13:3a
Jesus knew that the Father had delivered all things into His hands: This expression explains some background information about why Jesus acted the way he did in 13:4–5. See the General Comment on 13:3a–4a, following the notes on 13:4a.
It may be natural to translate this as an independent clause. For example:
Jesus knew that the Father had put everything into his hands. (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
The Father had put everything in Jesus’ control. Jesus knew that…. So… (God’s Word)
knew: This word refers to something that Jesus always knew. He did not just come to realize it at that time. This word is a participle and can be understood as giving a reason for what Jesus did in 13:4–5. For example:
Because Jesus knew (NET Bible)
See the General Comment on 13:3a–4a for another example of how to express this reason connection.
the Father: This phrase refers to God the Father, Jesus’ Father. In some languages you may want to make that clearer. For example:
God (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
his Father
had delivered all things into His hands: This phrase is an idiom meaning “had given him power over everything.” God had given Jesus authority, and Jesus knew it. Here are other ways to translate this phrase:
had put all things under his power (New International Version)
-or-
had given him authority over everything (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
had given him complete power (Contemporary English Version)
13:3b
and that He had come from God and was returning to God: This expression tells another thing that Jesus knew. He knew that God sent him to earth and that he would soon leave earth and return to God in heaven. Here are other ways to translate this expression:
He also knew that he had come from God and was going back to God. (God’s Word)
© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.