John 1:49-51

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. John 1:49 tn Although βασιλεύς (basileus) lacks the article it is definite due to contextual and syntactical considerations. See ExSyn 263.
2. John 1:49 sn Nathanael’s confession—You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel—is best understood as a confession of Jesus’ messiahship. It has strong allusions to Ps 2:6-7, a well-known messianic psalm. What Nathanael’s exact understanding was at this point is hard to determine, but “son of God” was a designation for the Davidic king in the OT, and Nathanael parallels it with King of Israel here.
3. John 1:50 tn Grk “answered and said to him.” This has been simplified in the translation to “said to him.”
4. John 1:50 sn What are the greater things Jesus had in mind? In the narrative this forms an excellent foreshadowing of the miraculous signs which began at Cana of Galilee.
5. John 1:51 tn Grk “and he said to him.”
6. John 1:51 tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”
7. John 1:51 sn The title Son of Man appears 13 times in John’s Gospel. It is associated especially with the themes of crucifixion (3:14; 8:28), revelation (6:27; 6:53), and eschatological authority (5:27; 9:35). The title as used in John’s Gospel has for its background the son of man figure who appears in Dan 7:13-14 and is granted universal regal authority. Thus for the author, the emphasis in this title is not on Jesus’ humanity, but on his heavenly origin and divine authority.