Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to John · About this commentary
I Have Given You an Example
John 13:12-20
12 So when he had washed their feet, put his outer garment back on, and sat down again, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? · WEB
He puts his clothes back on and explains what they have just watched.
So when he had washed their feet, put his outer garment back on, and sat down again, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you?" John 13:12.
The question assumes they do not, and the explaining is done afterward — the act first, the meaning second, which is the order of every sign in this book.
"You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord.' You say so correctly, for so I am" John 13:13.
The titles are confirmed rather than waived, which is what keeps the foot-washing from being a display of modesty. He does not say don't call me that. He accepts both and then argues from them.
"If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet" John 13:14.
The logic runs downhill from rank. Because he is what they call him, the conclusion follows — which is the reverse of how status normally reasons.
"For I have given you an example, that you should also do as I have done to you" John 13:15.
The word is a pattern to be copied. Whether the copying is meant to be literal has been argued for a long time; what is not in dispute is that a pattern is only useful if it is applied to something. In a culture without dusty roads and open sandals the equivalent is not obvious, and it is not obscure either — the job in any group that everyone can see needs doing and nobody will claim.
"A servant is not greater than his lord, neither is one who is sent greater than he who sent him" John 13:16.
A proverb, and the application is not the usual one. It normally warns a servant not to expect better treatment than his master got. Here it closes the escape route: nobody in the room can claim the job is beneath them, since it was not beneath him.
"If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them" John 13:17.
The two conditionals are the point. Knowing is assumed and is not the blessing; the blessing hangs on the second clause, and the gap between the two is where most religion lives.
It is also the only beatitude in this Gospel until the one given to Thomas John 20:29, and it is attached to a basin.
"I know whom I have chosen; but that the Scripture may be fulfilled, 'He who eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me'" John 13:18 Psalms 41:9.
The psalm is David's about a trusted friend, and the image is of a horse kicking the man who feeds it. Sharing bread created an obligation in that world that made betrayal almost unthinkable — which is why it is the detail chosen.
"From now on, I tell you before it happens, that when it happens, you may believe that I am he" John 13:19.
The reason for telling them in advance is stated: so the betrayal, when it comes, will not look like a defeat he did not see. And the phrase at the end is the bare I am again John 8:58, placed in the middle of a warning about treachery.
"He who receives whomever I send, receives me; and he who receives me, receives him who sent me" John 13:20. The chain runs from the men whose feet were just washed all the way up — which is a large thing to say to people who had been arguing about rank an hour before.
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