John 13:21-25
Verse 21 Was troubled in spirit - See the note on Joh 11:33. And testified - Spoke with great earnestness. Shall betray me - Παραδωσει με, Will deliver me up. Judas had already betrayed our blessed Lord, and he was now on the point of delivering him up into the hands of the chief priests. By all these warnings, did not our Lord intend that Judas should be benefited? - that he should repent of his iniquity, and turn and find mercy? Verse 22 Looked one on another doubting of whom he spake - See the notes on Mat 26:20-25 (note). Every one but Judas, conscious of his own innocence, looked about upon all the rest, wondering who in that company could be such a traitor! Even Judas himself is not suspected. Is not this a proof that his general conduct had been such as to subject him to no suspicion? Verse 23 Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom - The Jews of those days, at their suppers, reclined, supported by their left arm, on couches placed round the table, as the Greeks and Romans did. On each couch there were two or three persons; and the head of one of them came near to the bosom of him who reclined above him on the same couch. The person here mentioned was John, the writer of this history, who, being more tenderly loved by Christ than the rest, had always that place at table which was nearest to his Lord. Verse 25 He then lying on Jesus' breast - Επιπεσων, laying his head against the breast of Christ, in a loving, respectful manner. As the expressions in the text are different here from those in the preceding verse, it shows that John altered his position at table, in order to ask the question which Peter suggested, which he probably did by whispering to our Lord; for, from Joh 13:28, we may learn that the other disciples had not heard what John said; and it is likely that the following words - It is he to whom I shall give the morsel when I have dipped it, were whispered back by Christ to John.
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