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Joh_11:11-13. Καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο λέγει ] This representation separates the two discourses, between which a pause is to be conceived as intervening.
The death of Lazarus, which had just taken place, and became the occasion of the determination to leave at once (Joh_11:7; see on Joh_11:17), is described (comp. Mat_9:24), in view of his resurrection, by the word κεκοίμ ., has fallen asleep, the event having become known to Him by immediate knowledge (spiritual far-seeing). Hence also the definiteness of His statement, to which the addition of the words ὁ φίλος ἡμ . communicates a touch of painful sensibility. In saying ἡμῶν also, He claims the loving sympathy of His disciples.
ἐξυπνίσω ] awaken out of sleep; a late Greek word, rejected by the Atticists. Lobeck ad Phryn. p. 224. Comp. Act_16:27.
The misunderstanding of His disciples, who thought of the sleep which follows after a crisis has been passed through (see examples of the same thing in Pricaeus; comp. also Sir_31:2, and Fritzsche’s remarks thereon), loses its apparent improbability (against Strauss, De Wette, Reuss) when we refer back to Joh_11:4, the words of which they had naturally understood, not in the sense intended by Jesus, which was that He would raise him up from the dead, but, after the analogy of Joh_9:3, as signifying that He purposed to come and miraculously heal him. The journey thereby involved, however, they did not desire (Joh_11:8); the expression κεκοίμηται accordingly corresponded to their wishes; hence the conclusion at once drawn, that he must be on the way to recovery, and the effort, by calling attention to this fact, to make the journey appear unnecessary. The very earnestness of this their desire, caused them to overlook the significant nature of the words ἵνα ἐξυπνίσω αὐτόν , and to fail to see that it would have been absurd thus to speak of one who was really asleep. Such a mistake on their part is psychologically intelligible enough.[77] The notion that Joh_11:4 had led them to believe that Jesus had already healed at a distance (Ebrard, Hengstenberg), and that, in consequence, they necessarily understood sleep to refer to recovery, is incompatible with the fact that the words of Joh_11:4 do not at all suggest such a healing (how different in Joh_4:50!); and that if they had thought of such a healing having taken place, they would have grounded their σωθήσεται on that fact, and not on the approach of sleep; they would consequently, too, have dissuaded from this journey as unnecessary in a very different way. According to Bengel (and Luthardt), the disciples believed, “somnum ab Jesu immissum esse Lazaro ut eveniret quod praedixerat ipse Joh_11:4.” But there is no exegetical support for this view, not even in the use of the first person singular πορεύομαι , which finds its very natural explanation in the connection with ἘΞΥΠΝΊΣΩ (the case is different with ἌΓΩΜΕΝ , Joh_11:7), without that supposition (against Luthardt).
[77] “Discipuli omni modo quaerunt Dominum ab isto itinere avocare,” Grotius; “libenter hanc fugiendi periculi occasionem arripiunt,” Calvin.