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John 1:49-51
New English Translation
John 1:49-51
New English Translation
49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king[a] of Israel!”[b] 50 Jesus said to him,[c] “Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”[d] 51 He continued,[e] “I tell all of you the solemn truth[f]—you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”[g]
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- John 1:49 tn Although βασιλεύς (basileus) lacks the article it is definite due to contextual and syntactical considerations. See ExSyn 263.
- John 1:49 sn Nathanael’s confession—You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel—is best understood as a confession of Jesus’ messiahship. It has strong allusions to Ps 2:6-7, a well-known messianic psalm. What Nathanael’s exact understanding was at this point is hard to determine, but “son of God” was a designation for the Davidic king in the OT, and Nathanael parallels it with King of Israel here.
- John 1:50 tn Grk “answered and said to him.” This has been simplified in the translation to “said to him.”
- John 1:50 sn What are the greater things Jesus had in mind? In the narrative this forms an excellent foreshadowing of the miraculous signs which began at Cana of Galilee.
- John 1:51 tn Grk “and he said to him.”
- John 1:51 tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”
- John 1:51 sn The title Son of Man appears 13 times in John’s Gospel. It is associated especially with the themes of crucifixion (3:14; 8:28), revelation (6:27; 6:53), and eschatological authority (5:27; 9:35). The title as used in John’s Gospel has for its background the son of man figure who appears in Dan 7:13-14 and is granted universal regal authority. Thus for the author, the emphasis in this title is not on Jesus’ humanity, but on his heavenly origin and divine authority.
New English Translation (NET)
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