John 10: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jesus uses a picture of sheep and a sheep pen: the true shepherd enters by the gate and his sheep know his voice, while thieves climb in another way. He says he is the gate and the good shepherd who gives up his life for the sheep, has other sheep not in this pen, and gives up his life by his own choice. Later, at the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, people ask him to say plainly whether he is the Christ; his answer, including "I and my Father are one," leads them to pick up stones, and he defends himself from their own scriptures before leaving across the Jordan.

Claim by Claim

1. 10:1
   • Jesus said, Truly, truly, I say to you.
   • Whoever does not enter the sheepfold by the door is a thief and a robber.
   • Whoever climbs into the sheepfold some other way is a thief and a robber.
2. 10:2
   • The one who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
3. 10:3
   • The doorkeeper opens to the shepherd.
   • The sheep hear the shepherd's voice.
   • The shepherd calls his own sheep by name.
   • The shepherd leads his own sheep out.
4. 10:4
   • When the shepherd has brought out all his own sheep, he goes ahead of them.
   • The sheep follow the shepherd.
   • The sheep follow him because they know his voice.
5. 10:5
   • The sheep will not follow a stranger.
   • The sheep will flee from a stranger.
   • The sheep flee from strangers because they do not know the voice of strangers.
6. 10:6
   • Jesus spoke this figure of speech to them.
   • They did not understand what the things he was saying to them were.
7. 10:7
   • Jesus spoke to them again.
   • Jesus said, Truly, truly, I say to you.
   • Jesus said, I am the door of the sheep.
8. 10:8
   • Jesus said all who came before him are thieves and robbers.
   • Jesus said the sheep did not hear them.
9. 10:9
   • Jesus said, I am the door.
   • Jesus said that if anyone enters through him, that person will be saved.
   • Jesus said that such a person will go in and go out.
   • Jesus said that such a person will find pasture.
10. 10:10
    • Jesus said the thief comes only to steal, to kill, and to destroy.
    • Jesus said he came so that they might have life.
    • Jesus said he came so that they might have life more abundantly.
11. 10:11
    • Jesus said, I am the good shepherd.
    • Jesus said the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
12. 10:12
    • The hired hand is not the shepherd.
    • The sheep are not the hired hand's own.
    • The hired hand sees the wolf coming.
    • The hired hand leaves the sheep and flees.
    • The wolf seizes the sheep.
    • The wolf scatters the sheep.
13. 10:13
    • The hired hand flees.
    • The hired hand flees because he is a hired hand.
    • The hired hand does not care about the sheep.
14. 10:14
    • Jesus said, I am the good shepherd.
    • Jesus said he knows his own sheep.
    • Jesus said his own sheep know him.
15. 10:15
    • Jesus said the Father knows him.
    • Jesus said he knows the Father.
    • Jesus said his knowing of the Father and the Father's knowing of him correspond.
    • Jesus said he lays down his life for the sheep.
16. 10:16
    • Jesus said he has other sheep that are not of this fold.
    • Jesus said he must bring those other sheep also.
    • Jesus said they will hear his voice.
    • Jesus said there will be one flock.
    • Jesus said there will be one shepherd.
17. 10:17
    • Jesus said the Father loves him.
    • Jesus said the Father loves him because he lays down his life.
    • Jesus said he lays down his life in order to take it again.
18. 10:18
    • Jesus said no one takes his life from him.
    • Jesus said he lays his life down of himself.
    • Jesus said he has authority to lay his life down.
    • Jesus said he has authority to take his life again.
    • Jesus said he received this commandment from his Father.
19. 10:19
    • A division arose again among the Jews.
    • The division arose because of these words.
20. 10:20
    • Many of the Jews said Jesus has a demon.
    • Many of the Jews said Jesus is mad.
    • Many of the Jews asked why they were listening to him.
21. 10:21
    • Others said these are not the words of one who has a demon.
    • Others asked whether a demon can open the eyes of the blind.
22. 10:22
    • The Feast of Dedication took place in Jerusalem at that time.
    • It was winter.
23. 10:23
    • Jesus was walking in the temple.
    • Jesus was walking in Solomon's colonnade.
24. 10:24
    • The Jews surrounded Jesus.
    • The Jews asked him how long he would keep them in suspense.
    • The Jews said that if he is the Christ, he should tell them plainly.
25. 10:25
    • Jesus answered them.
    • Jesus said he had told them.
    • Jesus said they do not believe.
    • Jesus said he does works in his Father's name.
    • Jesus said those works bear witness about him.
26. 10:26
    • Jesus said they do not believe.
    • Jesus said they do not believe because they are not of his sheep.
    • Jesus said he had told them this.
27. 10:27
    • Jesus said his sheep hear his voice.
    • Jesus said he knows them.
    • Jesus said they follow him.
28. 10:28
    • Jesus said he gives them eternal life.
    • Jesus said they will never perish.
    • Jesus said no one will snatch them out of his hand.
29. 10:29
    • Jesus said his Father gave them to him.
    • Jesus said his Father is greater than all.
    • Jesus said no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.
30. 10:30
    • Jesus said he and the Father are one.
31. 10:31
    • The Jews picked up stones again.
    • They picked up stones in order to stone Jesus.
32. 10:32
    • Jesus answered them.
    • Jesus said he had shown them many good works from the Father.
    • Jesus asked for which of those works they were stoning him.
33. 10:33
    • The Jews answered him.
    • The Jews said they were not stoning him for a good work.
    • The Jews said they were stoning him for blasphemy.
    • The Jews said he is a man.
    • The Jews said he makes himself God.
34. 10:34
    • Jesus answered them.
    • Jesus asked whether it is not written in their law, I said, You are gods.
35. 10:35
    • Jesus said God called them gods.
    • Jesus said the word of God came to them.
    • Jesus said the scripture cannot be broken.
36. 10:36
    • Jesus said the Father sanctified him.
    • Jesus said the Father sent him into the world.
    • Jesus asked whether they say of him that he blasphemes.
    • Jesus said they say this because he said, I am the Son of God.
37. 10:37
    • Jesus said that if he does not do the works of his Father, they should not believe him.
38. 10:38
    • Jesus said that if he does the works, they should believe the works even if they do not believe him.
    • Jesus said the purpose is that they may know and believe that the Father is in him.
    • Jesus said the purpose is that they may know and believe that he is in the Father.
39. 10:39
    • They sought again to seize him.
    • He escaped out of their hand.
40. 10:40
    • Jesus went away again beyond the Jordan.
    • He went to the place where John was baptizing at first.
    • He stayed there.
41. 10:41
    • Many people came to him.
    • They said John did no sign.
    • They said everything John said about this man was true.
42. 10:42
    • Many believed in him there.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

10:1

"Verily, verily" renders a doubled Hebrew word, "amen, amen," a formula used to swear that what follows is certain and to be relied on. A sheepfold was a walled enclosure of stone or piled thorn brush, sometimes attached to a house, often shared by a village, with a single opening. Flocks were penned there overnight; a man with honest business came to the gate, and anyone going over the wall was there to steal.

10:2

A shepherd is a person whose job is to care for sheep.

10:3

The KJV "porter" does not mean a baggage carrier. In 1611 it meant a doorkeeper: the man paid to guard the pen through the night and open up in the morning to the shepherds he recognized. Shepherds did name individual sheep, and flocks penned together overnight could be sorted out in the morning by voice alone, each animal going to the call it knew.

10:4

Shepherds there did not push their sheep from behind. They walked in front, and the flock followed the sound of their voice.

10:6

The Greek word here is paroimia, not the word used for Jesus' parables in Matthew, Mark and Luke. It means a veiled saying or figure of speech, a comparison that works like a riddle, rather than a story with a plot.

10:7

Sheepfolds out in open country often had no physical gate at all: the shepherd lay down across the gap in the wall, so his own body was the gate. Saying "I am the door of the sheep" would call up that picture immediately for people who had watched shepherds work.

10:8

The Greek is open on two points, and the sentence carries both. "Came before me" can mean earlier in time or can carry the sense of coming forward in place of the rightful shepherd; and the reference is unspecified, so it need not take in every leader Israel ever had. Some early manuscripts do not have the words "before me" at all.

10:9

"Go in and out" is a standard Hebrew idiom for carrying on the whole ordinary round of daily life freely and in safety, the way a man moves in and out of his own house without fear.

10:10

"More abundantly" does not mean more possessions. The Greek means overflowing, more than enough, life in its full measure rather than a bare existence.

10:11

The Greek behind "good" here is kalos, which means fine, genuine, the model of its kind, the real thing as opposed to a counterfeit. It is a different word from the ordinary term for morally good.

10:12

A hired hand was paid by the day and had nothing of his own at risk in the flock. Wolves were the standard danger to sheep in that country, and a shepherd was expected to fight them off; losses he could not prevent he had to account for to the owner.

10:15

Jesus calls God his Father all through this book.

10:16

The KJV says "fold" in both halves of the verse, but the Greek uses two different words. The first, at "this fold," is the walled pen. The last is a different word meaning the flock itself. The saying is that there will be one flock, not that there will be one enclosure.

10:17

Take it back again means to be alive again after dying.

10:18

"Power" in 1611 English commonly meant authority or the right to do a thing, which is the sense of the Greek word here, rather than physical strength.

10:19

In John's Gospel the phrase "the Jews" usually points to the Judean religious authorities in and around Jerusalem who are opposing Jesus, not to Jewish people as a whole. Jesus, his disciples and the crowds around him were all Jews.

10:20

The KJV "devil" here translates daimonion, a subordinate evil spirit, not Satan himself. In ordinary speech of the time, being possessed by such a spirit and being out of one's mind were two ways of saying the same thing, which is why the two charges are joined.

10:21

This refers back to chapter 9, where Jesus healed a man born blind. The argument is that the accusation does not fit the evidence.

10:22

The Feast of the Dedication is Hanukkah. It marked the cleansing and rededication of the temple in 164 BC, after the Syrian king Antiochus IV had defiled it and stopped its worship. The feast ran eight days in the month Kislev, which falls in December. The note that it was winter explains why Jesus is in a roofed colonnade rather than the open court.

10:23

Solomon's porch was a long covered walkway running along the eastern side of the temple's outer court, a roof carried on rows of pillars, popularly believed to survive from Solomon's original temple. "Porch" in 1611 meant such a colonnade, not a step at a front door. It was the usual place in the temple for teachers to walk and talk, and it gave shelter in winter.

10:24

"How long dost thou make us to doubt" translates a Greek idiom that literally reads "how long do you lift up our soul," meaning how long will you hold us in suspense. "Christ" is simply the Greek for the Hebrew "Messiah," the anointed one, the awaited king from David's line.

10:25

"The works" means the miracles, which this Gospel usually calls signs. Doing something "in my Father's name" means acting on his authority rather than one's own.

10:29

The manuscripts differ here, and the difference changes the sense. Some read as the KJV does, "My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all." Others read "What my Father has given me is greater than all," making the gift, rather than the Father, the thing that nothing can overpower.

10:31

Stoning was the prescribed form of execution for blasphemy: the community threw stones until the offender died. What happens here is not a trial and sentence but a crowd acting on the spot.

10:32

"Shewed" is simply the old spelling of "showed."

10:33

Blasphemy meant speech that insulted God or claimed for a human being what belonged to God alone. Under the law in Leviticus 24:16 it carried the death penalty, which is why the charge is followed at once by stones.

10:34

"Your law" here is used broadly for the whole of the Hebrew scriptures, not only the five books of Moses, since the words quoted come from Psalm 82:6. That psalm addresses those who judge and rule, and the sense of "gods" in it was already debated in Jesus' day.

10:35

"Cannot be broken" translates a verb meaning loosed, undone or annulled. The point is that the scripture cannot be set aside or declared not to count.

10:36

"Sanctified" here means set apart and dedicated to a purpose, the way the temple was consecrated for its use. It does not mean made morally pure.

10:39

"Sought again to take him" means tried to seize or arrest him. The King James uses "take" where we would say lay hands on.

10:40

The Jordan River marked the eastern boundary of Judea; "beyond Jordan" means the east bank, outside the reach of the Jerusalem authorities. John 1:28 names the spot as Bethany beyond the Jordan, not the Bethany near Jerusalem.

10:41

The KJV "miracle" translates the Greek word for a sign, which is John's regular term for Jesus' miraculous acts throughout this Gospel. The crowd's point is that John the Baptist performed none of them, and was believed on the strength of his words alone.