The intervening chapters record Jesus' Farewell Discourse. Alfred Plummer, in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (1902), suggests that Jesus and His disciples have "rise[n] from table and prepare[d] to depart at John 14:31, but that the contents of chapters 15-17 are spoken before they leave the room".[3]
Verse 1
When Jesus had spoken these words, He went out with His disciples over the Brook (or winter stream) Kidron, where there was a garden, which He and His disciples entered.[4]
Some translations instead open with "When He had finished praying" or similar words.[5]
And Judas, who betrayed Him, also knew the place; for Jesus often met there with His disciples.[6]
Judas is now called "Judas the betrayer" or "Judas, who is betraying" (Greek: ιουδας ο παραδιδους, ioudas ho paradidous) (John 18:2 and again in verse 5).[7] He comes to this familiar place with troops, a captain and officers and servants of the chief priests and the Pharisees, carrying torches and lanterns and weapons (verse 6, cf. verse 12). H. W. Watkins surmises that Gethsemane might have been belonged to "a friend or disciple" of Jesus.[8] Where many modern translations say that Jesus "met" there with his disciples, or "gathered" there in the Revised Geneva Translation,[9] older versions such as the King James states that they "resorted" there.[10]
the fulfilment of a divine plan in Christ's sufferings
and that the aim of the narrative is to endorse Jesus' earlier words,
I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.[14]
and the evangelist's earlier commentary
Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.[15][16]
Verse 5
"Jesus of Nazareth", they answered.
"I am he", he said.
Judas, the traitor, was standing there with them.[17]
A more literal translation of the guards' answer is "Jesus the Nazarene", which Plummer calls "a rather more contemptuous expression than 'Jesus of Nazareth'".[16] Jesus' response is Ἐγώ εἰμι (ego eimi, I am): the word 'he' is not expressed in the Greek text. This is a familiar expression throughout John's Gospel, seen in John 4:26, 6:20, 8:24, 8:28, 8:58, and 13:13. Plummer comments that "Judas, if not the chief priests, must have noticed the significant words".[16] Verses 6 and 8 repeat the words Ἐγώ εἰμι (in English, "I am he").
Verse 9
That the saying might be fulfilled which He spoke, "Of those whom You gave Me I have lost none".[18]
John 6:39: This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.[20]
John 10:28: And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.[21]
John 17:12: While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.[22]
Henry Alford,[23] Plummer,[16] and Watkins [8] concur in associating this verse with John 17:12. Arnold uses this fulfillment to argue (as "an unquestionable proof") that John 17 is a historical account of the words of Jesus and not merely "a description of the mind of our Lord at the time".[23]
In the High Priest's Courtyard (18:12-27)
Jesus and "another disciple", or "the other disciple",[24] who was known to the high priest, are taken to the High Priest's Courtyard, where initially Jesus meets with Annas. The other disciple then brings in Peter.[25] Unusually, John Wycliffe's bible translates Greek: τω αρχιερει, tō archierei as "the bishop".[26]
Verse 19
The high priest then asked Jesus about His disciples and His doctrine.[27]
Annas is here referred to as "the high priest", although Caiaphas was the high priest that year (John 18:13). Heinrich Meyer notes that Jesus ignores the first part of the question and answers only the second part, "and that by putting it aside as something entirely aimless, appealing to the publicity of His life".[28]
Then they [the Jewish leaders] led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium, and it was early morning. But they themselves did not go into the Praetorium, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover.[29]
The Jewish leaders: words supplied by the New International Version to clarify "they".[30] The reference is to the Sanhedrists, according to Scottish Free Church minister William Nicoll.[31] The text here confirms that in John's timeline, the trial of Jesus took place before the Passover and therefore likewise the events of chapters 13-17 preceded the Passover: cf. John 13:1: before the Feast of the Passover ...
Verse 31
Then Pilate said to them, "You take Him and judge Him according to your law."
Therefore the Jews said to him, "It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death,"[32]
Verse 37
Pilate therefore said to Him, "Are You a king then?"
Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king.
For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world,
