Walking In Peace

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After John the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus being the Lamb of God in the previous verses we get to the recruiting of the first disciples of Jesus. Andrew is the first named disciple in John’s gospel and later to be called to be an Apostle. He found his brother Simon, shortly to be named Peter by Jesus and told him he had found the Messiah (meaning anointed). 

The study note in the NAB says that Messiah in Hebrew is māśiâh or “anointed one”, but in Greek it is converted to messias which is only here in verse 41 and in 4:25. Otherwise the Greek translation is christos .

Most of Judea was populated by Jews in Jesus’ time but Galilee was a mix of races (Gentiles) with most speaking Greek as a second language. The first language of the Jewish Galileans was Aramaic with its own distinctive accent as noticed by the servant girl and others when talking to Peter during his time in the garden while Jesus faced the Jewish religious authorities the night before his crucifixion. 

So then we finish with Simon or is it Peter? (Aramaic for rock). Jesus calls him Cepas which is translated as Peter. I was certainly confused so I am glad they went with Peter the rest of the way.