John 12


John 12 is the twelfth chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that John composed this Gospel.

Text

The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 50 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Koine Greek are:
Events recorded in this chapter refer to the following locations:

Verse 1

The narrative suggests that Jesus and His disciples travelled to Bethany from Ephraim, where Jesus had been staying to avoid the Jewish leaders who were plotting to kill him. He dined with Lazarus, Martha and Mary, a family well-known to Jesus. This family group had been introduced to the readers of John's Gospel in chapter 11, with Mary being described in as "that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair", the event recounted in.
Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.
Judas Iscariot, described as "one of disciples" and "Simon’s son, who would betray Him", said, “Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to poor people ?” The New International Version, New King James Version and New Living Translation all equate this amount to a year's wages. In the oil is also valued at three hundred denarii; in it could have been sold for "a high price". Charles Ellicott computes that, since in, two hundred denarii would purchase food for 5,000, three hundred denarii would have fed 7,500 people.
John's Gospel is the only one which observes that Judas was responsible for the disciples' "common fund" or "money box", both here in verse 6 and again in. The word το γλωσσοκομον "means literally "a case for mouthpieces" of musical instruments, and hence any portable chest. It occurs in the Septuagint texts of 2 Chronicles 24:8 and 11.

The plot to kill Lazarus (12:9–11)

A great many of the Jews came to Bethany, "not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. But the chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death also, because on account of him many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus" Augustine comments on "the folly of the priests — as if Christ could not raise Lazarus a second time!" The plot to put Lazarus to death may be read alongside the developing plot to kill Jesus as if there were parallel plots "to kill Lazarus as well as Jesus", or even to kill Lazarus first - as Albert Barnes suggests: "as it was determined to kill Jesus, so they consulted about the propriety of removing Lazarus first, that the number of his followers might be lessened, and that the death of Jesus might make less commotion". But the observation that "on account of many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus could indicate that in the early church Lazarus was influential in converting many Jews to the belief that Jesus was the Messiah.

Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem (12:12–19)

John 12:12 states that on "the next day", a great multitude who had come to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, "heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem", and so they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him. John 12:1 presents Jesus in Bethany "six days before the Passover", so His entry into Jerusalem can be understood as taking place five days before the Passover, on "the tenth day of the Jewish month Nisan, on which the paschal lamb was set apart to be 'kept up until the fourteenth day of the same month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel were to kill it in the evening'.

Greek pilgrims in Jerusalem (12:20–36)

Some Greeks had also made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the feast. Jesus' interest in teaching the Greeks of the diaspora has already proved a matter of some intrigue in chapter 7. Bengel's Gnomen notes that "it is not clear that they were circumcised: certainly, at least, they were worshippers of the One God of Israel" - they were present in Jerusalem "that they might worship at the feast. John uses the same word, προσκυνειν, literally to kneel and kiss the ground, in John 4:20-24 in relation to the Jewish-Samaritan debate over the sacred place "where one ought to worship", where He announces that "the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem".
The Expanded Bible and Meyer's New Testament Commentary state that these pilgrims were "gentiles". They had presumably "heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem" on the same basis as the Jewish multitude mentioned in John 12:12, although Meyer raises the possibility that "they came to Philip accidentally". The evangelist raises the question of whether they can see Jesus. "They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, 'Sir, we wish to see Jesus'. Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn Andrew and Philip told Jesus. The evangelist repeats the information already provided at, that Philip came from Bethsaida in Galilee, which was "also the city of Andrew and Peter". Both Philip and Andrew have Greek names. Anglican Bishop Charles Ellicott considers it "a striking coincidence, and perhaps more than this, that the Greeks thus came into connection with the only Apostles who bear Greek names."
Ellicott thinks that the coming of the Greeks is mentioned "not for the sake of the fact itself, but for that of the discourse which followed upon it":
Jesus' reply, set out in John 12:23-27, leaves readers "in doubt as to the result of the Greeks’ request":
The evangelist addresses directly the issue that the Messiah had died: "Strange as it may seem to you that the Messiah should die, yet this is but the course of nature: a seed cannot be glorified unless it dies". Paul refers to the same idea in : "What you sow does not come to life unless it dies".
Theologian Harold Buls suggests that the grain of wheat which "falls into the ground and dies" refers to Jesus alone, whereas the teaching that "he who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" applies "to all people, Jews and Gentiles". The ἀπολλύει, apollyei is written as ἀπολέσει, apolesei in the Byzantine Majority Text, but Ellicott argues that the present text has "slightly more probability":
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges notes that in John 12:25, two Greek words, ψυχὴν, psychēn and ζωὴν, zōēn, are both translated into English as "life": "in the first two cases, 'life' means the life of the individual, in the last, life in the abstract. By sacrificing life in the one sense, we may win life in the other". This work also comments that,,, and all express the same idea, and that a "comparison of the texts will show that most of them refer to different occasions, so that this solemn warning must have been often on lips". The Living Bible makes the distinction clearer by paraphrasing ζωὴν as "eternal glory".

Fulfilment of the prophecies of Isaiah (12:37–43)

The evangelist relates Jesus' teaching and its reception to two passages taken from the prophet Isaiah, whose words Jesus had also used in the synoptic gospels at the commencement of Jesus' public ministry. The two passages quoted are and, both relating to belief and resistance:
Meyer identifies these words with "the close of the public ministry of Jesus", a point at which there is an assessment of the results of His teaching "in respect to faith in Him".

Closing observations (12:44–50)

Verses 44-50 represent the close of Jesus' public ministry. He "cries out", a phrase which the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges says "implies public teaching". Verse 36 indicate that the final verses of the chapter act as an "epilogue and recapitulation", "a sort of summary and winding up of His whole testimony", or "the thoughts of St. John as he looked back on the unbelief of Judaism".
The evangelist summarises Jesus' mission: he was sent by God the Father to offer eternal life. "With this the first main division of the Gospel ends. Christ’s revelation of Himself to the world in His ministry is concluded. The Evangelist has set before us the Testimony to the Christ, the Work of the Christ, and the Judgment respecting the work, which has ended in a conflict, and the conflict has reached a climax".