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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - John 2:6 - 2:6
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Waterpots (hudriai). Old word from hudōr (water) and used in papyri for pots or pans for holding money or bread as well as water. These stone (lithinai as in 2Co 3:3) jars full of water were kept handy (set there, keimenai, present middle participle of keimai) at a feast for ceremonial cleansing of the hands (2Ki 3:11; Mar 7:3), “after the Jews’ manner of purifying” (kata ton katharismon tōn Ioudaiōn). See Mar 1:44; Luk 2:22 for the word katharismos (from katharizō) which fact also raised a controversy with disciples of John because of his baptizing (Joh 3:25).
Containing (chōrousai). Present active participle feminine plural of chōreō, old verb from chōros, place, space, having space or room for.
Two or three firkins apiece (ana metrētas duo ē treis). The word metrētēs, from metreō, to measure, simply means “measurer,” an amphora for measuring liquids (in Demosthenes, Aristotle, Polybius), the Hebrew bath (2Ch 4:5), here only in N.T., about 8-1/2 English gallons. Each hudria thus held about 20 gallons. This common distributive use of ana occurs here only in this Gospel, but is in Rev 4:8. In Joh 4:28 a much smaller hudria was used for carrying water.