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Joh_11:36-37. The Ἰουδαῖοι express themselves variously: those who were better disposed say, How must He have loved Lazarus whilst alive (imper.), if He thus weeps for him now that he is dead; those who were maliciously and wickedly disposed treat His tears as a welcome proof, not of His want of love (Luthardt), but of His inability, apart from which He must surely have been able to heal Lazarus of his sickness, even as He had healed the blind man of his blindness! In this way they at the same time threw doubt on the reality of the healing of the blind man (for they regard it as the majus in their conclusion ad minus), and suppose, moreover, that Jesus did not come sooner to Bethany because He was unable to save Lazarus; for the conclusion drawn by them implies that He had received information concerning the sickness. The malicious signification of the question in Joh_11:37 has been correctly recognised by Chrysostom, Nonnus ( ἀντιάχησαν ), Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus, Calvin, Bengel, and most of the older commentators, as also by Luthardt, Lange, and Godet; some recent writers, however, as Lücke, De Wette, Tholuck, Maier, Brückner, Ewald, Gumlich, Hengstenberg, groundlessly reject this view, notwithstanding that the following words, πάλιν ἐμβριμ ., rightly interpreted, find their explanation in these expressions of His opponents.
The circumstance of their appealing to the healing of the blind man, instead of to the awakenings from the dead, recorded by the Synoptics, is no argument against the reality of the latter miracles (Strauss); not even is this appeal less appropriate (De Wette), but it was, on the contrary, naturally suggested by their own most recent experience; it was also thoroughly appropriate, inasmuch as they were thinking, not of a raising from the dead, but simply of a healing of Lazarus, which was to have been effected by Jesus.
ἵνα ] the thought is: be active, in order that. Comp. on Col_4:16.
καὶ οὗτος ] like the blind man whom He healed. For the healing (the opposite of μὴ ἀποθανῇ ) is the point of comparison.