John 10

John 10:1-10 in Papyrus 6, written c. AD 350.

The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 42 verses.

• John 10:34: Psalm 82:6[4]

Events recorded in this chapter refer to the following locations:

• Jerusalem (John 10:1-39)
• The east bank of Jordan River, the place where John the Baptist was baptizing at first. (John 10:40-42)

In verses 1-5, Jesus uses a parable,[5] illustration [6] or "figure of speech" [7] regarding the manner in which a true shepherd enters his sheepfold, unlike the manner of a thief or a stranger. Anglican Bishop Charles Ellicott notes that "the word rendered 'parable' is the wider word (Greek: παροιμία, paroimia) which includes every kind of figurative and proverbial teaching, every kind of speech, as the etymology reminds us, which departs from the usual course (Greek: οῑμος, oimos)".[8] Jesus' audience ("they") did not understand.

In this illustration, the true shepherd "enters the sheepfold by the door" and "calls his own sheep by name and leads them out (Greek: ἐξάγει αὐτά)" (John 10:1,3). This is the only occurrence of the word ἐξάγει (exagei) in the New Testament.[9] The Ethiopic version adds "and loves them".[10] The alternative way in taken by the thief or stranger is to "climb up some other way", i.e. to climb over the wall of the sheepfold.[11]

Jesus describes himself in verses 7 and 9 as "the door" and in verses 11 and 14 as "the good shepherd". The word in Greek: θύρα is translated as "door" in the King James Version and the American Standard Version, but as "gate" in the New Revised Standard Version, the Common English Bible and other translations.[12] In verse 7, the Textus Receptus adds that Jesus said to them (Greek: αὐτοῖς) but this addition is generally agreed to be "of doubtful authority".[13]

Verse 22 refers to Hanukkah:

Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter.[14]

The feast (Greek: τα εγκαινια, ta egkainia) recalls the Maccabean purification and re-dedication of the Temple, 1 Maccabees 4:36-51. The narrative moves forward from the Feast of Tabernacles, when the events and teaching from John 7:14 to 10:21 appear to take place.[15] During the intervening two months, there is no account of whether Jesus remained in Jerusalem or not. In John 7:40 we read that Jesus "went away again beyond the Jordan", and German Protestant theologian Heinrich Meyer identifies a number of commentators who have suggested that there was an additional "journey to Galilee or Peraea" before the feast of dedication, although Meyer himself considers that these suggestions are "dictated by harmonistic presuppositions and clumsy combinations, ... and not by the requirements of exegesis".[16]

The chapter ends with Jesus evading Jewish attempts to stone him (John 10:31, 39) and then leaving Jerusalem (John 10:40) and traveling "beyond the Jordan to the place where John was baptizing at first" (Perea). Matthew 19:1 and Mark 10:1 similarly record that Jesus traveled "to the region of Judea by the other side of the Jordan", but in the synoptic tradition He had previously been in Capernaum rather than Jerusalem. Perea was a region where many people "came to the decision that He was the Messiah" (John 10:42 in the Living Bible translation).

• Hanukkah
• Jerusalem
• Jesus Christ
• John the Baptist
• Jordan River
• Solomon's Porch
• Related Bible parts: Psalm 23, Psalm 82

• John 10 King James Bible - Wikisource
• English Translation with Parallel Latin Vulgate
• Online Bible at GospelHall.org (ESV, KJV, Darby, American Standard Version, Bible in Basic English)
• Multiple bible versions at Bible Gateway (NKJV, NIV, NRSV etc.)