What Does John 13:18 Mean?

(18) **I speak not of you all.**—The thought of their blessedness brings back again the dark thought that there is one present who will not do these things, and who cannot therefore be blessed. **I know whom I have chosen.**—Comp. Note on John 6:70. The pronoun is strongly emphatic. “*I *(for My part) know whom I have chosen.” (See next verse.) **But that the scripture may be fulfilled.**—Comp. Note on John 12:38. There is an ellipsis after “but,” which is most simply filled up by some such phrase as “all this was done;” “but all this was done that the Scripture . . .” (Comp. John 19:36 and Matthew 26:56.) Others would make the connection to be, “But I have chosen them that the Scripture . . .” **He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.**—Comp. especially Note on the quotation in John 2:18, from Psalms 61. The present words are a free rendering of the Greek (LXX.) of Psalm 41:9; but the LXX. follow the Hebrew more literally, and read, “hath made great his heel.” This is here interpreted to mean, “lifted up his heel,” which the Bible version of the Psalm gives, with the literal rendering *magnified* in the margin. The Prayer Book version follows the Vulgate in reading “hath laid great wait for Me.” Our Lord’s quotation omits the earlier part of the verse, “Mine own familiar friend whom I trusted.” He knew whom He had chosen. “He knew what was in man, and did not trust Himself to them” (John 2:24-25). It is by no means certain that we are justified in following the title of the Psalm, and ascribing it to David. It is not improbable that here, as in Psalms 69, we have the words of Jeremiah, and the special reference to the friend is unknown. If the Psalm was by David, then, as the king was the type of Christ, Ahithophel is doubtless the type of Judas. In any case the baseness of the treachery lay in the fact that the betrayer was one who did eat bread with the psalmist. He was, as our word expresses it, a “companion” (one who breaks bread with), but to this the Orientals attached a sacredness which even the Bedouin of the desert would honour. But there was one then professing to be His Apostle, eating bread with Him, and yet planning to betray Him.