say to the world.”

27. They did not recognize that he was speaking to them about the Father.

28. So Yeshua told them, “When you have raised the Son of Adam up high, then you will realize that I am [he] and that I do nothing from my own initiative, but just as the Father has directed me, those are the things I say.

Just as: in the same manner and to the same degree.

29. “And the One who sent me is with me; He has not abandoned me, because I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”

30. With his saying these things, many put their trust in him.

31. Therefore Yeshua was saying to the Judeans who had believed in him, “If you remain in what I have said, you are genuinely my disciples,

What I have said: literally, my word or way of thinking.

32. “and when you recognize the truth, the truth will liberate you.”


33. They answered back at him, “We are Avraham’s seed, and have never been enslaved to anyone. How can you say, ‘You will become free’?” 

34. Yeshua answered them, “It is true, it is reliable, I tell you, that everyone who commits the error is a slave of the error. 

Error: or sin, literally, missing the target. This applies to all of us, Hebrew or not. We must live with the consequences of our failures unless a way is found to be forgiven, and that is what Yeshua was here to bring.

35. “Now a slave does not remain in the household into perpetuity; the son does remain into perpetuity.

36. “So if the Son sets you free, you will really be free.

Really: truly or actually; indeed. If we are loosed from our guilt, we are loosed from at least the most important consequences—the kind that last into the next age—even if some of the physical consequences may remain, and this lifts such a burden off of us that the release may even be palpable. And even if we remain physically a slave in this life, we have the freedom that really counts and which will outlast this life.

37. “I know that you are Avraham’s seed, yet you are plotting to kill me off, because my logic finds no place in you.

One’s mind must have a receptacle by which he can make a connection with what he hears, or it just rolls off his back. If they have not aligned their paradigms with YHWH’s categories of thought, what Yeshua says will not make any sense to them.

38. “What I speak of is what I have seen alongside [my] Father; accordingly, you also are doing what you have heard from [your] father.”

The “your” (as well as the “my” in the first phrase) is overt in the Aramaic version, while the Greek only says “the” in both cases.

39. They answered and told him, “Our father is Avraham!” Yeshua told them, “If you were Avraham’s children, you would do the same things Avraham did.

40. “But now you are plotting to kill me, a person who has told you the truth I heard from Elohim. This is not what Avraham did!

41. “You are doing the things that your father [did].” So they told him, “We were not born of harlotry; we have one Father—the Elohim.”

We were not: insinuating that Yeshua was. (Compare v. 19)  Such stories that his mother was raped by a Roman soldier still circulate today, because people cannot get past the possibility that someone could be born of only the seed of a woman from the line of David. Yet even Muslims believe that!  

42. Yeshua said to them, “If the Elohim was your father, you would love me, because I came forth from Elohim and have arrived here. For I did not come based on my own [initiative] either; rather, He sent me.

43. “For which [reason] don’t you recognize my way of speaking? Because you are not able to comprehend my logic!

44. “You are from your father, the false Accuser, and you want to carry out what your father passionately longs for. That one was a murderer from the beginning, and has not remained in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a falsification, he speaks from [what is] his own, because he is a deceiver and the father of the same [kind of thing],

This is a direct confrontation between the “seed of the woman” and the “seed of the serpent” (Gen. 3:15), whether they had any sort of physical descent from a fallen angel as it seems the final incarnation of that category was and will be, or not; they were living out the ideas that he had implanted in humanity. Murderer: literally, man-slayer or, more properly, “killer of humanity”, for through his instigation, Adam was immediately diminished and all of his descendants start dying very early in life.  

45. “yet because I speak the truth, you do not believe me!

46. “Which from among you is able to show me to be guilty in regard to error? If I speak the truth, by what means do you not believe me?

47. “The one who is from the Elohim hears [and comprehends] the words of the Elohim. This is why you can’t understand me: because from the Elohim you are not!”

48. The Judeans answered and said to him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?

49. Yeshua answered, “I don’t have a demon; rather, I reverence the Father, and you are dishonoring me!

He does not deny having some affiliation with Samaritans, for they are part of the “other sheep which are not of this [Jewish] flock.” (10:16)

50. “Though I don’t require that [anyone] honor me, there is one who does require it and he judges [accordingly].

He is alluding to Deuteronomy 18:18, 19, in which YHWH says that whoever does not listen to the prophet from among their brothers who speaks in His name, He will require it of them. 

51. “I tell you the truth—and it is reliable: In the case of anyone [who] holds onto [the logic of] what I say, he will never experience death—[even] into the Age [to come].”

Never: or, absolutely not.

52. Then the Judeans told him, “Now we know [for sure] that you have a demon! Avraham and the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone holds onto [the logic of] what I say, he will never taste death—[even] into the Age’!

They did change his words slightly. We might “taste” death without fully experiencing it, as he himself did, for the sting is taken away and it will be undone even if we go through it.

53. “You are not greater than our ancestor Avraham, who died, are you? Even the prophets died! Whom are you making yourself [out to be]?”

54. Yeshua answered, “If I bestow honor on myself, my opinion [means] nothing. It is my Father —of Whom you say, ‘He is our Elohim’—Who is honoring me.

55. “Yet you have not experienced Him, whereas I have experienced Him. If I were to say that I had not experienced Him, I would, just like you, be a liar! But I have experienced Him, and I hold to His [kind of] logic.

56. “Your ancestor Avraham jumped for joy at the occasion [offered him] to see my day, and he did see it and gladly [leaned forward toward it].

Genesis 22:13 says Avraham “lifted up his eyes” (i.e., looked on a higher plane) and saw the ram that would be substituted for his son “behind him”, which in Hebrew can also mean, “in the future” (i.e., behind him in the procession of time. This certainly made him glad, and may be what Yeshua is alluding to.

57. So the Judeans said to him, “You’re not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Avraham?”

Seen: or, by Hebraism, encountered.

58. Yeshua told them, “I tell you the truth—and it is reliable: Before Avraham came into being, I exist.”

In the Greek text, he uses two different tenses here, the latter suggesting an outside-of-time existing which is simultaneously before, during, and after the lifespans of those who have only known time. He is not the self-existent One; only YHWH is that, but as the first aspect of YHWH’s creation, His word, he was there before time, since time is dependent on the measurements of the motion of the earth through its orbit. The Aramaic has, “I was”, i.e., had already existed beforehand, which makes the same point in a way less likely to be misconstrued.  P’sikta Rabbati, Piska 33:6 also reads, “At the very beginning of the creation of the world, the king Messiah had already come into being, for he existed in Elohm’s thoughts even before the world was created.” Then, in 36:1, “The Holy One, blessed be He, contemplated the Messiah and his accomplishments before the world was created, and then under His throne of glory, put away His Messiah until the time of the generation in which he will appear.”

59. They therefore started picking up stones I order to throw [them] at him, but Yeshua concealed himself and went out from the Temple, passing right through their midst, and in this way he departed.

He probably did not “dematerialize” as he would to pass through closed doors after his resurrection, he somehow apparently covered himself sufficiently to be unrecognizable in the middle of the crowd there, possibly wearing an ancient version of a talith or something many people would be wearing there at the same time.


CHAPTER 9

​1. Now on his way he saw a man who was blind from birth,

2. and his students asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this [man] or his parents, that he was born blind?”

They rightly assumed some diseases are the result of sin; they wrongly assumed all are:

3. Yeshua answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but in order that the works of Elohim might be displayed.

4. “We have to do the works of the One who sent me while it is [still] day; night is coming, when no one can work.

Still day: This was the last day of Sukkoth, after which the special occasion for them to see the significance of his work would be past. But this was also the last festival all of Israel would be together before Yeshua’s life would be extinguished—on the very next—so he would no longer be able to teach them, so he is certain not to miss this occasion.

5. “As long as I will be in the world, I am the light of the world.”

“Light of the world” is what the four great lamps in the Court of Women during Sukkoth were called, and their wicks were made of “swaddling cloths”—a particular designation for the used undergarments of the priests. That Yeshua had been wrapped in these (Luke 2:7) demonstrated that, being from particular lineage in both the tribes of Yehudah and of Levi (Mikha 5:2; Luke 1:36), he had the right to be both king and priest. 

6. After he had said these things, He spat on the ground and made mud from the spittle, and spread the mud on the blind man’s eyes.

Gathering up dust (symbolic of the scattered children of Avraham), or the “dust of the ground” as YHWH did at creation (Gen. 2:7), he  thereby opened a blind man's eyes (which in Hebrew are called "fountains"). Compare the prototype of this event in Gen. 46:4. The Talmud says, “There is a tradition that the spittle of the firstborn of a father is healing, but that of the firstborn of a mother is not healing.” (Bava Batra 126b) Yeshua is called the firstborn (of the ultimate Father) in Romans 8:29; Colossians 1:15 and 1:18.

7. And he told him, “Go, wash in the Pool of Shiloakh” [which means “sent”]. So he went and washed, and came [back] seeing.

Wash: the term can specifically mean a ritual or ceremonial cleansing. Pool of Shiloakh: the very site from which the “living water” for the Beyt haShoevah ceremony to which Yeshua had just alluded in 7:37 had been drawn all seven days of the festival of Sukkoth, which had just ended. Did he come back, probably leaping with the joy with which Sukkoth is to be characterized (Lev. 23:40), by the same route the priests had taken? (Micha’el Washer) The verse about having rejected YHWH, the fountain of living waters (Yirm. 17:13) is followed by, “Heal me, O YHWH, and I shall be healed!”(Compare Zkh. 13:1)  “This pool was not a very busy place, but not for the same reason that Beyth Hesdah [ch. 5] was. There was no supernatural attraction attached to the Pool of Siloam [Gk. Name], and yet…the quiet, supernatural presence of the Lord was discernible for those who had eyes to see and hearts to know. Yahweh doesn’t often manifest Himself with bells and whistles…but rather waits for those who are seeking Him, who will wait for Him, and who will listen to Him speak in a still, small voice.” (Colleen James and Nancy Bowser) Yeshua compared the Holy Spirit to “living water” (7:38-39), the Hebrew way to describe flowing water—the kind that is kosher for ritual purification. Whereas Beyth Hesdah was formed by water runoff from the surrounding hills, this pool was instead fed by the Gihon—one of the rivers that flowed out of Eden (Gen. 2:13), and Hizqiyahu walled it in and directed the spring’s flow to this reservoir within the city by which the citizens could ride out the Assyrian siege (2 Chron. 32:30)—a picture of hiding YHWH’s word in our hearts (Ps. 119:11) so the life-giving Spirit (6:63) can bring it to our remembrance even in the most difficult of circumstances. (Yoch. 14:26)

8. So the neighbors and those who had seen him before, [knowing] that he had been a beggar, were saying, “Isn’t this the one who sits and begs?” 

9. Some were saying, “He is”, while others were saying, “No, but he looks like him.” He [himself] kept saying, “I am!”

10. So they were saying to him, “How were your eyes opened, then?”

11. He answered, “The man called Yeshua made mud and smeared [it on] my eyes and told me, “Go into the Shiloakh and ceremonially cleanse.” So when I had gone and washed, I could see again!”

Smeared it on: or, anointed.

12. So they said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I don’t know.”

13. They brought the one who had been blind before the P’rushim.

14. Now since the day on which Yeshua had made the mud and opened his eyes was a shabbaton,

Shabbaton: a high sabbath, specifically Shemini Atzereth, the eighth day of Sukkoth, in this case, on which remunerative work or servile labor is forbidden. (Lev. 23:36) But he was not being paid for this act of re-creation; the eighth day is a picture of the new beginning, the new heaven and new earth when all things will be restored to what they were always meant to be, and this act fit that motif perfectly.

15. the P’rushim, too, kept asking him again [and again] how he had come to see again, and he told them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I performed a ceremonial cleansing, and [now] I [can] see.”

16. So some of the P’rushim were saying, “This person is not from alongside Elohim, because he does not guard the shabbaton.” But others were saying, “How could a sinful man manufacture such signs?” And there was a split among them.

17. So they said to the blind man [himself], “What do you say about him? Because it was your eyes he opened!” And he said, “He is a prophet!”

18. So the Judeans were not convinced about him—that he had been blind and recovered his sight—until they called the parents of the one who had received his sight back

19. and they asked them, “Is this your son, whom you say was born blind? So how does he see now?”

20. So his parents answered and said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was blind from birth,

21. “but how he now sees, we don’t know, or who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him! He’s fully grown; let him speak for himself!”

22. His parents said these things because they were afraid of the Judeans, for the Judeans had already made an agreement that if anyone should assent [that he was the] Messiah, they would be expelled from the synagogue.

23. Because of this, his parents said, “He is of age; ask him!”


24. So they called the man who had been blind out a second time and said to him, “Give honor to Elohim! We know that this man is a sinner!”

Sinner: In their opinion, anyone who did not follow their particular interpretation of what constituted working on a high day (v. 16) was in the wrong and “missing the target”.

25. Then he answered, “I don’t know whether he is a sinner. One [thing] I do know [is] that, [though I had] been blind, I see now!”

26. So they said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

27. He answered them, “I already told you and you didn’t listen! Why do you want to hear [it] again? You don’t also want to become his disciples, [do you]?

Also: This may imply that he himself was now inclined to become one of his disciples. They took it that way:

28. And they harshly insulted him and said, “You [may be] a disciple of that one, but we are disciples of Moshe!

29. “We are sure that Elohim did speak to Moshe, but we don’t know where this man is from.”

30. Then the man answered them and said, “Well now, this is an amazing thing—that you don’t know where he is from, and yet he opened my eyes!

31. “We know that Elohim doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone fears Elohim and does what He wants, He does listen to him.

32. “Never since the [beginning of] the age has it ever been heard of that anyone opened up the eyes of someone born blind!

33. “If this man were not from Elohim, he could accomplish nothing.”

34. And they answered and told him, “You were conceived entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” And they banished him. 

These people had the same mistaken assumption Yeshua’s disciples had had (v. 2). But these were unwilling to change when provided with evidence to the contrary. In light of where he sent the man to wash, the following prophecy (from a previous occasion similar to this) was again highly applicable: “This people has refused the gently-flowing waters of Shiloakh…Therefore, Adonai is about to bring on them the immeasurable, overwhelming waters of the river which will go up above all of its channels and overflow all of its banks.” (Yeshayahu 8:6-8) For the next 40 years, the scarlet cord placed on the scapegoat at Yom Kippur no longer turned white to indicate YHWH’s acceptance of the offering, after which an enemy came in like a flood and YHWH no longer raised up a standard against it, allowing it to send Yehudah into exile as Israel had gone previously. (Micha’el Washer)

​35. Yeshua heard that they had thrown him out, and when he had found him, he said, “Do you [yourself] trust the Son of Adam?”

36. He answered and said, “And who is he, master, that I may put my trust in him?”

37. Yeshua said to him, “You have both seen him, and he is the one speaking to you!”

38. As he was saying, “Master, I [do] trust [you]!”, he bowed before him [in homage].

39. And the savior said, “For the purpose of a decisive verdict I came into this age, so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind!”

40. When the P’rushim who were with him heard these things, they said to him, “We are not also blind, [are we]?”

41. Yeshua said to them, “If you were blind, you would not incur sin, but now that you say, ‘We [can] see’, your guilt remains.”

See: or perceive, discern. Their own claims to be the ones who really knew YHWH would be put to the test and found wanting.


CHAPTER 10

1. “It is true, it is reliable, I tell you: the one who does not enter into the sheepfold through the doorway, but climbs [over] by another way—that one is a thief and a bandit.

The P’rushim (Pharisees) were in the process of usurping the role YHWH had assigned to the priests and Levites as teachers of Torah; this came to full fruition after the Temple was destroyed and the current rabbinical system was beginning to be codified by the time of the Bar Kochba rebellion and the Second Revolt (c. 135 C.E.), which resulted in the complete dispersion of the House of Yehudah until our own era. (See Rabbi Akiba’s Messiah by Daniel Gruber for a thorough treatment of this subject.) Prior to this, the Romans also had been in league, unwittingly, as they sold the position of the High Priest (usually the Tzadduqim/Sadducees) to the highest bidder, also undermining the order YHWH had established for Israel. These self-styled “shepherds” were leading Israel astray. (See Yeshayahu 56:11; Yirmeyahu 50:6; Y’hezq’El 34:2-10)

2. “but the one who enters by the doorway is the shepherd of the sheep.

3. “To him the gate-warden opens, and the sheep listen to his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

4. “When he has brought all of his own out, he goes in front of them and the sheep follow him, because they know his voice.

5. “They will certainly not follow a stranger, but will run away from him, because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

Stranger: one who is foreign to them, not their own, and possibly hostile.

6. Yeshua spoke this allegory to them, but they did not recognize what he was saying to them.

7. So Yeshua again told them, “It is true, it is reliable, I tell you: I am the sheep’s entryway.

The shepherd himself would often lie at the entry to a sheepfold and block any predators or other intruders, thus screening out anything or anyone who would harm or snatch them away.

8. “All who ever came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them.

All who came: Ever since the days of the Hasmoneans, who were priests but took over the high priesthood as well as ruling as kings in Israel, people had been altering the order of leadership in Israel that YHWH had set up, often for the purpose of their own gain.

9. “I am the doorway; if anyone enters in through me, he will be protected, and will go in and out [freely] and find pasture.

10. “The thief does not come except to steal or slaughter or destroy; I came in order that they might possess life, and have it more than abundantly.

11. “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life on behalf of the sheep.

The: referring to a particular shepherd promised by YHWH in the context of the way Yochanan had identified himself as forerunner (1:23): YHWH’s own “arm” would also lead His flock like a shepherd. (Yeshayahu 40:3, 9-11) A particular man that is called YHWH’s companion, and who would be struck down, is called YHWH’s own shepherd in Z’kharyah 13:7. (Compare Yirmeyahu 23:4.)  Life: or soul, thus either sacrificing himself or his own comfort, safety, or convenience for their sake.

12. “The hired hand, who is not [himself] the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and lets the sheep go and the wolf snatches them up and scatters them,

13. “because he is a hired hand and does not concern himself about the sheep.

14. “I am the good shepherd, and I know my own and my own recognize me.

15. “In the same way that my Father knows me, I also know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.

16. “I also have other sheep which are not of this fold; it is absolutely necessary for me to lead those as well, and [thus] there will come to be ‘one flock…one shepherd.’”

He is alluding directly to Ezekiel 34, especially verse 23-24, where it is said that David will again be the only Shepherd over the House of Israel, whom YHWH would search for and regather to their own Land from many nations to which they were scattered. (34:11-14) Connect this with Y’hezq’El 37:16-25, where YHWH specifies the two flocks to which He is referring, and we know why Yeshua put so much emphasis on seeking the “lost sheep of the House of Israel.” (Mat. 15:24; Luke 19:10, etc.)

​17. “Because of this, the Father is committed to me, because I lay down my life, so that I might receive it [back] again.

18. “No one takes it from me; rather, I lay it down by my own [choice]. I have authority to lay it down, and authority to take it [back] again. This [is an] order [that] I received from my Father.”

Yeshua “did not merely choose the time of his dying: He was in a position to choose whether to die AT ALL… His physical death was active: He was entirely responsible for it.” (Custance) He was still immortal, as Adam once had been before he died spiritually upon his disobedience. "Not impossible to die but possible not to die." This was Augustine's description of the constitution of Adam as first created. “Adam could have lived for ever without tasting death.” (Custance)   Yeshua was still in that position, so he could choose to die if there was a reason to (and there was, as he says here), and he could also choose when to die. He had been promised by his father that he would receive his life back, because his death was not a penalty or consequence of sin (as it is for al the rest of us) and thus death had no perpetual claim on him; he need not remain dead, but could use death for a purpose and then discard it, so to speak.   

19. Again there was a sharp split among the Judeans on account of these words.

20. Many of them were saying, “He has a demon and is a raving madman! Why do you listen to him?”

21. Others were saying, “These are not the kind of things someone under the influence of a demon would talk about! A demon is not able to open the eyes of the blind, [is he]?”

While demons might do “lying wonders”, their goal is not usually constructive, but destructive.


22. At that time the festival of Dedication began in Yerushalayim (it was winter).

Winter is specified, because there are two “feasts of dedication”, the other being Sukkoth (because Solomon dedicated the first temple then). This phrase clarifies that it is the festival now more commonly known as Hanukkah (Dedication or Rededication) that is being referred to.

23. And Yeshua was walking in the Temple, in Shlomoh’s Colonnade.

Colonnade: or portico, but based on a word for pillars. The term is stoa, and another part of Herod’s Temple complex was called the Royal Stoa. This one was located on the eastern end of the outer court, the Court of Women, which was still within the area covered by Shlomoh’s original square of 500 cubits/250 yards.  This shows that Yeshua himself participated in Hanukkah.

24. Therefore the Judeans surrounded him and said to him, “How long will you keep our souls in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly!”

The background for this is in 1 Maccabees 4:44-46: "And when they [the Jews who cleansed the Temple after it had been desecrated by the Greco-Syrian Antiochus IV] consulted what to do with the altar that had been defiled, they thought it best to pull it down, and stored the stones in a convenient place on the Temple Mount until a prophet should come to show what should be done to them." That is why they asked, "Are you the one?" Judeans: as contrasted with Galileans and Jews from other regions who were more "Torah-only" observant, without all the added rabbinic accoutrements adhered to by those from Judea, such as the concept of an additional "oral Torah". Translating the term this way from the start would have precluded much of the anti-Semitism that resulted from simply rendering it "the Jews". The fact that Yeshua himself is a Jew shows how shallow and dangerous that kind of thought is. They were saying, in effect, “Do the right thing. Don’t be a loner. Submit your candidacy for Messiahship to us…We are the gate. We will decide what to do about it.” But he “maintained their authority was inferior to that of his Father”, Who “had already approved his mission. (Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

25. Yeshua answered them, “I have told you, and you do not believe [me]. The deeds that I do in my Father’s Name, these testify concerning me,

Told you: He had done so in 8:24.

26. “but you do not believe, because you are not from among my sheep.

27. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me,

Thus those who claim to follow Yeshua should do what he did—in this context: commemorate Hanukkah, not the other festival at its season that claims to have something to do with Yeshua, but actually does not, being fabricated as a replacement for Saturnalia and Mithras’ birthday. (Compare Luke 4:16.) Hanukkah is actually short for "Hanukkath ha-Mizbeakh"--(re)dedication of the altar, after it was defiled by the Greco-Syrian army c. 168-165 BCE. The 8 days of oil are not actually mentioned in the book of Maccabees, the primary historical document, though that there was any kosher oil left to re-light the Temple menorah was a miracle in itself. Possibly the main reason it was 8 days is that the other "feast of dedication", Sukkoth is a mandated festival with 8 days, and because the Temple was not yet cleansed at the time for Sukkoth, they were unable to celebrate it on schedule, but as soon as they possibly could, they did celebrate it--at the time that became known later as Hanukkah, which is not commanded in Scripture, but which commemorates the heroic deeds without which Torah culture might not have been able to continue as commanded, and thus is well worth celebrating.  In more general terms, he is alluding to Psalm 95:7ff, where we are called YHWH’s sheep, and the psalmist goes on to immediately say, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart”, as your ancestors did. He is accusing these leaders, who are about to be defrocked of their authority, of directly disobeying this injunction.

28. “and I give them eternal life, and they will never, [all the way] into the age, be lost, and no one can snatch them out of my hand.

29. “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than any [other], and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

30. “I and the Father are unified.”

We are not able to see the Father or Mother (Holy Spirit), but only their effects; to “see” them we must look at the “Son”, who embodies, harmonizes, and synthesizes all the attributes of the Ancient Adam, the image of Elohim, which makes YHWH’s characteristics not only visible but attainable by those with whom the Son shares his life. (Avi ben Mordechai, based on ancient kabbalah and on verse 28 above and 5:26-27)

31. therefore the Judeans again picked up stones, that they might pelt him [with them].

Pelt: one form of execution acceptable in the Torah under certain circumstances. (Lev. 24:23; Deut. 13:10, et al)

32. Yeshua responded to them: “[Through] many deeds I have demonstrated to you honorable character [that comes] from the Father; for which [kind] of deeds are you stoning me?” 

33. The Judeans answered him, “Not for an honorable deed do we stone you, but on account of blasphemy, since you, who are a human being, make yourself Elohim!”

Blasphemy: abusive language, especially that which damages others’ reputation, and most literally is slow to call what is good “good” and what is bad “bad”, but even confuses the two. Ostensibly, he was lowering Elohim’s reputation by identifying himself with Elohim, when clearly Elohim is not a man (Num. 23:19); they did not recognize that he was a man of a higher order than any who had lived since Adam fell from his earlier position, a position that Yeshua was restoring. He also reminds them that “Elohim” can have more than one meaning:

34. Yeshua answered them, “Has it not been written in your own law, ‘I said, “You are elohim”?

Your own law: something they respected. It is actually from the “Torah” in the broader sense, including the writings; the reference is to Psalm 82:6-7, where YHWH is speaking to human judges.  But this was not in the law of the Samaritans, who accepted only the Torah.

35. “If he called them ‘elohim’ to whom the word of Elohim came (and the Scripture cannot be loosened), 

36. “can you say of the one whom the Father has dedicated and sent into the [present] order, ‘You are blaspheming!’ in that I said, ‘I am the son of Elohim’?!

The first Adam was also called “the son of Elohim”. (Luke 3:28)  This is a “kal v’khomer” (light to heavy) argument, common in Hebrew: “If this is true, how much more is that?” If evil rulers can be called “gods”, how much more can a good ruler be called the “Son of Elohim”? (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

37. “If I’m not doing my Father’s business, don’t believe me!

38. “But if I am, even if you don’t trust me, trust the deeds, so that you can recognize and believe that the Father is in me, and I am in Him!”

39. They were therefore again searching [for a way] to arrest him, but he eluded their hand.

40. He went off again across the Yarden to the place where Yochanan had been immersing at first, and he remained there.

Remained: or waited.  “At first”, Yochanan was immersing at Beyth-Avarah, probably the place Y’hoshua had brought Israel across. (1:28) It is close to where the current Allenby Bridge is. 

41. And many [people] came toward him and were saying that Yochanan had indeed done no sign, but that everything Yochanan had said about this man was true,

42. and many [who were] there put their trust in him.


CHAPTER 11

1. Now there was a certain sick man, El'azar from Beyth-Anyah—the village of Miryam and her sister Martha.

Beyth Anyah (photo at left, just across the Mount of Olives from Yerushalayim) means either House of Dates or Place of the Poor/Miserable.  If the latter, it appears to have been one of the Essene diaconal centers for the administration of their nationwide network of poor-houses.(Lizorkin-Eyzenberg) They were known for their commitment to the poor and to the sick. (Josephus, War 2.7.4.119-127)

2. (This Miryam, whose brother El'azar was sick, was the same woman who later anointed the Master with ointment and dried his feet with her hair.)

El’azar: From the context (e.g., v. 19) and the phraseology, it appears that he was not a friend or neighbor who was so close to them and to the other villagers that they thought of him as a blood brother. The incident with Miryam is recorded in chapter 12.

3. Therefore, the sisters sent to him, saying, "Master, don't let it escape your notice that someone whom you love is sick!"

4. And when he heard it, Yeshua said, "This sickness is not [one that] will [ultimately] result in death, but in the glory of Elohim, so that by it the authority of the Son of Elohim may come to be acknowledged."

5. Now Yeshua loved Martha and her sister and El'azar,

6. so upon hearing that he was sick, he stayed on in the place where he was for two days,

Stayed: as he has remained at the Father's right hand for two "days" (2,000 years) before returning to raise us from the dead! (See note on 2:1.) Going back to a dangerous place (v. 8) evidenced His love, but if he loved El'azar so much, why did He not go sooner? Because as "the secret of YHWH is with those who fear Him" (Ps. 25:14), he wanted to demonstrate YHWH’s power to them in a special way (cf. v. 15) which could not have been shown through a mere healing. He chose someone very close to his heart through whom to demonstrate this ultimate test of YHWH’s power. (See notes on vv. 32 and 39) 

7. then after that he said to the disciples, "Let's go back to Judea."

8. The disciples said to him, "Rabbi, just now the Judeans were attempting to stone you, and you're going back there?!"

9. Yeshua answered, "Aren't there twelve hours in a day? If anyone walks in the daytime, he doesn't stumble, because he sees this world’s light.

10. "But if anyone walks by night, he stumbles, because there is no light in it.

11. After he said these things, he told them, "Our friend El'azar has fallen asleep, but I am going in order to wake him up."

12. Then his disciples said, "Master, if he has gotten some rest, that means he's going to recover!"

13. Now Yeshua had really been speaking about his death, but they thought He was referring to the resting kind of sleep.

14. So Yeshua told them plainly, "El'azar has died.

15. "And I am glad, for your sakes, that I wasn't there, so you may be [fully] persuaded. But...let's go to him!"

16. Then Th'oma, the one nicknamed "The Twin", said to his fellow disciples, "Yeah, let's go, too, so we can die along with him!"

Th'oma’s sarcasm evidenced a pessimism which would persist until one very special event.

17. When Yeshua arrived, he found that El'azar had already been in the tomb for four days.

Four days: Yeshua timed his arrival (by waiting two days, v. 6, and travelling for at least one more from his location by the Yarden, per 10:40) to be “too late”for any conventional resuscitation. “There is a tradition in Judaism…that the soul after death does not immediately depart the deceased, but hovers over the body for a period of three days, during which time resurrection is possible.” Yeshua “knew how long it would take to travel to Bethany and he was determined to arrive, not only after Lazarus’ death, but when, according to popular Jeish belief, resurrection was no longer possible—on the fourth day!” (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg; see also the note on v. 39.)

18. And Beyth-Anyah was near Yerushalayim—only 15 stadia away.

15 stadia: About two miles, or 3.2 kilometers. It is just beyond the Mount of Olives from the Qidron Valley east of the city.

19. And many of the Judeans had come to console Martha and Miryam's neighbors about the loss of their brother.

20. Now when Martha heard that Yeshua was coming, she came out to meet him, but Miryam was sitting shiv'ah in the house.

Sitting shiv'ah is the Jewish custom of mourning barefoot for seven days in the home of the deceased or a close relative. David Stern points out that she would have been abstaining from all ordinary work, diversions, and even synagogue prayers—so she may have even counted Yeshua's arrival as another such diversion.  

21. Then Martha said to Yeshua, "Master, if you had been here, my brother would not be dead!

22. "But even now I know that whatever You may ask Elohim, He will grant you."

23. Yeshua told her, "Your brother will rise again."

24. And she replied, "Yes, I know he will, at the resurrection on the final Day."

Here she demonstrates that she recognizes the common belief in the "week of Millennia" (see note on 2:1); cf. Dan. 12:2. This was standard doctrine among the Perushim, but not the Tzedukim. (Stern)

25. Yeshua said to her, "I am the Resurrection—and the Life [itself]! Whoever puts his confidence in me, even though he may die, he will still be alive.

I.e., “resurrection is not something I do”; it is what I am! (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)  The sages had a saying, "The righteous are considered alive even when they are dead, and the wicked are considered dead even when they are alive." Possibly alluding to this, Yeshua was saying that to trust in him (who embodied all of YHWH's promises) is what constitutes the righteousness that YHWH will recognize. His resurrection was YHWH's "downpayment" promising that He will do the same for the rest who have confidence in Him. This miracle of Yeshua's was a sign that this confidence was well-founded.

26. "And everyone who is alive who trusts in me will never ever die! Do you believe this?"

27. And she replied, "Yes, Master. I have already come to believe that you are the Messiah—the Son of Elohim who is to come into the world."

28. After she said these things, she went and called her sister Miryam secretly, telling her, "The Teacher is here, and he is calling for you."

Possibly her own device to persuade her sister, since the recorded words of Yeshua did not include such a call. In the context of v. 27, the title she used for Him was probably a reference to "the Teacher of Righteousness" (Yoel 2:23), an explanatory term for the Messiah used widely among the Qumran community, as the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal.

29. When the latter heard it, she got up quickly and came to him.

30. (Now Yeshua had not yet [arrived] in the village, but was still at the place where Martha met Him.)

31. When the Judeans who were with her in the house to console her saw that she got up so quickly and went out, they followed her, saying to themselves, "She must be going to the tomb to cry there."

32. Then when Miryam came to where Yeshua was and saw him there, she fell down at his feet and said to him, "Master, if you'd only been here, my brother would not have died!”

Exactly his point. Custance points out that he wanted to make sure El’azar was certified as dead (see note on v. 39) because if he could he naturally been revived, there would be no special demonstration of what YHWH can do even after someone is dead. Thus he had deliberately delayed. (v. 6)  But to her it seemed he had betrayed them. Not only was he her brother, but among Jews “there is a strong belief that when a righteous man dies, the world suffers loss. The balance of righteousness versus evil tips in the wrong direction. Grief and the sense of loss are very real.” (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg)

33. When he saw her and the Judeans who had come down with her mourning, Yeshua sighed deeply in his spirit, and was visibly moved.

Sighed: The Greek word strongly connotes anger or strictness. It may be that He was responding mainly to the entity of death which had not only ruined so much of what His Father had created through Him, but had now claimed their friend—and His own—as well. Or, in the context of vv. 9, 10, 35, and 38, He may, in fulfillment of Yirmiyahu/Jer. 13:16-17, been responding to those who still kept mourning despite what He had just said. (Compare Luke 19:41; 23:28)

34. And he asked, "Where have you put him?" They said, "Come and see, Master."

35. Yeshua shed tears.

36. Then the Judeans said, "Look how much he loved him!"

37. But some of them said, "Couldn't someone who opened the eyes of the blind have kept this man from dying, too?"

He brought out the sarcasm in the wicked, but in those who were righteous, faith despite the obvious ludicrousness of the situation. (Compare Luke 2:34.)

38. Then, inwardly exasperated once again, Yeshua came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying over the opening.

39. Yeshua said, "Lift [off] the stone." Martha, the sister of the man who had died, said to him, "Master, by now he'll stink; it's already the fourth day!"

This construction of the tomb may reflect a post-Talmudic tractate from the 8th century, cited by Stern, that tells how they would go out to the cemetery for three days after the burial (which occurred as soon as possible after the death) to make sure that the body was not merely comatose, and in some cases they found that it was—and the supposedly-dead person lived many years afterward and had more children! Therefore, as Custance notes, according to Jewish law, no death was certified until the deceased had been 'dead' for a period of three days and three nights by their system of reckoning. Until this interval of time had passed and putrefaction had begun, they would not certify death or release a dead man's estate. Another belief was that the spirit of the person stayed near the body for 3½ days, deciding whether or not to return to it, but no longer (at which point the body began to decay). Whether this is true or not, it is noteworthy that Yeshua remained dead only three days (as Ps. 16:10 specifies, "You will not allow Your Holy One to undergo decay"). And it is after 3½ days that the spirits of the two slain witnesses of Rev. 11 re-enter their bodies. Yeshua was demonstrating that YHWH could still raise one who was definitely dead by all accounts, as his healing by the Pools of Beyth-Hesdah (5:2ff) showed that His power did not depend on times auspicious for meeting angels.

40. Yeshua said to her, "Didn't I tell you that if you believe, you will see Elohim's glory?"

41. So they lifted the stone where the dead man had been laid, and Yeshua looked upward and said, "Father, I thank You for hearing me.

42. “Now I know that You always hear me, but I said this for the sake of these bystanders, so they might believe that You have sent me."

43. With that, he called out loudly, "El'azar, come here! Outside!"

It has been noted that if he had not specified El’azar, all the dead in the world would have risen at this time!  Or at least all of those in the tomb with him, for most family tombs had others buried with the newest arrival, kept there until their flesh decayed and then the bones would be piled together unto a smaller box called an ossuary. He would not enter the tomb, for even if El’azar was now alive, the bodies of the others in the tomb (if not El’azar's family, possibly others who had come to the Essene center for the care of the sick and the poor, many coming there to die as in “Hospice”) would defile him for seven days, and as a Torah-observant Jew, such purity requirements were important to him. In the darkness of the cave, he might easily touch another corpse. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg) But he was also calling out this as a foreshadowing of the fact that indeed one day all the dead would hear the voice of the Son of Elohim and come out of their graves. (5:25)

44. And the man who had died came out, his feet and hands still bound with cords, and his face still wrapped in a cloth. Yeshua told them, "Untie him and let him go!"

Many ancient tombs have been discovered that confirm this practiced of a separate face cloth, which was also done in Yeshua’s case. (20:6-7) 

45. Then, after they had seen what Yeshua did, many of the Judeans who had come to be with Miryam trusted in him.

46. But some of them went off to tell the Prushim what he had done.

To those intent only on spying on him, even this wonderful event was a cause for fear and consternation.

47. Then the head priests and Prushim convened a sanhedrin, and said, "What should we do? Because this man is doing a lot of miracles!

Sanhedrin: an assembly of the supreme religious council.

48. “If we let him keep doing things like this, everybody will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our position and our nation!"

49. But one of them, Kayafa, being the high priest that year, told them, "You don't know anything!

"That year". The high priest was to hold that position for life, yet Kayafa's father-in-law Annan had been the high priest the year before, and he was still living. After Herod's accession, the priestly dynasties ceased, and he would appoint the priest of his choice, often for a term of only a year. Upon his death, the prerogative went to the Roman governors of Yerushalayim, who auctioned the position to the highest bidder. High priests would do all they could to garner as much revenue as possible during their term so they could give the money to a relative of theirs to buy the office, thus keeping it in the family and maintaining their influence, until Rome again allowed King Agrippa II to choose the priest. Kayafa was not the rightful high priest; apparently Annan was, since he was the one to whom they went first. At the great revolt (70 C.E.), zealots expelled this aristocracy won by bribery and treachery, and installed a stone mason from the family of Hillel, who had the true right to officiate. He was the last high priest, since the Temple was then destroyed. 

50. "Nor are you considering the fact that it is better for one man to die on behalf of the People, instead of the whole nation perishing."

51. (But he did not say this of his own accord, but, since he was the high priest that year, he was prophesying that Yeshua was about to die on behalf of the nation,

“What is intriguing here is that it is the Gospel of John in particular that has the most intense polemic against the priestly leaders at the Jerusalem Temple, yet it is this same Gospel that gives the office of the High Priest…the highest respect. Even the evil shepherd of Israel, when he speaks as a High Priest, is able to bring forth a true prophecy from God.” (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg) At the least, like Bilaam, YHWH used him because of his position, despite his attitude, but it put him personally in no better position than Bilaam's donkey!

52. and not only for the nation, but also so that he might gather into one entity all the children of Elohim who had been scattered throughout the world.)

Had been scattered: This means they must be people whose ancestors had inhabited the Land, not yet being exiled. Yehudah was still considered a nation, though occupied by Rome, but YHWH had scattered the Northern Kingdom, yet said that one day they would be called “sons of the living Elohim”. (Hoshea 1:10) This is who Yeshua said he had come for. (Mat. 15:24; Luke 19:10)

53. So from that day onward they plotted together to kill him.

54. Therefore, Yeshua no longer walked publicly among the Judeans, but went away from there into a city near the desert called Efrayim, and stayed there with his disciples.

He chose to hide and regroup before his final trial in what today is an Arab Christian village named Taybeh. It is situated in Binyamin’s territory, very near the border between Judea and Samaria. (Lizorkin-Eyzenberg) But this is prophetic, because for a time Yeshua’s followers among the Jews have had to be covert about their belief lest they be thought pagan, while Efrayim (another name for the Northern Kingdom, the scattered ones of v. 52), have welcomed him and responded to his emissaries, so by and large he has “stayed” there himself. Near the desert: i.e., there is not much water, which is a picture of the Torah, which has been marginalized among his followers outside of Yehudah until recently. Thus we know his “exile” is ending.

55. And it was almost time for the Passover, the pilgrim festival when everyone came up to Judea. And many people from the countryside went up to Yerushalayim before the Passover, so they would have time to ritually purify themselves.

They would go at least a day early to have time to be ritually pure by sunset the night before the Passover, which begins a few hours before the sunset which starts the first high day.

56. So they looked for Yeshua, and said among themselves, "What do you think? Isn't he coming to the feast at all?"

He simply did not go early; but he did not miss his appointment there.  As some of the calendars were different by up to a few days, some may have been looking for him earlier than the dates he respected.

57. All of the head priests and Prushim had also given orders that anyone who knew where he was should inform them, so they might apprehend him.



                                            Continue with next section of Yochanan






































































THE LIFE OF THE MESSIAH AS RECOUNTED BY
Yochanan 
the Envoy
INTRODUCTION:    The four “gospels” correlate with the four faces of the living creatures in Y’hezq’el chapter 1, which were also depicted on the four primary banners of the camp of Israel in the wilderness. Luqa’s account emphasizes Yeshua as the second Adam, corresponding with the face of a man. Matithyahu portrays Yeshua primarily as the King, corresponding with the face of the lion. Mark emphasizes His servanthood, corresponding with the ox, and Yochanan corresponds with the eagle—the one who supersedes natural limits (Yeshayahu/Isaiah 40:31) and bears the captives back home (Ex. 19:4). Yochanan is indeed the most mystical of the books, focusing on the spiritual significance behind Yeshua’s words and deeds. It also highlights his fulfillment of the particulars of the prescribed festivals. Notice its parallels also to Genesis 1, including enumeration of what happened each day in sequence. The book is also structured around a series of “I am” statements and signs that accompanied them, demonstrating that many prophets had pointed toward the tasks he was called to accomplish. 
Chapter 1            Chapter 2

Chapter 3            Chapter 4

Chapter 5            Chapter 6

Chapter 7            Chapter 8

Chapter 9            Chapter 10        
            Chapter 11

            Chapters 12-21  
Approximate location of sheep pools
Model of the sheep pools in Yeshua's day, showing their proximity to the Temple (v. 14)
Remains of Bethesda Pools today
Teverya
Kfar Nahum today
One remnant of the Pool of Shiloakh, the reservoir King Hizqiyahu built to keep the waters of the Gihon Spring int the city during a siege
Yerushalayim from Beyth-Anyah
The translator/commentator and his wife
in this same synagogue in Kfar Nahum.