Summary
Chapter summary
Mary anoints Jesus at Bethany. Triumphal entry: 'Hosanna: blessed is the King of Israel.' Greeks ask to see Jesus. 'Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die.' 'And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.' Closing of the Book of Signs.
Context
Gospel · John — John overview
- A. 1–11 Mary's Costly Ointment and Judas's Complaint
- B. 12–19 Hosanna! The King Comes on a Donkey's Colt
- C. 20–36 Greeks Ask for Jesus; the Grain of Wheat Must Die
- D. 37–50 Unbelief Foretold: They Loved the Glory of Men
The outline
A.Mary's Costly Ointment and Judas's Complaintvv. 1 to 11
Read vv. 1 to 11 →B.Hosanna! The King Comes on a Donkey's Coltvv. 12 to 19
Read vv. 12 to 19 →C.Greeks Ask for Jesus; the Grain of Wheat Must Dievv. 20 to 36
Read vv. 20 to 36 →D.Unbelief Foretold: They Loved the Glory of Menvv. 37 to 50
Read vv. 37 to 50 →
The world behind this chapter
John 12The history
The perfume is priced in the text at three hundred denarii, which was close to a year's wages for a labouring man. Nard was imported from the mountains of the far east and sold in sealed flasks; once opened it could not be saved. Anointing the feet rather than the head, and drying them with her hair, was an act of self-abasement — a woman's loosed hair in public was itself scandalous.
Palm branches carried a national charge. They had been waved when the Maccabees retook the temple, and they appear on Jewish coins from the later revolts as a symbol of independence. Combined with the shout from Psalm 118 and the words the King of Israel, the crowd was staging a liberation rally, and the Roman garrison in the fortress overlooking the temple would have been watching.
The Greeks who ask to see Jesus were most likely God-fearers — Gentiles who worshipped Israel's God and came up for the feast without becoming Jews. They approach Philip, who has a Greek name and comes from Bethsaida in a bilingual region. Their arrival is what prompts Jesus to say the hour has come.
The grain of wheat that must fall into the ground and die was farming everyone had done. Seed kept in a jar stays seed; seed buried stops being seed and becomes a crop. It is the plainest possible statement of what the coming week is for.
What it meant to them
John reports the Pharisees saying to one another, look, the world has gone after him — and then a delegation of Gentiles arrives at exactly that moment. The Gospel treats the complaint as an unintentional prophecy.
The chapter closes with an honest and uncomfortable note for readers under pressure: many even of the authorities believed in him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. Secret belief is named for what it is.
Sources cited
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament
- Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews (Whiston translation)
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on John 12. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Connections from this chapter
v. 13 · Quoted here
'Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel': the triumphal-entry crowd.
Psalms 118:25→O LORD, save us, we pray. We beseech You, O LORD, cause us to prosper!
public-domain commentaries in agreement
v. 38 · Quoted here
'Lord, who hath believed our report?' John, unbelief-fulfillment ('that the saying of Esaias might be fulfilled')
Isaiah 53:1→Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
public-domain commentaries in agreement; cross-checked against the UBS apparatus
v. 41 · Fulfilled here
John says Isaiah 'saw HIS [Christ's] glory' - the throne-vision of YHWH of hosts read as a pre-incarnate appearance of the Son; supports the Isa 44:6 transfer.
Isaiah 6:1→In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted; and the train of His robe filled the temple.
John 12:41; Bauckham (2008)
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.