NATHANAEL nə thăn’ ĭ əl (Ναθαναήλ, G3720). A disciple of Jesus, according to John 1:45-51; 21:2. His home was in Cana of Galilee (21:2) and he heard of Jesus from Philip, of neighboring Beth-saida (1:45). At first he was skeptical about Jesus because he heard only that Jesus was from Nazareth, and shared the Jewish belief of his time that the Messiah was to come from Bethlehem in Judea (1:46; cf. 7:42). But his prejudice was overcome by Jesus’ statement that He already had seen Nathanael “under the fig tree” (1:48, 50). There is some dispute about the significance of this statement. It may be no more than a way of indicating Jesus’ supernatural knowledge of Nathanael’s character (cf. 2:25). Or Jesus may have known what Nathanael was thinking: among Jewish rabbis a fig tree was a favorite place of meditation, and possibly Nathanael was meditating on the story of Jacob, to which Jesus alluded in v. 51.

It is difficult to do more than speculate why the incident made such an impression on Nathanael, but the author’s intention may be easier to discern. Perhaps John saw a correspondence between the call of the new Israel (i.e. Jesus’ disciples) and the original call of Israel in the OT (cf. Hos 9:10a). The purpose of John the Baptist’s ministry is that Jesus should be “revealed to Israel” (John 1:31) and when he directed his own disciples to Jesus (1:36) to become the nucleus of a new community, the outcome was that Jesus manifested His glory to the disciples (2:11). They are the “Israel” that is meant; the heart of the section, 1:35-2:11, is the call of the “true Israelite” Nathanael and his recognition of the “King of Israel” (1:47, 49). When Jesus promised him “greater things,” He referred to the vision of Jacob (the first to bear the name “Israel”) (Gen 28:12; John 1:50, 51). Here the sing. “you” becomes a pl. as Jesus promises to all His “true Israelites” a vision of His union with God. Appropriately, the promise begins to be fulfilled in Cana, Nathanael’s home town (2:1-11).

Nathanael is mentioned only in John. Efforts to identify him with the Apostle Bartholomew are only conjectures. Though double names (even double Sem. names) were sometimes used, there is no real ground for an identification of these two individuals.