Water Into Wine | John 2 in Greek

Timestamps can be found in the YouTube video description.

[00:00:00] Today we’re going over the second chapter of the Gospel of John. There are two stories in this chapter. Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding, and then he goes to the temple in Jerusalem and throws out the money changers and the animals being sold there.

So I’m mostly gonna focus this video on helping you to get into the Greek text and start to identify, start to read it for yourself by identifying structurally what’s going on in each sentence. So we’re gonna pay a lot of attention to where’s the main verb in other words, the indicative verb in each sentence, and who’s the subject of the sentence?

That’s the starting point, and then from there we can put together the pieces of the rest of the sentence. Obviously the main verb and the subject, the one who’s doing the verb are the focus of the sentence, and then all the other cases, [00:01:00] dative, genitive, accusative.

Are supplementing that basic picture of the main verb and the nominative or subject case. Same thing for participles dependent clauses, maybe with subjunctive verbs. So on the verbal side, those are the verbs that are filling in the rest of the information, the action. But the main indicative verb is gonna be our focus.

So the way this is gonna go, I’m gonna read several verses at a time, and then I’ll go back to the first one on the page and start diagramming it. So I’m gonna try to put the main indicative verbs box those in, in red. So something like this in verse one, ἐγένετο, and then ἦν is also in verse one, an indicative verb. And then I think I’ll do the subject of the sentence in [00:02:00] blue. So verse one, γάμος. Then the second part of verse one, ἡ μήτηρ, just gives you an example and then I’ll use this annotation tool.

Here, maybe we in other ways in green we can underline, if you notice the subscript iota, these are all Dative case. So I can use other colors and I can use the freehand drawing to. Indicate other parts of this sentence, so we’ll give that a try. I’m using a historical Koine pronunciation, which is pretty close to modern Greek.

John chapter two, verse one. Καὶ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ γάμος ἐγένετο ἐν Κανὰ τῆς Γαλιλαίας, καὶ ἦν ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ ἐκεῖ· ἐκλήθη δὲ καὶ ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν γάμον. καὶ ὑστερήσαντος οἴνου λέγει ἡ [00:03:00] μήτηρ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ πρὸς αὐτόν· Οἶνον οὐκ ἔχουσιν. καὶ λέγει αὐτῇ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί, γύναι; οὔπω ἥκει ἡ ὥρα μου. λέγει ἡ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ τοῖς διακόνοις· Ὅ τι ἂν λέγῃ ὑμῖν ποιήσατε.

Let’s stop there and then go back and diagram this. So I’ve already gotten verse one. The main verbs here are ἐγένετο, which is to happen or to become. We talked about that a lot in John chapter one because he used it over and over again. And then we have a past tense form of εἰμί in the second part of verse one, ἦν. I’ve got the subject of the sentence in blue. This is wedding, like monogamy. So mono meaning one or only, and then gamy in English means one. One [00:04:00] marriage, right? A marriage between a man and a woman. So there’s one pairing. This Greek word γάμος means wedding. There was a wedding that happened in Cana of Galilee and the mother, so the mother is the subject of this second part of verse one, the mother of who τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, so of Jesus was there.

Notice that the word there in Greek is at the very end of the sentence, but the word was is at the beginning. In English, we would always put those together. In Greek they’re separated. Let’s go to verse two. So if you’re a Greek student, try to see with me where is the main indicative verb or the subject in this sentence.

So the subject’s relatively easy, right? We have the article here. And the article here showing us what’s the subject? So Jesus and his [00:05:00] disciples singular article and plural article. And this αὐτοῦ is his. So just saying it’s Jesus’s disciples and they into the wedding. Notice this is gonna be accusative case. And then the main verb they were called. This is the root, which means called, and here we would say they’re invited. So they’re called to the wedding means they’re invited to the wedding. And then this is a participle So this is like they had run out of wine.

The main verb though, is, she says, and then who is the one, well, who is the one saying it’s the mother of Jesus. So that’s the nominative case. And who does she say to towards him, meaning Jesus. So what does she say? This is again gonna be another indicative verb. Because it’s within the quote from [00:06:00] Jesus’ mom.

So same verse and same sentence. Notice we have the colon right here after αὐτόν. That punctuation mark is telling us, okay, this is what she said.

Same thing for the capitalization of the word wine. This capital omicron is telling us that the editors of the SBL Greek New Testament think that this is direct speech. This is a quote. And so they capitalize. That capital letter would not have been in the original manuscripts. Well, in the original manuscripts, they were all capital. There was no distinction, so everything was capitalized. But today we read lowercase. It’s just so much easier to read everything lowercase.

Recognition is much easier because there’s more variation in the shapes of the letters. That’s true in Greek or in English. Spatial variation in the shapes of lowercase letters are much larger than big blocky, uppercase letters. So it’s just, it’s so much faster to read.

Okay, [00:07:00] back to verse three. So Jesus’ mom says. Wine they don’t have. Now there’s no, you notice there’s no nominative case in this statement because it’s implied in the verb. It’s some they that we don’t really know who the they is except by context and obviously the context meaning the people putting on the wedding or the people organizing the wedding, they don’t have any wine. The wines run out.

Verse four. Again, we have the main verb, indicative verb here, and then we have another statement by by who? So it’s Jesus. So Jesus is the subject he’s saying something in response to his mom. What’s he saying? There is no indicative verb right here in the first part of his statement, but there is in the second part.[00:08:00]

So these are both in Dative case, right? So what to me, dative case and to you woman not yet has come the hour mine. So this one here. The hour is nominative. Notice these are two feminine nouns, ὥρα and μήτηρ. So they both use the definite article, which is just the eta. Then in verse five, Jesus’ mom responds to him… no, okay, she’s actually talking to someone else. Same indicative verb. Again, dialogue can be pretty straightforward because we see these repeated. This is, the first person or third person singular form of λέγω, which is I say, and this time she’s speaking to someone else, which is [00:09:00] to the διακόνοις.

I think chronologically, this is the first use of the word deacons in the New Testament. So this word just means the servants plural in the form it is here. And we see that same word used in Acts when the church appoints Stephen and six other Hellenistic Jews to look after the Hellenistic widows, which is Greek speaking Jewish widows in the Jerusalem Church. Remember there was some dispute there, and the apostles said, we have to focus on ministering the word and prayer, and so we’re gonna appoint these seven guys as the deacons or the servants who are gonna take care of this distribution of food and make sure that it’s fair.

So that’s the beginning of the modern church office of the Deacon. [00:10:00] And it’s good to understand that a lot of those words we use today that come from Greek, whether it’s deacon or apostle or presbyter leader or elder. A lot of these words, even maybe grace and faith, they have some origin in Greek. Gospel like Evangelical, they have some origin in Greek, but the modern meaning has often become divorced from the original meaning. It can solve quite a few problems if we read the Bible in such a way that we understand the original meaning and try not to take it too far out of context. So that’s one benefit of learning Greek.

Okay, so what does Jesus’ mom say to the servants? Whatever he says to you, you do it, ποιήσατε. This is a command. She’s saying, you do it imperative, and then whatever he might say here is [00:11:00] subjunctive. So whatever Jesus might say to you, you do it. So this λέγῃ is subjunctive, which is normally the case after ἂν, right?

So we would normally see subjunctive in that case. Now who’s, what’s the nominative in this sentence, you do it. So right here it’s implied you do it. That ὑμῖν is not nominative, it’s dative because it’s referring back to the, he says. So he says to who? He says to you, you do it. So the second you here, obviously in English, we use the same word you in both cases, whether it’s nominative or a dative use, we just use the word you. But in Greek, that word would change. So nominative here would be ὑμεῖς, not ὑμῖν.

Let’s delete these notes and then move… i’m gonna move the next verse to the top of the screen so we can look at another big chunk all at once. So starting in verse six, [00:12:00] ἦσαν δὲ ἐκεῖ λίθιναι ὑδρίαι ἓξ κατὰ τὸν καθαρισμὸν τῶν Ἰουδαίων κείμεναι, χωροῦσαι ἀνὰ μετρητὰς δύο ἢ τρεῖς. λέγει αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Γεμίσατε τὰς ὑδρίας ὕδατος· καὶ ἐγέμισαν αὐτὰς ἕως ἄνω. καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· Ἀντλήσατε νῦν καὶ φέρετε τῷ ἀρχιτρικλίνῳ· οἱ δὲ ἤνεγκαν. ὡς δὲ ἐγεύσατο ὁ ἀρχιτρίκλινος τὸ ὕδωρ οἶνον γεγενημένον, καὶ οὐκ ᾔδει πόθεν ἐστίν, οἱ δὲ διάκονοι ᾔδεισαν οἱ ἠντληκότες τὸ ὕδωρ, φωνεῖ τὸν νυμφίον ὁ ἀρχιτρίκλινος…

Sometimes the easiest thing is to just go out and mark the nominative case ahead of time. So again, [00:13:00] try to think this through with me while I’m doing it. So here’s one, right? Notice that article that’s singular masculine nominative article. So Jesus, and then right here it’s, I’m just gonna put a box here because it’s implied that once again, Jesus is speaking to the servants to command them in this section. And we have here a couple times this ἀρχιτρίκλινος is the subject. So this word, remember ἀρχή, that root is related to something or someone that’s before or in the beginning, or a leader.

And in the Greek mindset, the ones who came before was the leader. That wasn’t just a Greek thing. Maybe that was just an ancient world thing. Like in Jewish culture, the firstborn male would get a double inheritance and there was much more of a [00:14:00] structure of the older generations are the patriarchs of the family and they’re the main leaders.

So that notion that the oldest is also the one with the most authority is there in the Greek culture and in Jewish culture, it’s just generally an ancient kind of idea. This word ἀρχή joins those two into one concept. They just saw it as almost the same thing. So this guy is the leader of the -τρίκλινος, which is refers to reclining to eat, in this case at the wedding banquet. So this is the master of the banquet.

Then we also have right here the διάκονοι is nominative and they knew the ones who had drawn out the water. They knew, where the water that turned into wine was from. Okay I’m getting ahead of myself. Going to the bottom. Let’s go back to the top.

Let’s do the verbs. [00:15:00] So let me change to red. Here’s an indicative verb. This is a form of εἰμί. Then this is, he says, right, this is what Jesus says to the servants, and he gives them a command right here. Fill up the jars with water and notice this word for water. It looks a bit because of the ending, it looks like it could be nominative case, right?

But it’s not. This is third decension. So the genitive case is the one that has the Omicron Sigma at the end, not the nominative case. Then this is an indicative verb, so they notice the similarity between these two. So this is Jesus’ command to fill up. Then this is saying they filled it up until full.

Another indicative verb of just speaking. So then Jesus gives them another command right here still to the servants. So draw out, [00:16:00] notice these two commands are both plural you, so it’s not singular you, it’s plural you with the tau epsilon ending. So you all draw out. Now and bring, so two, two commands here.

Bring where? dative case to the master of the banquet. And then this is a real short sentence or a clause right here. So we just have the article by itself, the word the servants is not stated, but we know who it is referring to, right? So they drew it out and they brought it, this is a odd aorist or past tense form of φέρω, which is to bring, here’s another indicative verb.

So drank, who drank? Whatever’s in the nominative case drank. So the master of the banquet drank the water, [00:17:00] wine had become. This is a verb form, but it’s not an indicative verb. This is the same word as γίνομαι or γἐγονεν that we’ve talked about a lot. This is to happen or to become. This is the perfect participle. The water, wine had become, it’s a really tight phrasing here. I like this phrasing.

And the master of the banquet. Did not know where it is. Ἐστίν here is another indicative verb. And then ᾔδει, he did not know from where it is, so he just thought it was normal wine. They’re just, they ran outta wine and now they found some, and so they’re bringing it to the master of the banquet, to get his approval or whatever, and he tastes it.

Let me go back to the beginning and just fill in any gaps that we had. This verse six, it’s telling us [00:18:00] about the water jars. So they’re made of stone and they’re jars. Notice the similarity between this word and the word for water right here.

The word for jar is a lot like the word for water, which makes sense. So how many there were… six, rough breathing mark and then epsilon and ξ. So in English we would say hex. So that’s the word for six. And the use of those water jars, the normal use was for the cleansing of the Jews and they were lying there.

So it’s interesting to me that Jesus takes these water jars, which are normally used for some kind of cleansing or purification, and he’s not using them for that purpose. He’s gonna use them as a storage place for his new wine. So just think about the meaning there. By putting this little detail in there, is [00:19:00] John telling us, giving us a hint about Jesus’s purpose. What he’s doing, that he’s taking this, these old water jars for cleansing and he’s turning them into a wine for celebration and for a feast.

And then finishing out this parenthetical statement. So John is just saying that the measure, they hold two or three measures. So we have a lot of number words here, six, two, and three. Two or three measures that they held.

So that gets us through most of this page. I think the only other important detail we should mention here is this section is again a parenthetical statement. It’s just contrasting that the master of the banquet didn’t know where the wine had come from. He didn’t know that it started out as water, and this was a miracle. But the servants [00:20:00] who drew out the water the servants knew the ones who drew out the water. So this is another participle, but it’s used in a noun, in a substantival form here. The ones who drew out the water, they knew where it’d come from.

And then, okay, here’s another verb that we missed. So after he tasted the wine turned into water. He calls the master of the banquet calls the groom, so τὸν νυμφίον is groom.

Let’s move to the next page, verse 10. He says, by now you’re really familiar with this verb. And then τίθησιν, τετήρηκας, ἐποίησεν, ἐφανέρωσεν, ἐπίστευσαν.

Okay, so those are the verbs. I should have read it. Let me go back and read it. καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· Πᾶς ἄνθρωπος πρῶτον τὸν καλὸν οἶνον τίθησιν, καὶ ὅταν μεθυσθῶσιν τὸν ἐλάσσω· σὺ [00:21:00] τετήρηκας τὸν καλὸν οἶνον ἕως ἄρτι. ταύτην ἐποίησεν ἀρχὴν τῶν σημείων ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐν Κανὰ τῆς Γαλιλαίας καὶ ἐφανέρωσεν τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐπίστευσαν εἰς αὐτὸν οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ.

Okay, let’s get the nominative case now, the disciples here in verse 11, and you, which is in the speech of the master of the banquet to the groom. So he is talking to, this is the groom, and then we have Jesus. So Jesus did something. He’s the one who did the revealing his disciples are the ones who did the trusting or believing.

And then up here we have ἄνθρωπος. Okay, so remember the master of the banquet is speaking to the groom, and he says to him, every person or every man first, the good wine sets out or sets before. So this is like places placing the wine in front of your [00:22:00] guests is what this verb is saying. And whenever they become drunk, the lesser.

So this is not indicative, but it almost functions like indicative. It’s subjunctive. It goes along with this ὅταν. So notice this -αν is the particle. When we see that, what comes after is gonna be in the subjunctive case because it’s a case of probability or possibility. It’s not about the facts of what’s happening, like the indicative case is. So whenever, or it’s not saying for sure that the guests will become drunk. It’s not really, if the word if isn’t used here it’s when, so this is a temporal, this is a conjunction of, I think ὅτε, which is temporal when, and then ἂν, which is this particle that signals something subjunctive or uncertain. We can translate this whenever.

Whenever they get drunk, the lesser, ἐλάσσω. Notice [00:23:00] that word, I think it’s just a coincidence, but ἐλάσσω is lesser, inferior and in English, lesser sounds almost exactly the same as this word. I think it’s just a coincidence, probably.

Okay. But in contrast to what men normally do at a wedding, you have kept back. So this is indicative, but it’s perfect. So notice the reduplication at the front where we take the initial vowel, Tau and do copy and paste, put an extra Tau in front, and then join the two with an epsilon. It’s a sign of the perfect tense, along with the κα is often there in perfect tense. So this is not really past or present, it’s both. You have done something in the past that has continuing effects in the present. So you have kept back the good wine until now.

That sort of ends the narrative and we get a statement from John as the narrator. So this, he did the first, that word again. [00:24:00] When it’s talking about the master of the banquet, it’s the sense of leader or master. Here, it’s in the sense of first, so this is the beginning of the signs or the first of the signs that Jesus in Cana of Galilee, that Jesus did right here ἐποίησεν in Cana of Galilee. And revealed the glory his and believed into him, the disciples his.

And then verse 12 is just a short transition that joins this story to the next story about the temple. Μετὰ τοῦτο κατέβη εἰς Καφαρναοὺμ αὐτὸς καὶ ἡ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ καὶ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐκεῖ ἔμειναν οὐ πολλὰς ἡμέρας.

After this went down into Capernaum he meaning Jesus and his mother and [00:25:00] the brothers and the disciples his and there remained not many days.

Let’s move on to the next piece. So starting chapter two, verse 13.

Καὶ ἐγγὺς ἦν τὸ πάσχα τῶν Ἰουδαίων, καὶ ἀνέβη εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα ὁ Ἰησοῦς. 14 καὶ εὗρεν ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ τοὺς πωλοῦντας βόας καὶ πρόβατα καὶ περιστερὰς καὶ τοὺς κερματιστὰς καθημένους, 15 καὶ ποιήσας φραγέλλιον ἐκ σχοινίων πάντας ἐξέβαλεν ἐκ τοῦ ἱεροῦ τά τε πρόβατα καὶ τοὺς βόας, καὶ τῶν κολλυβιστῶν ἐξέχεεν τὰ κέρματα καὶ τὰς τραπέζας ἀνέστρεψεν, 16 καὶ τοῖς τὰς περιστερὰς πωλοῦσιν εἶπεν· Ἄρατε ταῦτα ἐντεῦθεν, μὴ ποιεῖτε τὸν οἶκον τοῦ [00:26:00] πατρός μου

And we cut it off in the middle of the sentence. That’s all right. We’ll look at that at the end. This is, was going to the main verbs again. So they was, they went up into Jerusalem. Or he, I guess it’s, he went up in Jerusalem. Jesus is the subject and found, and then we have a long sentence here about what he found in the temple.

We’ll come back to that part. Another main verb he made. We don’t have the it’s understood that we’re still talking about Jesus. I’ll just put this blue box blank right by the red box for the indicative verb because the subject is implied in the verb we know it’s Jesus. And then he also threw out something and yeah, we have a long sentence.

So we have actually as a parallel structure here. So he found something at the temple and then he threw out something at the temple. And the, something in both cases is a [00:27:00] long list. And then he said, so after he did the throwing out, he said. To somebody. And again, the word Jesus is not repeated in any of these places.

We know it’s the same subject. I’m just gonna put the blank blue box there. ’cause that’s Jesus again and again doing that, the action and then we have… his statement or his command right here and right here. Although this I think is subjunctive or, yeah. Imperative. So this and this are both imperative.

Okay. So maybe Jesus is the only nominative case on this whole page. Very well might be. So now let’s find out what Jesus found at the temple and what he did. Back to the beginning. So near it was to the πάσχα is Passover of the Jews and went up, notice the went up. Even though he’s going south on the map, [00:28:00] south on the map, we would often say go down, because we imagine that top down view of a map and south is down on the map.

But Jesus went up to Jerusalem because it’s a rise in elevation. Into Jerusalem jesus: so notice as usual the word order is not the important thing in Greek. At least not in the sense of the English word order of subject- verb- object for sort of the main line of the sentence. There are other aspects where word order matters in Greek, where we put a genitive case is important for the meaning of the sentence.

And where we put participles, which are like verbs that are not the main verbs of the sentence, the placement of those matters. But the main pieces of the sentence, the subject, the main verb and the direct object is told by the case and not by [00:29:00] the location in the sentence. So as is common, we have the nominative or the subject of the sentence at the end of the sentence here.

Okay. And he found in the temple, the sellers the ones selling the oxen and the sheep and the doves, and the seats of the money changers seats, or is that sitting καθημένους. So this, I know it’s something to do with sitting, I think it’s a participle. So he found the money changer sitting and he made, so Jesus made a whip out of ropes and all threw out of the temple, the sheep and the oxen and the κολλυβιστῶν, he scattered the coins.

So this word, can you even see that yellow? Maybe it’s not too easy. I’ll use blue. So this word and this word are [00:30:00] essentially the same, referring to the same people, the money changers. It’s just κερμα- refers to the coins themselves that they’re changing just like this is coins κέρματα, but κολλυ-, this is what I read, i’m not very familiar with this word, but this κολλυ-, it’s the fee that they charge when they do the money changing for you. Two different emphases here, but it’s the same, referring to the same people. So he scattered, oh, this is another verb that I missed earlier. So Jesus scattered the coins.

And the tables ἀνέστρεψεν. There’s another verb. So he turned over the tables. Notice here, I think this word is interesting. τραπέζας is like trapezoid, which is a four-sided geometrical figure, and that means table. So that one’s, that’s easy to remember. Once you know the mnemonic for the English [00:31:00] word.

And jesus spoke. Who did he speak to? So Dative case, the one selling the doves. He spoke to them and said, lift or take away these from here. Not make, not you all make: note, this is plural command. The house of my father, and then it’s gonna continue on the next page. So what? Not to make the house of my father a house of ἐμπορίου.

So think of Emporium, or a place for buying and selling basically. I’m not sure the difference between this word and αγορά, which is market. So maybe this is like a single shop, whereas a market is a bigger area where everyone gathers to buy or sell. I’m not sure about that.

Let’s continue. So in verse 17, ἐμνήσθησαν οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ ὅτι γεγραμμένον ἐστίν· Ὁ ζῆλος τοῦ [00:32:00] οἴκου σου καταφάγεταί με. ἀπεκρίθησαν οὖν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι καὶ εἶπαν αὐτῷ· Τί σημεῖον δεικνύεις ἡμῖν, ὅτι ταῦτα ποιεῖς; ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· Λύσατε τὸν ναὸν τοῦτον καὶ ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις ἐγερῶ αὐτόν. εἶπαν οὖν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι· Τεσσεράκοντα καὶ ἓξ ἔτεσιν οἰκοδομήθη ὁ ναὸς οὗτος, καὶ σὺ ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις ἐγερεῖς αὐτόν;

Let’s get the verbs. So, they remembered. This one is a participle, like what had been written or the thing that had been written. καταφάγεταί με. This whole piece is a quote from the Septuagint, the Greek. Old Testament and then this is they answered and they said or this is answering. I shouldn’t, yeah, I guess this is [00:33:00] indicative aorist and so is this.

Often you’ll see this word used in the participle form. That’s really common, but here it’s indicative and you show, so the Jews are wanting Jesus to show them something in order to. Yeah, what he does. Okay, I should just outline the verbs and then later come back and we’ll go through the meaning of destroy, and then I will raise it.

Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it. We know the end of the story so we know what that refers to. And then the Jews say back to Jesus, about the temple being built. And then, they’re asking him a question about his statement, which is, which sounds really crazy to them.

Now let’s go and see what’s the nominative case here? So we have his disciples are remembering, and then this is odd. So we have ζῆλος, zeal [00:34:00] being the subject of this statement, which is a quote from the Old Testament. Then here we have the Jews or the subject. Here jesus is the subject.

He doesn’t have the article with his name right there. But he’s the one speaking back to the Jews, answering them. Right here we have an implied subject, so it’s pretty obvious based on the ending of the verb that Jesus is saying to the Jews here. And then here that once again the Jews say something back to Jesus. And then, within their statement, they’re talking about the temple.

And the temple is the subject of their statement. The temple is not building something else, but it’s being built. So this is passive, this theta plus the ετα is often telling us something’s the passive, right? οἰκοδομήθη. So the temple has been built and then σὺ. So the Jews talking to Jesus and he is the subject.

Okay, so main verb and [00:35:00] the subject. This gives us the main bones of the words on the page. Now let’s go back and fill in the blanks.

So what did the disciples of his remember that it had been written or having been written is, Zeal of your house eats me down. So that’s. An interesting phrase that we wouldn’t really say in English, but it’s like consuming. Imagine food on a plate and you’re eating it down. In English we say that’s eating me up inside, which is really similar to the connotation of this word. So the zeal for his house is eating Jesus up inside and he’s gotta express it and get it out somehow. So he does that by making the whip and driving out the money changers in the animals so that the temple can be used for its real purpose and not as a place of just making money.

And the Jews answered and said to him. [00:36:00] Interesting it uses this word answered. So not just said, but they answered. Now, they didn’t answer a statement from Jesus. They’re answering an action. So their words are in response to his action.

What sign do you give to us? Notice here the subject of this is implied by the -εις, the ending of the verb, which is second person. So it’s about you. It’s the Jews speaking to Jesus. What sign do you give to us? Dative case. That these things you do. And Jesus answered and said to them, destroy the temple this, and in three days I raise it. And then they said back to him the Jews, 40 and six. This is that word hex again. 40 and six years has been built, the [00:37:00] temple this. You in three days, raise it? Question mark.

Next section. Starting at 2:21. Ἐκεῖνος δὲ ἔλεγεν περὶ τοῦ ναοῦ τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ. ὅτε οὖν ἠγέρθη ἐκ νεκρῶν, ἐμνήσθησαν οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ ὅτι τοῦτο ἔλεγεν, καὶ ἐπίστευσαν τῇ γραφῇ καὶ τῷ λόγῳ ὃν εἶπεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς. Ὡς δὲ ἦν ἐν τοῖς Ἱεροσολύμοις ἐν τῷ πάσχα ἐν τῇ ἑορτῇ, πολλοὶ ἐπίστευσαν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ, θεωροῦντες αὐτοῦ τὰ σημεῖα ἃ ἐποίει· αὐτὸς δὲ Ἰησοῦς οὐκ ἐπίστευεν…

So he did not trust himself. We’ll come back to that.

[00:38:00] αὑτὸν αὐτοῖς διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας καὶ… and then we will do the rest on the next page. So I’ve tried to go through and get the verbs while I read the text. So those are in red. Now what’s the subject right here? Who’s the one doing the verb? So the fastest way to do this as usual, is to look for the article, the nominative article right here.

It’s implied, right? What? What is this? The disciples, his that this. He said, okay, so this is Jesus, he said, and then, okay this one is not implied, but this one is implied to be Jesus. I’ll just put an arrow maybe to help us know who’s doing that action. ’cause it’s could be a little confusing.

And Jesus right here is the one who said something and then this is a [00:39:00] long line of Dative case. Okay, here’s nominative. Says like many or many people believed or trusted into the name of his. And this I did not put a box on θεωροῦντες because that’s a participle. And then right here, this is implied.

So this is Jesus doing the signs and then nominative, here and here. So this is Jesus himself. Jesus, but then it’s also emphasizing himself. So we have two nominitive case words. And actually this one I think is an infinitive. It’s not actually indicative case. So let’s remember that’s different.

Okay, so let’s go back to the beginning and fill in the gaps. So that one said about the temple of the body his. So he is not talking about the real temple, he’s talking about his body as the temple. When therefore he was raised out of the dead. His disciples [00:40:00] remembered, that this, he said. And actually, so if you’re following here, the subject of this verb is also implied.

So we know it’s Jesus was raised and the disciples remembered that Jesus said. What did they remember? He said this comment about raising the temple in three days. So at the time, they didn’t know what it meant, obviously. Neither did the Jews or anyone, but later on they realized.

And the disciples his trusted the scripture and the word, which said Jesus, and the word which Jesus said. Okay, now we have a development in the narrative, δὲ is telling us. As it was in jerusalem in the Passover festival, many believed into the name his seeing his signs, which he did.

Now, this [00:41:00] word tripped me up at first because it looks plural, right? And I thought it was referring to the Jews in Jerusalem. Like this would be translated Jerusalemites or people who live in Jerusalem. But it turns out that in Greek and in Hebrew both, there was sometimes a tendency to name cities, or the grammar of how cities would be written was often plural. Not always, but it wasn’t uncommon. So even though this is plural, it’s actually referring to the city of Jerusalem.

Okay. So the people saw his signs that he did, and they trusted or had faith in him. Now, this is one of those, one of those passages in the Bible that I think is a little bit hard to account for using our naive understanding of the word faith, or this word that in the Greek, this is ἐπίστευσαν. This is looks ugly, the red and the green. Okay, so this is [00:42:00] πιστεύω is the lexical form and it means I believe, I trust, I have faith. The range of meanings of that word is much broader in Greek than it is in English. In English, it’s basically become a Christian jargon. It has a certain doctrinal flavor to it, that’s basically since the reformation. And it’s pretty divorced from much of the original meaning of the word. Now in this particular instance, the people are putting their faith in Jesus. And looking back at that now, we would say, oh, that means they’re Christians, right?

But no, not really. And the next thing we’re gonna read makes that clear. So they just saw some signs that he did and they somehow believed or trusted, maybe they clicked the subscribe button on YouTube.

It was a very low investment kind of faith that they had in Jesus at this point. The next few verses make that clear. Let’s try putting [00:43:00] 2:23 at the… and notice we’re almost at the end of the chapter here. Okay. So I already diagrammed this part on the previous page. They were seeing this is the participle, the signs that Jesus did. And so they put faith in him.

But then himself, Jesus did not believe. Did not entrust, I think is how it’s often translated in English, but it’s literally the same word here. Notice this word and this word, these are the exact same root. Here it’s they believed, plural, the people in the crowd. And here it’s Jesus, singular, did not so the οὐκ, it’s not technically a verb, so I’m just gonna underline it. So this is negating the verb, not believed or entrusted himself to them.

And then this διά is in a spatial sense, it means through like we’re passing through a region out the other side. But the sort of figurative [00:44:00] abstract meaning of this is telling us the reason or the cause. So why did Jesus not entrust himself to them? Because he knew all, this is infinitive, so I’m not gonna box it in. ’cause he knew all and, and that not had need.

Okay. So this is a verb have to have, but he does not have, what does he not have? He doesn’t have a need to anyone… he doesn’t have a need for is probably the better way to translate this for anyone to testify about… and this is, this μαρτυρήσῃ is Subjunctive because it’s after the ἵνα. It’s not indicative, but I’m gonna box it in ’cause it basically functions as the main verb here. About man, for himself, he knew what was in the man.

Let’s go back and get, if there’s the subject of the sentence. So the many who believed, and then [00:45:00] here we got the subject there. It was Jesus did not believe. Okay. And then here, τις, so anyone to testify. This is indefinite. It’s just anyone. He, so subject here of knew is he. So Jesus knew what was in the man. What another indefinite subject here of the verb was. So I think we basically covered the meaning of this pretty well. He himself did not believe or trust into them.

So notice the dative case is telling where the trust or the faith is being placed. He’s not placing his face in faith in them, which is referring back to the many who entrusted themselves to him. So it’s not a mutual thing. And I think here, yeah, this is a case where it’s very obvious that a better translation of this [00:46:00] word is probably trust or entrust on both sides. So the people are maybe entrusting themselves to Jesus, but he is not entrusting himself to them.

It’s such a big word that we have to really look carefully at the context to see what it means. And I think many times the Bible, we just read it as theological jargon and aren’t careful to say, okay, what exactly does it mean in this context?

Okay, so why did he not believe? Because he knew all and he did not have any need, that anyone testify or witness about man because Jesus knew what was in man.

The overall sense here is Jesus knows and the next chapters will show this, he knows that the faith that these people are putting in him or the trust is really weak and that most of them are gonna let go of it pretty fast. It’s not like a deep, eternal forever thing.

Okay, so that’s all of chapter two. It’s a pretty [00:47:00] short chapter, much shorter than the average in the Book of John. There were those two points about the water jars being used for cleansing, and then Jesus uses them for a celebration for the wine and not just any wine, but the good wine.

And then the situation in the temple is reversed. So before at the wedding, Jesus is taking something that’s for cleansing and he’s turning into a celebration. Whereas in the temple, the Passover is, it’s a feast, in some sense it’s a celebration. Yeah, of God bringing the Israelites out of Egypt.

So it’s a celebration, but he’s actually turning it into a time for cleansing because he says, it’s shifted away from its original purpose which was right freeing of the slaves in Egypt, and now it’s turning into a means to enslave other people by charging them these crazy high prices in order to do the sacrifices in the temple.

I think this is a pattern we see over and over again with Jesus where he often [00:48:00] takes the meaning that everyone is assigning to some event or situation and he has a way of reversing it or turning it around in a way that’s really surprising. So that’s all I have on this video. The next one, we can just get a preview of chapter three here.

So, Nicodemus. Oops, I thought that was the rectangle box. Okay, so Nicodemus is gonna come to Jesus, and this is where we have John 3:16. So we’re gonna see that verse in Greek and a lot of interesting teaching here by Jesus about the Spirit in this next chapter.

So, thanks for listening.