Yohanes 9:17

9:17 So again they asked the man who used to be blind, ¹  “What do you say about him, since he caused you to see?” ²  “He is a prophet,” the man replied. ³ 

Yohanes 12:40

12:40 “He has blinded their eyes

and hardened their heart, ⁴ 

so that they would not see with their eyes

and understand with their heart, ⁵ 

and turn to me, ⁶  and I would heal them.” ⁷ 

Yohanes 18:1

Betrayal and Arrest

18:1 When he had said these things, ⁸  Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley. ⁹  There was an orchard ¹⁰  there, and he and his disciples went into it.

[9:17]  ¹ tn Grk “the blind man.”

[9:17]  ² tn Grk “since he opened your eyes” (an idiom referring to restoration of sight).

[9:17]  ³ tn Grk “And he said, ‘He is a prophet.’”

[9:17]  sn At this point the man, pressed by the Pharisees, admitted there was something special about Jesus. But here, since prophet is anarthrous (is not accompanied by the Greek article) and since in his initial reply in 9:11-12 the man showed no particular insight into the true identity of Jesus, this probably does not refer to the prophet of Deut 18:15, but merely to an unusual person who is capable of working miracles. The Pharisees had put this man on the spot, and he felt compelled to say something about Jesus, but he still didn’t have a clear conception of who Jesus was, so he labeled him a “prophet.”

[12:40]  ⁴ tn Or “closed their mind.”

[12:40]  ⁵ tn Or “their mind.”

[12:40]  ⁶ tn One could also translate στραφῶσιν (strafwsin) as “repent” or “change their ways,” but both of these terms would be subject to misinterpretation by the modern English reader. The idea is one of turning back to God, however. The words “to me” are not in the Greek text, but are implied.

[12:40]  ⁷ sn A quotation from Isa 6:10.

[18:1]  ⁸ sn When he had said these things appears to be a natural transition at the end of the Farewell Discourse (the farewell speech of Jesus to his disciples in John 13:31-17:26, including the final prayer in 17:1-26). The author states that Jesus went out with his disciples, a probable reference to their leaving the upper room where the meal and discourse described in chaps. 13-17 took place (although some have seen this only as a reference to their leaving the city, with the understanding that some of the Farewell Discourse, including the concluding prayer, was given en route, cf. 14:31). They crossed the Kidron Valley and came to a garden, or olive orchard, identified in Matt 26:36 and Mark 14:32 as Gethsemane. The name is not given in Luke’s or John’s Gospel, but the garden must have been located somewhere on the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives.

[18:1]  ⁹ tn Grk “the wadi of the Kidron,” or “the ravine of the Kidron” (a wadi is a stream that flows only during the rainy season and is dry during the dry season).

[18:1]  ¹⁰ tn Or “a garden.”