John 3:1

III.

(1) There was a man. — Read, But there was a man. Our division of Chapter s breaks the connection, and the omission of the conjunction leads us to think of the visit of Nicodemus as quite distinct from what has gone before; whereas it really rises out of it (comp. John 3:2 with John 2:23).

The name Nicodemus was not uncommon among the Jews, but like Stephen, Philip, Jason, etc., was derived from their intercourse with the Greeks. (Comp. e.g., Demosth. 549, 23, and Jos. Ant. xiv. 3, § 2.) Of this particular Nicodemus, we know with certainty nothing more than is told us in this Gospel (John 7:50; John 19:39). The Talmud mentions a Nakedimon, so called from a miracle performed by him, who was the son of Gorion, and whose real name was Bonai. It also gives the name Bonai as one of the disciples of Jesus. He was one of the three richest Jews when Titus besieged Jerusalem, but his family was reduced to the most abject poverty. So far the Talmud. The inference is that this change of fortune is connected with his becoming a Christian and with the persecution which followed, and he is himself identified with the Nicodemus of the Gospel. We can only say this may be so. The reader who cares for more on the subject will find full references in Lampe, and the extracts from the Talmud translated in Lightfoot. Others may be content to accept this latter writer’s conclusion. “It is not worth while to take great pains in a question which is very involved, if we may not also call it useless.” (For the “Pharisees,” to which sect Nicodemus belonged, comp. John 1:24, and Matthew 3:7.)

Ruler of the Jews. — One of the Sanhedrin (comp. John 1:19, Note). This is made certain by the position of Nicodemus, in John 7:50.

(1) The word πνεῦμα (pneuma) occurs some 370 times in the Greek New Testament, and of these, twenty-three times in this Gospel. It is nowhere rendered “wind” by our translators, except in this instance, and they have rendered the same word by “Spirit” in the same verse, and twice besides in the same context (John 3:5). There is another word for “wind” (ἄνεμος), which occurs thirty-one times in the New Testament, and which John himself uses in John 6:18. It is not contended that πνεῦμα may not mean “wind,” “the breath of wind,” but that this is not its New Testament use, where the word is restricted to its special meaning. (It is plural in Hebrews 1:7; see Note there.) It is admitted also that the Hebrew or Chaldee word which πνεῦμα here translates has the two senses, but the sense in which it is here used is fixed by the translator.