John 1:12 – Cherev

Verse 12 Greek Text

1:12ὅσοι δὲ ἔλαβον αὐτόν, ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν τέκνα θεοῦ γενέσθαι, τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ,

Verse 12 Sentence Flow

δὲ - postpositive coordinating conjunction = but

ἔλαβον - Aorist, Active, Indicative, Third Person, Plural, λαμβάνω = received
  ὅσοι - NMP, correlative pronoun, subject = as many as
  αὐτόν - AM3S, personal pronoun, antecedent ὁ λόγος, direct object = him

ἔδωκεν - Aorist, Active, Indicative, Third Person, Singular, δίδωμι = (he) gave
    ἐξουσίαν - NAFS, direct object, = potential or resource to command, control, or govern, capability, might, power
    αὐτοῖς - DM3P, personal pronoun, indirect object = them

γενέσθαι - Aorist, Middle, Infinitive, γίνομαι = to become
  τέκνα - NANP, direct object = children
    θεοῦ - NGMS, genitive of relationship = (of) God 

τοῖς πιστεύουσιν - Present Active Participle Dative Masculine Plural, substantival, πιστεύω = the believing ones
  εἰς - preposition = in
    τὸ ὄνομα - NANS, object of the preposition = name
      αὐτοῦ - GMS, personal pronoun, genitive of possession = his

Note: definition of ἐξουσίαν¹

Verse 12 Translation Rationale

Here we have a relatively straightforward passage from John. We begin with the postpositive δὲ and we translate it “but.” There’s a slightly adversative tone given the context of the preceding verse. From there we begin to construct the first clause of the sentence.

In the first clause, we have ὅσοι ἔλαβον αὐτόν. ὅσοι is a correlative pronoun and we translate it “as many as.” The adversative nuance in δὲ along with this correlative communicate the idea of “those that did receive” Him. The verb of this clause is ἔλαβον and we translate it with a simple past as an aorist. The subject is ὅσοι. Therfore, the translation would be “as many as received.” We close out this clause by translating the direct object of αὐτόν as “him.” The antecedent for the personal pronoun αὐτόν is ὁ λόγος from verse 1. Our final translation for this clause is “But as many as received Him.”

The second clause is ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν. For the subject we use the implied subject from the verb. Since the verb is 3S our subject is “he.” We translate ἔδωκεν in the aorist with the simple past. Therfore, the subject and verb translation of this clause is “he gave.” αὐτοῖς is the indirect object in the dative case and ἐξουσίαν is the direct object in the accusative case. Woodenly, we might translate this “He gave to them the ability.” The NASB95 and LSB do neat thing here and bring the indirect object ahead of the subject. Stylistically that seems to read quite well. It keeps the heavy focus of the verb on the direct object without distraction. We have kept with that idea here as well. Our full translation of this clause is “to them He gave the ability.” A quick note on the word ἐξουσίαν. We chose to translate “ability” rather than “right.” This is the translator’s choice here to go away from the English word “right” as in many English translations. Ability, power, or authority all seem to convey the idea more succinctly and are readily present within the lexical scope. This is entirely opinion based on the average listener’s interpretation and has relatively little linguistic rationale. In short, “right” doesn’t seem to be the best word choice here in my opionion.

The third clause is τέκνα θεοῦ γενέσθαι. We have a the aorist middle infitive γενέσθαι. Since γίνομαι is a deponent verb, the translation will be active rather than middle/reflexive. Thus, we have “to become” as the basic translation pattern of the infinitive. Following the infinitive we have a direct object (τέκνα) modified by a genitive of relationship (θεοῦ). τέκνα in the plural form yeilds “children” in English and then is modified into “children of God” by the θεοῦ genitive of relationship. Our final translation for the third clause is “to become children of God.”

The fourth and final clause for this verse is τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ. τοῖς πιστεύουσιν is a substantival participle from πιστεύω that can be woodenly translated “the believing ones.” Following the participle we have a preposition phrase acting as the object of the verb. We translate εἰς in this case as “in” since it’s followed by the accusative. τὸ ὄνομα is the object of the preposition and is translated “the name.” Finally, we have τὸ ὄνομα being modified by the genitive of possession αὐτοῦ which is translated “of him.” Very woodenly we would translate this last clause “the believing ones in the name of him.” However, that’s not terribly intelligible to anyone so we round off the translation as “to those who believe in His name.”

Verse 12 English Translation

But as many as received Him, He gave to them the ability to become children of God, to the believing ones in His name,

Verse 12 Interpretive Questions

How do we see John 1:12-13 in light of John 6:44 and John 6:65?

References

Arndt, William, Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, and F. Wilbur Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, 352. ↩︎