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Joh_13:23-24. There was, however, reclining at table, one of the disciples, etc., so that ἦν belongs to ἐν τῷ κόλπῳ (Luk_16:23). The custom was to lie with the left arm supported on the cushion, and the feet stretched out behind, so that the right hand remained free for eating. The one who lay next reached, with the back of his head, to the sinus of the girdle ( κόλπος , Luk_6:38; Plin. ep. iv. 22) of the first, and had the feet of the first at his back; in like manner, the third in the κόλπος of the second. See Lightfoot, p. 1095 f.
ὃν ἠγαπ . ὁ Ἰ .] κατʼ ἐξοχήν . Comp. Joh_19:26, Joh_20:2, Joh_21:7; Joh_21:20. It serves to explain the fact that he was Jesus’ nearest table-companion. And here, out of the recollection of that sacred, and by him never to be forgotten moment, there first breaks from his lips this nameless, and yet so expressive designation of himself. It is very arbitrary, however, to take this as a circumlocution for his name (Gotthold, Bengel, Hengstenberg, Godet); such a view should have been precluded already by the circumstance that ὃν ἠγ . ὁ κύριος is never employed (but always ὁ Ἰησοῦς ).
According to the reading κ . λέγει αὐτῷ · εἰπὲ τίς ἐστιν (see critical notes), Peter supposes, with the hasty temperament which marked him, that John, as the confidant of Jesus, would know whom the latter meant.[130] The λέγει is to be imagined as spoken in a whisper, to which also the νεύει , depicting the occurrence in a lively manner, points. Should εἰπέ be taken as: “say to Jesus” (Ewald), either περὶ οὗ λέγει would be omitted, or instead of λέγει , λέγεις would be expressed.
[130] In this and other individual traits (Joh_18:15-16, Joh_19:26-27, Joh_20:2-3, Joh_21:3-4, Joh_18:10, Joh_13:8, Joh_21:15-16) the design has been discovered to make Peter appear in a less advantageous light than John, or to make him appear so generally,—which would be in keeping with the anti-Judaic tendency of the author. See especially Baur, p. 320 ff. Comp. Hilgenfeld, Evang. p. 335; Spaeth in Hilgenf. ZeitsChr. 1868, p. 182 f. But if the author had actually entertained this design, it would have been an easy thing for him—since he is said to have disposed of the historical material in so altogether free a manner—to have satisfied it in dogmatic points (which would be principally concerned), and yet more easy, at least in Joh_1:43, and Joh_6:68-69, to have remained silent. Comp. on vv. 10, 11.