The verb translated to test is neutral in itself. When used of God or Jesus, it does not have the sense of “tempt,” that is, lead to sin, which it has when “Satan” or “the devil” is the subject of the action (compare Matt 4.1; Luke 4.2). New American Bible renders the phrase “to test Philip’s response.”

Philip is “him” in the Greek text, but several translations (Good News Translation, Moffatt, Phillips, New American Bible, Jerusalem Bible, and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch) make the pronominal reference explicit. Good News Translation, New American Bible and Phillips indicate that this verse is a parenthetical statement.

Though it is clear in English that the pronoun he refers to Jesus throughout this verse (He said … he already knew … he would do), it may not be clear in other languages. In some the last two instances of the pronoun he could refer to Philip, since Philip is the last named person in the context. The translation must make the reference to Jesus clear in each case.

The adverb already must be expressed in some languages as a clause. Thus, for example, “Jesus knew even before he asked,” and the adverb actually may sometimes be expressed as “the truth is.” Thus the second part of verse 6 may be expressed as “the truth is that Jesus knew what he would do even before he asked Philip.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .