Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - John 1:40 - 1:40
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
40. ὄψεσθε. The reading ἴδετε perhaps comes from Joh 1:47.
ἐκείνην. That memorable day.
ὥρα ἧν ὡς δεκάτη. S. John remembers the very hour of this crisis in his life: all the details of the narrative are very lifelike.
It is sometimes contended that S. John reckons the hours of the day according to the modern method, from midnight to midnight, and not according to the Jewish method, from sunset to sunset, as everywhere else in N.T. and in Josephus. It is antecedently improbable that S. John should in this point vary from the rest of N.T. writers; and we ought to require strong evidence before accepting this theory, which has been adopted by some in order to escape from the difficulty of Joh 19:14, where see notes. Setting aside Joh 19:14 as the cause of the question, we have four passages in which S. John mentions the hour of the day, this, Joh 4:6; Joh 4:52 and Joh 11:9. None of them are decisive: but in no single case is the balance of probability strongly in favour of the modern method. See notes in each place. Here either 10 A.M. or 4 P.M. would suit the context: and while the antecedent probability that S. John reckons time like the rest of the Evangelists will incline us to 4 P.M., the fact that a good deal still remains to be done on this day makes 10 A.M. rather more suitable; and in that case ‘abode with him that day’ is more natural. Origen knows nothing of S. John’s using the modern method of reckoning.