John 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

At a wedding in Cana of Galilee, Jesus turns six large stone jars of water into wine after his mother tells him the wine has run out; John calls this the first of his signs, and his disciples believe in him. Jesus then goes up to Jerusalem for Passover, drives the animal sellers and money changers out of the temple courts, and answers a demand for a sign by saying that if they destroy this temple he will raise it in three days, which John explains was said about his body. The chapter closes with many people in Jerusalem believing in his name because of the signs he did, while Jesus does not entrust himself to them because he knows what is in people.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee.
   • The mother of Jesus was there.
2. 2:2
   • Jesus was invited to the wedding.
   • Jesus' disciples were invited to the wedding.
3. 2:3
   • The wine ran out.
   • The mother of Jesus said to him that they have no wine.
4. 2:4
   • Jesus said to her, 'Woman, what is that to me and to you?'
   • Jesus said his hour had not yet come.
5. 2:5
   • His mother spoke to the servants.
   • His mother told the servants to do whatever he told them.
6. 2:6
   • Six stone water jars were set there.
   • The jars were there for the Jewish rites of purification.
   • Each jar held two or three measures.
7. 2:7
   • Jesus told the servants to fill the jars with water.
   • They filled the jars to the brim.
8. 2:8
   • Jesus told them to draw some out now.
   • Jesus told them to take it to the master of the feast.
   • They took it.
9. 2:9
   • The master of the feast tasted the water that had become wine.
   • The master of the feast did not know where it came from.
   • The servants who had drawn the water knew where it came from.
   • The master of the feast called the bridegroom.
10. 2:10
    • The master of the feast said to the bridegroom that every man sets out the good wine first.
    • He said that a man sets out the poorer wine after the guests have drunk freely.
    • He said the bridegroom had kept the good wine until now.
11. 2:11
    • Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs.
    • This took place in Cana of Galilee.
    • By it Jesus revealed his glory.
    • His disciples believed in him.
12. 2:12
    • After this Jesus went down to Capernaum.
    • His mother went with him.
    • His brothers went with him.
    • His disciples went with him.
    • They stayed there not many days.
13. 2:13
    • The Passover of the Jews was near.
    • Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
14. 2:14
    • In the temple Jesus found men selling oxen, sheep, and doves.
    • He found the money changers sitting there.
15. 2:15
    • Jesus made a whip out of cords.
    • He drove them all out of the temple, along with the sheep and the oxen.
    • He poured out the coins of the money changers.
    • He overturned their tables.
16. 2:16
    • Jesus said to those selling doves to take these things away from there.
    • Jesus told them not to make his Father's house a house of trade.
    • Jesus called the temple his Father's house.
17. 2:17
    • His disciples remembered that it is written, 'The zeal of your house will consume me.'
18. 2:18
    • The Jews answered and asked him what sign he showed them for doing these things.
19. 2:19
    • Jesus answered and told them to destroy this temple.
    • Jesus said that in three days he would raise it up.
20. 2:20
    • The Jews said this temple had been under construction forty-six years.
    • The Jews asked whether he would raise it up in three days.
21. 2:21
    • Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body.
22. 2:22
    • Jesus was raised from the dead.
    • After that his disciples remembered that he had said this.
    • They believed the scripture.
    • They believed the word that Jesus had spoken.
23. 2:23
    • Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast.
    • Many people believed in his name.
    • They believed because they saw the signs he was doing.
24. 2:24
    • Jesus did not entrust himself to them.
    • The reason was that he knew all people.
25. 2:25
    • Jesus had no need for anyone to testify about man.
    • Jesus himself knew what was in man.

Words Worth Explaining

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

2:1

"The third day" is counted from the last of the days marked off one by one in the previous chapter. Cana was a small village in Galilee, the northern farming region where Jesus grew up; its exact site is no longer certain.

2:2

In the King James, "was called" means was invited.

2:3

In the King James, "when they wanted wine" means when they lacked wine, not when they wished for it. A village wedding was a public celebration that could run for several days, and providing food and drink for all the guests was the host family's responsibility. Running out partway through was a lasting social humiliation, not a small inconvenience.

2:4

"Woman" was the ordinary polite way to address a woman in Greek and carries no rudeness, though it is an unusual way for a son to address his mother. "What have I to do with thee" translates an idiom found in Hebrew and Greek, literally "what to me and to you," which distances the speaker from the matter: roughly "what does this have to do with the two of us." "Mine hour" is a phrase John's Gospel uses repeatedly for the appointed moment toward which Jesus is moving.

2:6

Observant Jews washed hands and vessels at set times, a matter of ritual purity rather than cleanliness. Stone jars were used for this because stone was held not to take on ritual impurity the way pottery did, so a stone vessel never had to be broken and replaced. A "firkin" is the King James translators' word for the Greek metretes, a liquid measure of roughly nine or ten gallons, so "two or three firkins apiece" is about twenty to thirty gallons per jar.

2:8

"Governor of the feast" and "ruler of the feast" in verse 9 translate a single Greek word for the person who ran the banquet, sampling the wine and directing the serving. Whether this was normally a senior servant or a guest given the job for the evening is not certain.

2:9

The bridegroom is the man getting married. His family paid for the feast and was expected to keep the wine coming.

2:10

"When men have well drunk" means once the guests have drunk freely and are no longer judging the wine carefully. The host's trick being described is to spend the money on the first round only.

2:11

John's Gospel does not use the ordinary Greek word for a wonder or miracle. It calls these acts "signs," deeds that point beyond themselves to something about the one performing them. "Miracles" here and in verse 23 translates that word.

2:12

Capernaum was a fishing town on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. "Went down" is plain geography: Cana lies in the hills, while Capernaum sits on a lakeshore about six hundred feet below sea level. "Brethren" simply means brothers; whether they were full brothers, half brothers or cousins has been argued since the early centuries.

2:13

Passover was the yearly festival recalling Israel's escape from slavery in Egypt. Jewish men came to Jerusalem to keep it where they could, and the city's population swelled enormously for the week. "Went up" is the standard expression because Jerusalem stands high in the hill country; one goes up to it from any direction, including from the north.

2:14

The buying and selling took place in the temple's outer courts, a vast paved area open to anyone, not in the sanctuary itself. The animals were sold for sacrifice, a convenience for pilgrims who could not drive livestock hundreds of miles. The money changers exchanged the everyday Roman and Greek coins, which carried portraits of emperors and images of pagan gods, for the coinage accepted for the annual temple tax.

2:15

A "scourge of small cords" is a whip braided from lengths of cord or rush, the sort of material lying around where animals were penned.

2:16

The temple was called God's house. It was the one place on earth set apart for worshiping him, which is why selling and haggling inside it felt so wrong to Jesus.

2:17

The disciples are recalling Psalm 69:9. "Zeal" here means fierce protective devotion, and "hath eaten me up" uses the older sense of consume: burn up, devour, wear away.

2:18

In John's Gospel "the Jews" usually means the ruling authorities in Jerusalem rather than Jewish people in general; Jesus and his disciples were themselves Jews. A "sign" in this demand means a credential, some public demonstration proving a person has the right to act as he has.

2:19

The verb translated "raise it up" is the ordinary word for putting a building back up, but it is also the word used for raising a body from the dead, so the sentence carries both meanings at once. His hearers take only the first.

2:20

Herod the Great began rebuilding the temple on an enormous scale around 20 or 19 BC, and work on the complex continued for decades, finishing only a few years before the Romans destroyed it in AD 70. Forty-six years of building places this conversation around AD 27 or 28. The Greek can also be read as "this temple was built forty-six years ago," and translators differ.

2:22

"The scripture" means the Hebrew Scriptures, the collection Christians later called the Old Testament. That was the only Bible these disciples had; the New Testament did not yet exist.

2:23

"Believed in his name" is a Hebrew way of speaking in which a person's name stands for the person himself, his identity and standing. To believe in the name is to put confidence in the one who bears it.

2:24

The King James "did not commit himself" means did not entrust himself. The Greek makes a deliberate play on words that English cannot easily carry: the same verb is used of the people believing, or trusting, in him in verse 23 and of Jesus not trusting himself to them here.