Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - John 3:8 - 3:8

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Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - John 3:8 - 3:8


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8. τὸ πνεῦμα κ.τ.λ. This verse is sometimes rendered thus: the Spirit breatheth where He willeth, and thou hearest His voice, but canst not tell whence He cometh and whither He goeth: so is every one (born) who is born of the Spirit. It is urged in favour of this rendering (1) that it gives to πνεῦμα the meaning which it almost invariably has in more than 350 places in N.T., of which more than 20 are in this Gospel: πνεῦμα may mean ‘breath of the wind,’ yet its almost invariable use in N.T. is ‘spirit’ or ‘the spirit,’ ἄνεμος being used (e.g. Joh 6:18) for ‘wind’: (2) that it gives a better meaning to θέλει, a word more appropriate to a person than to anything inanimate: that it gives to φωνή the meaning which it has in 14 other passages in this Gospel, viz. ‘articulate voice,’ and not ‘inarticulate sound.’ But on the other hand (1) it gives to πνεῖ the meaning ‘breathes,’ which it nowhere has in Scripture: in Joh 6:18 and elsewhere it is invariably used of the blowing of the wind: (2) it involves the expression ‘the voice of the Spirit,’ also unknown to Scripture: (3) it requires the insertion of ‘born’ in the last clause, in order to make sense. The close of the verse, οὕτως ἐστὶ κ.τ.λ., shews that there is a comparison, and this is almost conclusive for ‘wind’ as the meaning of πνεῦμα. Comp. Ecc 11:5. The Aramaic word probably used by our Lord has both meanings, ‘wind’ and ‘spirit,’ to translate which S. John could not use ἄνεμος, which has only the meaning of ‘wind;’ so that the first rather imposing argument for the rendering ‘spirit’ crumbles away. “At the pauses in the conversation, we may conjecture, they heard the wind without, as it moaned along the narrow streets of Jerusalem; and our Lord, as was His wont, took His creature into His service—the service of spiritual truth. The wind was a figure of the Spirit. Our Lord would have used the same word for both” (Liddon). Socrates uses the same simile; ἄνεμοι αὐτοὶ οὐχ ὁρῶνται, ἂ δὲ ποιοῦσι φανερὰ ἡμῖν ἐστι, καὶ προσιόντων αὐτῶν αἰσθανόμεθα (Xen. Mem. IV. iii. 14). In the Ignatian Epistles (Philad. VII.) we read τὸ πνεῦμα οὐ πλανᾶται, ἀπὸ Θεοῦ ὄν· οἶδεν γὰρ πόθεν ἔρχεται καὶ ποῦ ὑπάγει, καὶ τὰ κρυπτὰ ἐλέγχει, which is evidence of this Gospel being known A.D. 150, and probably A.D. 115. see on Joh 4:10, Joh 6:33, Joh 10:9.

ὁ γεγεννημένος. That jumps hath been born; perf. pass. It is all over, this spiritual birth, ‘he knoweth not how.’ He feels that the heavenly influence has done its work; but he finds it incomprehensible in its origin, which is divine, and in its end, which is eternal life. The Sinaiticus, supported by the old Latin and old Syriac, inserts τοῦ ὕδατος καὶ after ἐκ; another proof of the antiquity of corruptions. see on Joh 1:13, and comp. Joh 3:6; Joh 3:13; Joh 3:15.