Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - John 1:46 - 1:46
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Joh_1:46. Εὑρίσκει ] when and where in the course of the journey we are not told,—perhaps at some distance from the road, so that Philip, observing him, quitted the road, and went towards him. According to Ewald, “not till after their arrival in the village of Cana, which nevertheless is named for the first time in Joh_2:1, and to which Nathanael belonged” (Joh_21:2). The supposition, however, that Nathanael was on his way to John’s baptism (Godet) is quite groundless.
Ναθαναήλ , ðÀúÇðÀàÅì , i.e. Theodorus (Num_1:8; 1Ch_2:14), is identical with Bartholomaeus. For, according to this passage, in the midst of calls to the apostleship, comp. Joh_21:2, he appears as one of the twelve; while in the lists of the apostles (Mat_10:3; Luk_6:14; Mar_1:18; Act_1:13), where his name is wanting, we find Bartholomaeus, and placed, moreover, side by side with Philip (only in Act_1:13 with Matthew;[124] comp. Constitt. Apol. vi. 14. 1). This identity is all the more probable, because Bartholomew is only a patronymic, and must have become the ordinary name of the individual, and that in most frequent use; and thus it came to pass that his own distinctive name does not appear in the synoptic narrative.
ὃν ἔγραψε ] of whom, etc. See on Rom_10:5
Μωϋσῆς ] Deu_18:15, and generally in his Messianic references and types. See on Joh_1:46.
ΤῸΝ ἈΠῸ ΝΑΖΑΡΈΤ ] for Nazareth, where Jesus had lived with His parents from infancy upwards, passed for His birth-place. Philip may have obtained his knowledge from Andrew and Peter, or even from Jesus Himself, who had no occasion at this time to state more fully and minutely his relation to Nazareth; while the τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Ἰωσήφ , which must rest upon a communication from Jesus, leaves His divine Sonship undisturbed. To attribute to Philip knowledge of the facts of the case with regard to both points (Hengstenberg) is in itself improbable, and is not in keeping with the simplicity of his words. But it is a groundless assumption to suppose that John knew nothing of the birth at Bethlehem; for it is Philip’s own words that he records (against Strauss, De Wette). See on Joh_7:41.
[124] Hilgenfeld regarded him as identical with Matthew; but how much opposed is this view to the history of Matthew’s call! though the meaning of his name is not different from that of Matthew’s. Very recently, however, Hilgenfeld has supposed that the name answers to the Matthias who was appointed in the place of Judas (N. T. extra canon. IV. p. 105). Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 368, considers it very doubtful whether Nathanael belonged to the twelve at all. Chrysostom, Augustine, and others, long ago denied that he did, but this is already assumed in the “duae viae” (Hilgenfeld, N. T. extra canon. IV.). According to Spaeth, in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 168 ff., Nathanael is to be taken as a symbolical name, invented by the writer, under which the Apostle John himself is said to be represented. The author of the Appendix, chap. Joh_21:2, where Nathanael is expressly distinguished from the sons of Zebedee, is said to have made a mistake.