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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - John 20:22 - 20:22
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
He breathed on them (enephusēsen). First aorist active indicative of emphusaō, late verb, here only in N.T. though eleven times in the lxx and in the papyri. It was a symbolic art with the same word used in the lxx when God breathed the breath of life upon Adam (Gen 2:7). It occurs also in Ezek 37:9. See Christ’s promise in Joh 16:23. Jesus gives the disciples a foretaste of the great pentecost.
Receive ye the Holy Ghost (labete pneuma hagion). Second aorist (ingressive) active imperative of lambanō. Note absence of article here (pneuma hagion) though to pneuma to hagion in Joh 14:26. No real distinction is to be observed, for Holy Spirit is treated as a proper name with or without the article.