Mazmur 37:28

37:28 For the Lord promotes ¹  justice,

and never abandons ²  his faithful followers.

They are permanently secure, ³ 

but the children ⁴  of evil men are wiped out. ⁵ 

Yohanes 17:12

17:12 When I was with them I kept them safe ⁶  and watched over them ⁷  in your name ⁸  that you have given me. Not one ⁹  of them was lost except the one destined for destruction, ¹⁰  so that the scripture could be fulfilled. ¹¹ 

[37:28]  ¹ tn Heb “loves.” The verb “loves” is here metonymic; the Lord’s commitment to principles of justice causes him to actively promote these principles as he governs the world. The active participle describes characteristic behavior.

[37:28]  ² tn The imperfect verbal form draws attention to this generalizing statement.

[37:28]  ³ tn Or “protected forever.”

[37:28]  ⁴ tn Or “offspring”; Heb “seed.”

[37:28]  ⁵ tn Or “cut off”; or “removed.” The perfect verbal forms in v. 28b state general truths.

[17:12]  ⁶ tn Or “I protected them”; Grk “I kept them.”

[17:12]  ⁷ tn Grk “and guarded them.”

[17:12]  ⁸ tn Or “by your name.”

[17:12]  ⁹ tn Grk And not one.” The conjunction καί (kai, “and”) has not been translated here in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences.

[17:12]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “the son of destruction” (a Semitic idiom for one appointed for destruction; here it is a reference to Judas).

[17:12]  sn The one destined to destruction refers to Judas. Clearly in John’s Gospel Judas is portrayed as a tool of Satan. He is described as “the devil” in 6:70. In 13:2 Satan put into Judas’ heart the idea of betraying Jesus, and 13:27 Satan himself entered Judas. Immediately after this Judas left the company of Jesus and the other disciples and went out into the realm of darkness (13:30). Cf. 2 Thess 2:3, where this same Greek phrase (“the son of destruction”; see tn above) is used to describe the man through whom Satan acts to rebel against God in the last days.

[17:12]  ¹¹ sn A possible allusion to Ps 41:9 or Prov 24:22 LXX. The exact passage is not specified here, but in John 13:18, Ps 41:9 is explicitly quoted by Jesus with reference to the traitor, suggesting that this is the passage to which Jesus refers here. The previous mention of Ps 41:9 in John 13:18 probably explains why the author felt no need for an explanatory parenthetical note here. It is also possible that the passage referred to here is Prov 24:22 LXX, where in the Greek text the phrase “son of destruction” appears.