In Johannine thought darkness is everything that light is not. It is evil and sin and death. The present tense of the verb shines is in direct contrast to the aorist tense in verse 11 (he came). The present tense refers to an eternal quality of the light (that is, it always shines), while the aorist tense in verse 11 (see also in verse 3) refers to a specific moment in time.

Has never put it out is difficult, in regard both to the meaning of the verb itself and the tense. The original meaning is “to grasp,” and it may be used either in a hostile sense (“to overcome”) or in an intellectual sense (“to grasp with the mind,” that is, “to understand”). Good News Translation (has never put it out; so also Goodspeed and Phillips), together with Revised Standard Version (“has not overcome it”) and Jerusalem Bible (“could not overpower”; see also New American Bible), accepts the first of these two interpretations. Few translations, in fact, follow the second.

It is difficult to tell what Moffatt (“but the darkness did not master it”) and New English Bible (“and the darkness has never mastered it”) intend. Either they take the first of these possibilities, or they attempt to combine the two, trying to bring together both meanings in the one phrase “to master.” The Zürcher Bibel rendering (“the darkness did not receive it”) is possibly based on the assumption that the verb (katalambanō) is equivalent to the Greek paralambanō (Good News Translation receive) in verse 11.

Not only is the meaning of the word difficult, but the significance of the tense is also disputed. A number of translators assume that the aorist tense here signifies a timeless truth (Good News Translation the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out; see also New English Bible, Goodspeed, Phillips, Revised Standard Version). Others see in the aorist as used here a reference to a specific event in the past (Moffatt “amid the darkness the light shone, but the darkness did not master it”; see also New American Bible, Jerusalem Bible).

In some languages the translation of verse 5 is particularly difficult because of clear distinctions in the use of words designating light. One term or set of terms refers to particular sources of light (fires, torches, lamps, and so forth), while another term or series of terms may refer to daylight, shining, brightness, and so forth, without indicating the particular instrument or the source of the light. Moreover, in some languages all terms for light are verbs rather than nouns. Therefore, “light shines” may be equivalent to “there is shining” or “it lights.” The abstract term the darkness may be rendered in some languages only as a general term for space, plus a characterization of that space as being “dark,” for example, “in places where it is dark.” Accordingly, the first clause of verse 5 may be rendered “There is shining in places where it is dark.” The second clause is even more difficult than the first, since in some languages one cannot take such an abstract term as the darkness and make it an instrument of “putting out the light.” The relation, however, may often be expressed as a kind of negation of cause and effect, for example, “Just because it is dark does not mean that the light has been put out” or “… that the light has been caused to go out.” Rather than being the direct agent of some activity, darkness only identifies a condition which has not succeeded in causing the light to go out.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .