Charles Ellicott Commentary John 13:18

"I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled: He that eateth my bread lifted up his heel against me." — John 13:18 (ASV)

I speak not of you all.—The thought of their blessedness again brings back the dark thought that there is one present who will not do these things, and who therefore cannot be blessed.

I know whom I have chosen.—Compare the 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.—Compare the note on John 12:38. There is an ellipsis after “but,” which is most simply filled up by a phrase such as “all this was done;” so it would read, “but all this was done that the Scripture . . .” (Compare 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.—Compare especially the note on the quotation in John 2:18, from Psalm 61:0. The present words are a free rendering of the Greek (LXX) of Psalm 41:9; but the LXX follows the Hebrew more literally, and reads, “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 Psalm 69:0, 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 people of the East attached a sacredness to this 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.