John 12: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Six days before Passover, Jesus eats at Bethany, where Mary pours costly perfume on his feet and Judas objects. The next day crowds meet him with palm branches as he rides into Jerusalem on a young donkey, and the Pharisees complain that everyone is following him. When some Greeks ask to see him, Jesus speaks of the hour of his glory, of a seed that must die to bear fruit, and of being lifted up from the earth, and a voice comes from heaven. John then explains that most people still did not believe, quoting Isaiah, and closes with Jesus calling out that he speaks only what the Father commanded him.

Claim by Claim

1. 12:1
   • Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany.
   • Lazarus was at Bethany.
   • Lazarus had been dead.
   • Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead.
2. 12:2
   • They made a supper for Jesus there.
   • Martha served.
   • Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with Jesus.
3. 12:3
   • Mary took a pound of ointment.
   • The ointment was pure nard.
   • The ointment was very costly.
   • Mary anointed the feet of Jesus with the ointment.
   • Mary wiped his feet with her hair.
   • The house was filled with the smell of the ointment.
4. 12:4
   • Judas Iscariot spoke.
   • Judas Iscariot was one of Jesus' disciples.
   • Judas Iscariot was the son of Simon.
   • Judas Iscariot was about to betray Jesus.
5. 12:5
   • Judas asked why the ointment was not sold for three hundred denarii.
   • Judas asked why the money was not given to the poor.
6. 12:6
   • Judas did not say this because he cared about the poor.
   • Judas said this because he was a thief.
   • Judas held the money box.
   • It is unclear whether Judas merely carried what was put into the money box or stole from it.
7. 12:7
   • Jesus said to leave her alone.
   • Jesus said she had kept this ointment for the day of his burial.
8. 12:8
   • Jesus said they always have the poor with them.
   • Jesus said they do not always have him.
9. 12:9
   • A large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there.
   • The crowd came not only because of Jesus.
   • The crowd came also to see Lazarus.
   • Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead.
10. 12:10
    • The chief priests took counsel to put Lazarus to death as well.
11. 12:11
    • Many of the Jews were going away because of Lazarus.
    • Many of the Jews were believing in Jesus.
12. 12:12
    • On the next day a large crowd had come to the feast.
    • The crowd heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.
13. 12:13
    • They took branches of palm trees.
    • They went out to meet Jesus.
    • They cried out, "Hosanna."
    • They said the King of Israel who comes in the name of the Lord is blessed.
14. 12:14
    • Jesus found a young donkey.
    • Jesus sat on the young donkey.
    • This was in accordance with what is written.
15. 12:15
    • The writing says, "Do not fear, daughter of Zion."
    • The writing says her King is coming.
    • The writing says the King is seated on a donkey's colt.
16. 12:16
    • His disciples did not understand these things at first.
    • Jesus was glorified.
    • After Jesus was glorified, the disciples remembered that these things had been written about him.
    • The disciples remembered that they had done these things to him.
17. 12:17
    • The crowd that was with Jesus bore witness.
    • Jesus had called Lazarus out of the tomb.
    • Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead.
18. 12:18
    • The crowd went out to meet Jesus for this reason.
    • They had heard that Jesus had done this sign.
19. 12:19
    • The Pharisees spoke among themselves.
    • The Pharisees said they were accomplishing nothing.
    • The Pharisees said the world had gone after Jesus.
20. 12:20
    • There were certain Greeks among those going up to worship at the feast.
21. 12:21
    • These Greeks came to Philip.
    • Philip was from Bethsaida of Galilee.
    • They asked Philip, addressing him as sir.
    • They said they wanted to see Jesus.
22. 12:22
    • Philip came and told Andrew.
    • Andrew and Philip came and told Jesus.
23. 12:23
    • Jesus answered them.
    • Jesus said the hour had come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
24. 12:24
    • Jesus said, truly, truly, he tells them.
    • Jesus said that unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone.
    • Jesus said that if the grain of wheat dies, it bears much fruit.
25. 12:25
    • Jesus said the one who loves his own life will lose it.
    • Jesus said the one who hates his own life in this world will keep it to eternal life.
26. 12:26
    • Jesus said that if anyone serves him, that person must follow him.
    • Jesus said his servant will be where he himself is.
    • Jesus said that if anyone serves him, the Father will honor that person.
27. 12:27
    • Jesus said his soul is now troubled.
    • Jesus asked what he should say.
    • It is unclear whether "Father, save me from this hour" is a request Jesus makes or a question he rejects.
    • Jesus said that for this reason he came to this hour.
28. 12:28
    • Jesus asked the Father to glorify his name.
    • A voice came from heaven.
    • The voice said it had glorified the name.
    • The voice said it would glorify the name again.
29. 12:29
    • The crowd was standing there.
    • The crowd heard the voice.
    • The crowd said that it had thundered.
    • Others said that an angel had spoken to Jesus.
30. 12:30
    • Jesus answered and said the voice had not come because of him.
    • Jesus said the voice came for their sakes.
31. 12:31
    • Jesus said the judgment of this world is now.
    • Jesus said the ruler of this world will now be cast out.
32. 12:32
    • Jesus said that if he is lifted up from the earth, he will draw all to himself.
33. 12:33
    • Jesus said this to signify by what kind of death he was going to die.
34. 12:34
    • The crowd answered him.
    • The crowd said they had heard from the law that the Christ remains forever.
    • The crowd asked how he could say the Son of Man must be lifted up.
    • The crowd asked who this Son of Man is.
35. 12:35
    • Jesus said the light is with them a little while longer.
    • Jesus told them to walk while they have the light.
    • Jesus said this was so that darkness would not overtake them.
    • Jesus said the one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.
36. 12:36
    • Jesus told them to believe in the light while they have the light.
    • Jesus said this was so that they might become sons of light.
    • Jesus spoke these things.
    • Jesus went away.
    • Jesus hid himself from them.
37. 12:37
    • Jesus had done so many signs in their presence.
    • They did not believe in him.
38. 12:38
    • This was so that the word of Isaiah the prophet would be fulfilled.
    • Isaiah spoke that word.
    • Isaiah asked the Lord who had believed their report.
    • Isaiah asked to whom the arm of the Lord had been revealed.
39. 12:39
    • For this reason they were not able to believe.
    • Isaiah said something again.
40. 12:40
    • Isaiah said he has blinded their eyes.
    • Isaiah said he has hardened their heart.
    • The purpose was that they not see with their eyes.
    • The purpose was that they not understand with their heart.
    • The purpose was that they not turn and be healed by him.
41. 12:41
    • Isaiah said these things.
    • Isaiah saw his glory.
    • Isaiah spoke about him.
42. 12:42
    • Many even of the rulers believed in Jesus.
    • They did not confess him because of the Pharisees.
    • They feared being put out of the synagogue.
43. 12:43
    • They loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.
44. 12:44
    • Jesus cried out and spoke.
    • Jesus said the one who believes in him does not believe in him but in the one who sent him.
45. 12:45
    • Jesus said the one who sees him sees the one who sent him.
46. 12:46
    • Jesus said he has come as a light into the world.
    • Jesus said this was so that everyone who believes in him would not remain in darkness.
47. 12:47
    • Jesus said that if anyone hears his words and does not believe, he does not judge that person.
    • Jesus said he did not come to judge the world.
    • Jesus said he came to save the world.
48. 12:48
    • Jesus said the one who rejects him and does not receive his words has one who judges him.
    • Jesus said the word he has spoken will judge that person on the last day.
49. 12:49
    • Jesus said he has not spoken from himself.
    • Jesus said the Father who sent him gave him a commandment.
    • Jesus said the commandment was what he should say and what he should speak.
50. 12:50
    • Jesus said he knows that the Father's commandment is eternal life.
    • Jesus said that whatever he speaks, he speaks just as the Father has told him.

Words Worth Explaining

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

12:1

Passover was the yearly festival that recalled Israel's escape from slavery in Egypt. Pilgrims poured into Jerusalem for it, and the city's population swelled enormously for the week. Bethany was a village about two miles east of Jerusalem, on the far side of the Mount of Olives.

12:2

People at a formal meal did not sit on chairs. They lay on their left sides on low couches arranged around the food, propped on an elbow, with their feet pointing away from the table. That layout is what makes the next verse physically possible: Mary can reach Jesus' feet without crawling under anything.

12:3

Nard, which the King James calls "spikenard," was a fragrant oil pressed from the root of a plant grown in the Himalayas and shipped west at enormous expense. The quantity is a Roman pound, about eleven or twelve ounces, so roughly a pint. Two details here would have startled the first readers. Feet were washed by servants, never by the head of the household or an honored guest; and a respectable woman kept her hair bound up in public, so letting it down to wipe his feet was an act of striking self abasement.

12:4

"Iscariot" is probably a place name rather than a description, most often explained as "man of Kerioth," a town in southern Judah. If so, Judas was the one member of the group who was not a Galilean.

12:5

The King James "pence" translates the Roman denarius, the standard silver coin and the usual day's pay for an ordinary laborer. Three hundred of them is close to a year's wages for a working man.

12:6

The King James "bare what was put therein" is deliberately slippery in the Greek as well. The verb means to carry, but it can also mean to carry off. The sentence can be read as "he looked after the contents" or as "he helped himself to the contents," and the word "thief" just before it tells you which way to lean.

12:7

"Against the day" is older English for "in preparation for the day." Bodies were washed and packed with perfumed oils and spices before burial, so Jesus is describing her act in funeral terms. The Greek of his sentence is compressed and can be taken either as "she has been keeping it for that day" or as "let her keep it for that day."

12:8

The wording echoes a line of the law of Moses, "the poor shall never cease out of the land," which introduces a command to give generously. To a listener who knew the passage, the phrase would not have sounded like a dismissal of the poor.

12:9

In John's Gospel the phrase "the Jews" shifts meaning with context. Sometimes it means Judeans as opposed to Galileans, sometimes ordinary crowds, and often the Jerusalem authorities specifically. Jesus, his disciples and the crowd here are all Jewish, so the phrase is not marking off one religion from another.

12:10

The chief priests were the heads of the leading priestly families, the men who controlled the temple and its revenues and who formed the core of the ruling council. They held their positions with the approval of the Roman governor, which is why public disorder was a direct threat to them.

12:12

"The feast" is Passover. Estimates of the pilgrim crowds in Jerusalem at Passover run into the hundreds of thousands, which is part of why the authorities were nervous about anything that looked like a public movement.

12:13

Palm branches were a national symbol of victory and deliverance. They had been carried in triumph after earlier Jewish military successes and later appeared on coins struck during revolts against Rome, so waving them at an arriving figure was a loaded, patriotic act. "Hosanna" is Hebrew for "save now," a cry taken from Psalm 118 that had worn down into a shout of welcome and praise, rather like "hurrah." The line that follows, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord," is the next verse of that same psalm, ordinarily sung to greet pilgrims arriving at the temple. The crowd adds "the King of Israel," which the psalm does not say.

12:14

The King James "ass" simply means donkey; the word has since picked up other uses. A ruler entering a city on a donkey rather than a warhorse was a recognized picture of a king coming in peace.

12:15

The quotation is from the prophet Zechariah. "Daughter of Sion" is a Hebrew way of personifying a city as a woman, so it addresses Jerusalem and its people, not an individual. Zion was originally the name of one hill in the city and came to stand for the whole of it.

12:16

"Glorified" in this Gospel is a single package: Jesus' death, his resurrection and his return to the Father are all covered by the one word. It does not mean simply that he became famous.

12:17

"Bare record" is older English for "gave testimony." It is legal language, the word for a witness stating what he personally saw.

12:18

Where other Gospels say "miracle," John's word is normally "sign," meaning an act that points beyond itself to who Jesus is. The King James translates it "miracle" here, but the emphasis in the Greek falls on what the act reveals rather than on the wonder of it.

12:19

The Pharisees were a movement, largely lay rather than priestly, devoted to exact observance of the law and to the traditions built up around it. They carried great influence in the synagogues and with ordinary people, though they were not the group that ran the temple. "Prevail nothing" is older English for "you are achieving nothing." "The world is gone after him" is exasperated hyperbole, not a head count.

12:20

These "Greeks" are almost certainly Gentiles, non Jews who were drawn to the worship of Israel's God and came up to the festival to worship, since a full convert would not usually be described this way. The Greek word is not the one John uses elsewhere for Greek speaking Jews, though the line between the categories was blurry in practice.

12:21

Philip and Andrew are the only two of the twelve with Greek names, and Bethsaida sat in a region with a mixed Jewish and Gentile population. Greek speaking visitors approaching Philip rather than one of the others is probably a practical detail, not a random one.

12:23

"The hour" is a fixed expression in this Gospel for the appointed moment of Jesus' death and exaltation, which up to this point has repeatedly been said not to have arrived yet. "Son of man" is the title Jesus uses of himself throughout the Gospels. In ordinary Hebrew and Aramaic the phrase just means "a human being," but it is also the phrase in Daniel's vision of a figure "like a son of man" who is given authority and an everlasting kingdom, and the crowd in verse 34 clearly hears it as a title they cannot place.

12:24

"Corn" in 1611 English meant grain of any kind, whatever the local staple happened to be. It never meant maize, which is an American plant. So "a corn of wheat" is a single grain of wheat.

12:25

In Hebrew and Aramaic speech, "hate" beside "love" is often a way of stating a comparison rather than an emotion, meaning to prefer one thing far less than another. The word translated "life" here is the same word rendered "soul" in verse 27: it means the self, the whole living person, not one part of a person.

12:26

"Serve" and "servant" here translate the ordinary words for waiting at table and for a household attendant, the same role Martha is filling in verse 2.

12:27

"Soul" is not a separate inner part of a person in this language. It means the self, and "my soul is troubled" means what we would say with "I am shaken to the core." The verb is a strong one, used elsewhere of water being churned up.

12:29

A voice heard from the sky was a recognized category in Jewish thought of the period, and thunder was a traditional image for the sound of God speaking. The disagreement in the crowd is between two explanations of the same noise, not between hearing something and hearing nothing.

12:31

"Prince of this world" means ruler of this world. It was a standard way of speaking in this period about the hostile power understood to stand behind the world's opposition to God, that is, the devil. "Prince" in older English means a chief or ruler generally, not a king's son.

12:32

"Lifted up" carries two senses at once in the Greek, and the double meaning is the point: the verb is used both for hoisting a body onto a cross and for raising someone to a position of honor. Verse 33 makes clear that the crowd was meant to catch only the second sense.

12:34

"The law" here means the Scriptures as a whole, not only the five books of Moses; Jewish writers of the time used the word both ways. "Christ" is the Greek for the Hebrew "Messiah," meaning "anointed one," the promised king from David's line. The crowd's objection is that their Scriptures say this figure remains forever, so talk of being lifted up and taken away does not fit, and they do not recognize "Son of man" as a title for him at all.

12:36

"Children of light," or in some translations "sons of light," is a Hebrew idiom in which "son of" means belonging to or being characterized by something. The same construction produces phrases like "son of peace" and "sons of thunder." The expression was in active use at the time; the community that left the Dead Sea Scrolls called themselves by it.

12:38

"Esaias" is simply the Greek spelling of Isaiah. The quotation is the opening of Isaiah 53, the passage about a servant who suffers and is rejected. "The arm of the Lord" is a standard Hebrew idiom for God's power put into action, the way we might say a strong hand.

12:40

This quotes Isaiah 6, from the account of the prophet's commissioning, where he is told his message will meet a wall. Hebrew habitually states an outcome as something God directly does, without the qualifications an English speaker would add, so "he hath blinded their eyes" is the idiom's normal shape. "Converted" in 1611 English means simply "turned back," with no sense of changing religions.

12:41

"When he saw his glory" points back to Isaiah 6, where the prophet describes seeing the Lord seated on a throne in the temple. In John's Greek the pronouns "his" and "him" are not specified, which is why translations differ over whom the glory belongs to.

12:42

"Chief rulers" means members of the ruling council in Jerusalem. Being "put out of the synagogue" was not just a religious penalty: the synagogue was the center of a town's community life, so exclusion cut a person off from neighbors, trade and family standing.

12:43

The word translated "praise" here is the same Greek word translated "glory" throughout the chapter. The sentence is a deliberate echo: they chose one kind of glory over another.

12:47

The King James reads "believe not" where most Greek manuscripts read "keep not," meaning does not hold to or obey them. The two words look and sound similar, and translations divide depending on which manuscripts they follow.

12:48

"The last day" is the final day at the end of the present age, when the dead are raised and judgment is given. The phrase appears repeatedly in this Gospel.

12:49

"I have not spoken of myself" uses "of" in its older sense of "from" or "out of." The meaning is "on my own authority," not "about myself." The two clauses at the end distinguish the content of the message from the manner of delivering it.