Five-minute study · Day 256 · John 20
John 20:22
A word worth stopping on: breathed on ἐμφυσάω emphysao
'And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.' The word is emphysao. He breathed on them. This verb appears only here in the entire New Testament. But it appears in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament that every first-century Jew knew. Genesis 2:7: 'And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed [emphysao] into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.' The same verb. The risen Jesus, standing in a locked room on the evening of the resurrection, performed the Genesis act. He breathed life into his followers the way God breathed life into the first human.
Word study: breathed on
- Greek
- ἐμφυσάω
- Pronounced
- emphysao
- Strong's
- G1720
- Definition
- To breathe upon, to blow upon, to inflate. A compound of en (in, upon) and physao (to blow, to puff). Used in the LXX for God's act of breathing life into Adam (Genesis 2:7) and for Ezekiel's prophetic command to the wind to breathe upon the dead (Ezekiel 37:9).
Emphysao appears only once in the New Testament: John 20:22. BDAG defines it as 'to breathe on.' The word is rare in Greek literature, which makes its single New Testament occurrence all the more deliberate. John chose a verb loaded with creation theology.
Brown's commentary on John XIII-XXI in the Anchor Bible series identifies the Genesis 2:7 allusion as the primary interpretive key for John 20:22. The Septuagint uses emphysao in Genesis 2:7: God 'breathed' (enephysesen) into the nostrils of the man he had formed from dust. The result was life: 'man became a living soul' (psychen zosan). John's Gospel uses the same verb for the risen Jesus breathing on his disciples. The implication is a new creation. What God did at the beginning, the risen Christ does again. The first creation produced physical life. This act imparts the Holy Spirit.
The Septuagint provides a second significant use of emphysao. Ezekiel 37:9: the prophet commands the four winds to 'breathe [emphyseson] upon these slain, that they may live.' The context is the valley of dry bones, Ezekiel's vision of Israel's resurrection from national death. Dry bones are reassembled, covered with sinew and flesh, but have no breath in them (37:8). Ezekiel speaks the prophetic word, the wind/breath/Spirit (ruach, which means all three in Hebrew) enters the bodies, and 'they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army' (37:10). Emphysao in Ezekiel is the word for life entering the dead.
Brown observes that John structures his Gospel as a new creation narrative. John 1:1 opens with 'In the beginning,' echoing Genesis 1:1. John's prologue traces creation through the Word (logos). The resurrection appearance in John 20 completes the arc: the Word who was present at the first creation now performs a new creation act, breathing the Spirit into his followers. The verb emphysao ties the end of the Gospel to the beginning of Genesis. The circle closes.
The physical intimacy of the act is notable. Jesus did not speak the Spirit into existence from a distance. He breathed. The breath that came from his lungs entered the space around his disciples. The act is personal, proximate, and bodily. The same Jesus who had been crucified, whose body still bore the wounds (John 20:20), breathed on them. The Spirit came through a human body that had been dead and was now alive.
Historical context · The resurrection evening, approximately AD 30-33; Genesis creation account; Ezekiel's valley of dry bones vision (c. 593-571 BC during the Babylonian exile)
The Breath of Creation and the Locked Room
John 20:19-23 describes the first appearance of the risen Jesus to his gathered disciples on the evening of the resurrection. The setting is specific: a room with locked doors, the disciples hiding 'for fear of the Jews' (20:19). Jesus appears among them, shows them his hands and side, and speaks the greeting 'Peace be unto you' (shalom aleichem). Then he commissions them ('As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you,' 20:21) and breathes on them.
Brown situates this scene within the broader Johannine theology of the Spirit (pneuma/parakletos). Throughout the farewell discourse (John 14-16), Jesus promised the coming of the Spirit: 'I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter [parakletos], that he may abide with you for ever' (14:16). 'The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things' (14:26). 'When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth' (15:26). John 20:22 is the fulfillment of those promises.
The relationship between John 20:22 and the Pentecost account in Acts 2 has been debated since the patristic period. John places the giving of the Spirit on Easter evening. Luke places it fifty days later at Pentecost. Brown suggests that both evangelists describe the same theological reality through different narrative frameworks. John compresses the exaltation sequence (resurrection, ascension, Spirit-giving) into a single day to emphasize that the Spirit flows directly from the risen Christ. Luke spreads the sequence across fifty days to allow each event its own narrative space. The theology is consistent: the Spirit comes from the risen and glorified Jesus.
The creation theology of emphysao connects to a broader pattern in Jewish thought. The Wisdom of Solomon 15:11 (a deuterocanonical text, c. 1st century BC) references God's creative breath: 'he that breathed [emphysesanta] into him an active soul.' The Targumim (Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible) expand Genesis 2:7 to emphasize the connection between God's breath and the human capacity for speech: 'and the breath of life became in the man a speaking spirit.' Breath, life, spirit, and speech are connected in the theological imagination of Second Temple Judaism. When Jesus breathed on his disciples and said 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost,' he was activating the entire chain: divine breath producing life, spirit, and the capacity to speak and act on his behalf.
For reflection
Emphysao. Only used once in the New Testament. The same verb the Septuagint uses when God breathes life into the first human in Genesis 2:7. The risen Jesus, standing in a locked room with frightened disciples, performed the creation act. He breathed on them. The breath came from a body that had been dead three days before. Consider the physicality of it. Breath is warm. It has proximity. You feel it on your skin. Jesus did not send the Spirit from a throne room. He breathed the Spirit from his lungs. What does it mean that the new creation began with an act that intimate? What would change if you received the Spirit the way the disciples received it: close, physical, from the mouth of someone you could see?
Emphysao: to breathe upon. Only New Testament occurrence. The LXX uses the same verb in Genesis 2:7 (God breathing life into Adam) and Ezekiel 37:9 (the wind breathing life into the dead). Jesus performed a new creation act.
Sources: BDAG; Brown, 'John XIII-XXI' (AB)