Pulpit Commentary - John 11:1

Pulpit Commentary - John 11:1 - 11:57

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Pulpit Commentary - John 11:1 - 11:57

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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

11:1 - 11:57

EXPOSITION

Joh_11:1-57

7. Christ the Antagonist of death—a victory of love and power. The narrative of this chapter is a further advance in the proof that the unbelief of the Jews was aggravated by the greatness of the revelation. The issue of his sublime and culminating act of power, of his supreme and self-revealing work of transcendent tenderness and beauty, was a deeper and wilder passion of hatred. The evangelist completes his series of seven great miracles with one that in true and believing minds, evokes a new sense of the glory of God. This great last sign corresponds with the first (John it.) by being enacted amid the domestic and family life of a small and insignificant town, and also by express reference to the veritable manifestation involved in it of the δόξα Θεοῦ , on which we have frequently commented. Baur treated the narrative as an ideal composition, illustrating the great metaphysical utterance, "I am the Resurrection and the Life." Keim endeavored to reduce the whole narrative to a fiction, not so well contrived as some of the evangelist's tours de force. This is almost as arbitrary and offensive as M. Renan's endeavor (which held its place in numerous editions of his 'Vie de Jesus') to represent the miracle as a got-up scene, into which Christ, by a kind of Divine mensonge, allowed himself to be drawn. Subsequently, Renan has suggested that Mary and Martha told Jesus their persuasion that such a miracle would convince his enemies, and that he replied that his bitter foes would not believe him even if Lazarus were to rise from the grave; and that this speech was expanded by tradition into an actual event. This corresponds with what Weisse had suggested, that the story is an expansion of the Lord's conversation with the sisters at Bethany. Gfrorer thought that it is the story of Nain over again in a developed form, and that Nain is equivalent to Bethany; and Schenkel has fancied that the parable of Luk_16:1-31. has been expanded into a narrative of genuine resurrection. Thorns has, in like manner, regarded it as the poetic expansion of the idea of the Christ as the Prince of life and Conqueror of death, and as based on the synoptic account of two resurrections, and on the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. These hypotheses are all incompatible with the simplicity of the account and with the apostolicity of the Gospel. Many attempts have been made to account for the silence of the synoptists concerning this narrative.

Some writers, with Epiphanius, have said they feared, when their narratives were made public, to call such marked attention to the family of Bethany, lest they might have endangered their lives; but this is exceedingly improbable. Others have argued that this crowning miracle would not take such a conspicuous place in their less-carefully arranged records. It was only one of "many signs" wrought by our Lord with which they were familiar. Matthew (Mat_9:18) and Mark (Mar_5:22) had already described the raising of Jairus's daughter from the bed of death, from what was believed by the onlookers to have been veritable dissolution; and Luke (Luk_7:11) had shown the Lord at the gates of Nain to have royally withstood the power of death, even when the corpse of a young man was being carried out to the burial. The narrative before us is not different in kind from these, though the prelude and the accompaniments of the miracle and its consequences are all wrought out with much dramatic force, while numerous touches, by-scenes, and references are introduced which give consummate interest to the whole. Another suggestion of moment is that it was not the purpose of the synoptists to detail the incidents of our Lord's ministry in Jerusalem. Let it not be forgotten that each of the evangelists records incident and discourse to which neither of the others had access. The peculiarities of Matthew and Luke are nearly as numerous as those of the Fourth Gospel. Why should not John bring forth facts from his memory which they had left untouched?.

Joh_11:1-16

(1) The mystery and might of sacrificial love seen in the prelude of the miracle.

Joh_11:1

Now a certain (man) was sick, (named) Lazarus, of Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister Martha. The certain man who was sick, Lazarus (or Eleazar) by name, ^£ was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. The two prepositions ἀπὸ and ἐκ generally denote procession from, but the latter implies closer and more intimate original association; they here are put in apposition, though there are passages where they are discriminated (Luk_2:4; Act_23:1-35. 34; R.T. of Rev_9:18). The contention of Gresswell that ἀπὸ referred to present residence, and ἐκ to nativity, and that the κώμη was to be found in Galilee, is not sound (see Joh_12:21; Joh_19:38). Bethany is mentioned to distinguish it from "Bethany beyond Jordan," referred to in Joh_1:28 (see note). The town is now known as El Azirieh, and is about a mile and a half from Jerusalem, on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. Simonis interpreted the name to mean "house of depression," "valley-town" äéÌÈðÄòÂÎúéáÌÅ (Lightfoot); Reland derives its name from éðÅéäÄÎúéáÌÅ , "house of dates" (see Mat_21:17). It seems that palm branches could be then torn from the trees in the neighborhood. Arnold (Herzog., 'Enc.') derives its name from àéÌÈðÀòÂÎúéáÌÅ (Aramaic), "house of the afflicted." The village has become well known in the circle of evangelic narrative from St. Luke's reference to Mary and Martha (Luk_10:38, etc.). Mary's name is probably mentioned first from the further record of her ecstatic love, which the other Gospels were diffusing through the world, and to which John makes an anticipatory reference. Her name had not been given before. In Mat_26:13 and Mar_14:3 she was "a certain woman." Jn throws light on the ground of her gratitude. The efforts made by Bunyan, in his 'Jerusalem Sinner Saved,' and by Hengstenberg, to defend the pre-Reformation identification of "Mary" with the "Magdalene," and the Magdalene with the woman that was a sinner (cf. Luk_7:37 with Luk_8:2), rest on insufficient grounds. The identification of the two anointings with each other is without justification. All the circumstances are different—the time, the place, the obvious reason, the motive assigned by our Lord, the conversations which followed. If a woman who was a sinner had taken such a step, and this expression of her gratitude had been accepted by Jesus, Mary of Bethany found more ample reason for following her example (see Dr. Schaff's admirable and extended reply to Hengstenberg). B. Weiss acutely observes that this reference shows that in the circle for which the evangelist wrote Bethany was known as the home of the sisters, and Mary as the heroine of the anointing incident. Numerous other identifications, i.e. of Simon the Leper with Simon the Pharisee, Martha with Simon's wife, are precarious. Dean Plumptre's identification ^£ of Lazarus with the "rich young man" who is supposed to have given his all away to the poor, and who possessed nothing but a solitary garment; and his subsequent identification with the young man who fled away naked on the night of Christ's arrest, are specimens of ingenuity, but carry no conviction. The contrast between the ideas involved in the parable of Luk_16:1-31. and this narrative is so profound that we dismiss the hypothesis of the identity of the two Lazaruses. Strauss, Keim, and others deal with it as an expansion of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, who is supposed actually to have been sent unto the people from the dead, but, in agreement with our Lord's prediction, winning no obedience. Vehement efforts are made in this and other ways to undo the commanding significance of the miracle. Bishop Wordsworth and Archdeacon Watkins are disposed to identify the Lazarus of the parable and the Lazarus of Bethany; the latter supposes the parable to have been delivered at the very time mentioned in Persea. Our Lord's statement, that the brothers of the rich man would not believe though one rose from the dead, was in some sense paralleled by the desire of the Jews to put Lazarus to death; but the reason given is that by reason of Lazarus "many of the Jews went away from them, and believed on Jesus" (Joh_12:11; cf. also Joh_11:45, "Many of the Jews, when they beheld what he did, believed on him").

Joh_11:2

Now it was that Mary who anointed the Lord with perfume, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. The word μύρον is used of any aromatic balsam which is distilled from trees and herbs by itself. In classical Greek μύρον was used of costly ointments used by women. Ἐλαίον was the common oil used by men for purposes of health, which might be perfumed. Our Lord clearly draws a distinction between the ἐλαίον and μύρον in Luk_7:46. Ἀλείφω has been said to be used for the more superfluous anointings and χρίω for the sanitary anointing with oil. No trace of such distinction is found in the New Testament. One great distinction in biblical Greek is that χρίειν is used of religious anointings, from its association with Χριστός , but ἀλείφειν in the LXX. is only twice used in this sense, while χρίειν is used times without number (Archbishop Trench, 'New Test. Syn.,' § 38.). The use of the term Κύριον , "Lord," shows that the story was widely known, and that when the Gospel was written it had passed into a commonplace of Christian experience and illustration. The anointing has not yet been referred to by John, but he is looking back upon the events and anticipates his own subsequent record.

Joh_11:3

Therefore the sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick ( ὃν φιλεῖς nominative to ἀσθενεῖ ). The sisters knew well what peril Jesus and his disciples would encounter by coming to Bethany, and they must have known that he could have healed him by a word; so they simply state the case. (On the difference between φιλεῖν and ἀγάπαν , see notes on Joh_5:20; Joh_21:15, Joh_21:17. Trench, 'New Test. Syn.,' § 12. The former word is that of personal affection and fondness, though occasion ally having grander associations and equivalent to amo, while ἀγαπάω is equivalent to diligo, and means the love of choice, of sentiment, of confidence and esteem.) There is delicate tact and beauty in the use of the two words, one by the sisters, the other by the evangelist. The statement of needs, the simple voice of our weakness, the infant's cry, goes up to heaven. The bleat of the lost lamb is enough for the good Shepherd.

Joh_11:4

When Jesus heard (it), he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby. What message Jesus gave to these who brought him these tidings we know not; the evangelist records what he said to the bystanders. Our Lord did not mean to say that the sickness would not terminate in what men ordinarily call "death," nor that it was not a deadly disease, but that it was not πρὸς θάνατον . "He shall not fall a prey to death" (Meyer), The sickness is so timed that it shall conduce to the ( δόξα Θεοῦ ) glory of God, i.e. to the majestic appreciation of the sublime perfections of God, and that by or in it the Son of God may be glorified. Υπὲρ elsewhere in the Gospel means "sacrifice on behalf of;" so here the very suffering of Lazarus and of the sisters, and the tears of Jesus over the grave, are part of the sacrificial ministry by which the glory of God or of the Sun of God may be advanced.

Joh_11:5

Now Jesus loved ( ἠγάπα ) Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. "Felix familia!" (Bengel). Martha is here mentioned first, because in all probability the head of the household. The love of selection, friendship, or esteem is the result of long acquaintance, and reveals "the fragmentariness of the evangelic records" (Westcott); see note on Joh_11:3.

Joh_11:6, Joh_11:7

The τότε μὲν of Joh_11:6 implies an understood δὲ in Joh_11:7, and the whole passage will be as follows: Now Jesus loved deeply Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus; when therefore he heard that he (Lazarus) was sick, he remained, it is true, τότε μὲν two days in the place where he was, but then ἔπειτα ( δὲ ) after this (and because he loved) he saith to his disciples, Let us go again into Judaea. He did not remain because he loved, but, though he remained, and because he loved, he said, "Let us," etc. So that we do not see here any intention on his part, by remaining, to test their love (Olshausen), nor to exaggerate the effect of the miracle by raising a dead man from his grave rather than from his death-bed or his bier. It is not difficult to gather from the sequel that when the message reached Jesus Lazarus was dead and buried. We find that when our Lord returned to Bethany four days had elapsed since the death of Lazarus, and the four days must be calculated thus: First one long day's journey from Peraea to Bethany, a distance of eight or nine leagues. If the messenger of the sisters had taken equal time to reach Jesus in Perked, or even a longer period, as time might easily be consumed in the effort to find our Lord in the mountains of Moab; then the two days of his waiting after receiving the message would, with those occupied by the double journey, make up the four that had passed when Jesus reached the grave. Lucke, Neander, Godet, and Westcott think that our Lord remained in Peraea because there was work in which he was engaged and could not relinquish. Meyer, Moulton, and Weiss, that he waited for some especial communication from his Father, for some revelation of moral necessity and heavenly inspiration, like those which dictated all his other movements. B. Weiss: "It was a sacrifice to his calling, of his heart's most ardent desires, that he remained quietly two days in the same place." "We see," says Edersheim, "Christ once more asleep while the disciples are despairing, swamped in the storm! Christ never in haste, because always sure." The silences of Scripture and the waitings of God are often without explanation. The event proves that deep purpose presided over them. The "let us go," etc., implies a lofty courage, a sense of coming crisis. Love conquers fear and peril for himself and his followers. "Judaea" is mentioned rather than Bethany for the same reason. The "again" points forcibly back to the last visit, when he told both friends and foes that the good Shepherd would snatch his sheep from the jaws of death, even though he lay down his own life in the doing of it.

Joh_11:8

The Aramaic word "Rabbi" is frequently used by John, as the term of respect applied to both the Baptist and our Lord. The extraordinary dignity which the Jews accorded to their rabbis may throw some light upon the honorific title when yielded or conceded to Christ. The disciples say unto him, Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking to stone thee; and goest thou thither again? The νῦν ἐξήτουν imply the continuous process of their antagonism only just now arrested by a timely flight. Here in Peraea Jesus found appreciative listeners. The disciples are more in fear for their Master than for themselves. The residence beyond Jordan had been brief, and they are amazed that the Lord will so soon put himself in the power of that seething and hostile crowd. How different this language from that of his own brothers (Joh_7:3-5)!

Joh_11:9

Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If a man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. The answer of Jesus is a further deliverance concerning the human law and season ( καιρός ) of work—a parable drawn from earthly and human analogies, which will unquestionably have a direct bearing on the conditions of Divine service at all time, and is therefore applicable to the disciples with himself. It receives also special significance from some aspects of Christ's own ministry, and from the step he had just now declared that he intended to take. Of course, the parable is based upon the conditions of human work; one of these conditions is light, another of them is time. Light is necessary for all the wise efforts of men—the light of day, the light of this world or the sun; we must see whither we are going, in order to avoid the occasions of stumbling. We must submit to this comprehensive condition, or we fail (cf. here Joh_9:4, "I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work"). There are two kinds of night of which he speaks. One is the night which arrests all labor, the night of death; and the other is the night of ignorance and unbelief, when the light that is in a man becomes darkness, when, if a man does attempt to work or walk, he will stumble. Meyer and some others, from the reference to another condition, viz. that of time, persist in limiting the notion of the day to that of the period of service, about which the Lord says also some very solemn things; and Meyer objects to Luthardt and others, who give to the sun, to the light of this world, any moral or spiritual meaning. We need not limit the application. Light may mean knowledge of duty supplied by God's providence and the revelation of his will, and so far as "day" is made by light, it is important to notice it here. But time is an equally important condition, and whereas in Joh_9:4, Joh_9:5 the Lord laid emphasis upon the limited amount of opportunity during which the light lasts and the work can be done; so here there is an appointed period during which stumbling is unnecessary: "twelve hours in the day." This (I take to be Christ's meaning) is one of these hours, and before the night comes "I must work." Godet suggests that the disciples, by this question, recommended him not to shorten his career by courting danger, and so to create for himself "a thirteenth hour" to the day, in which he would secure no blessing; that the Lord condemned the proposal, knowing that he was immortal till his hour had come; and that if we shrink from a call of duty, and thus save ourselves, adding an unhallowed increment to our day of useless work, we incur the like condemnation, we shall stumble. Let it be observed that the reason for working in the night is not because we have twelve hours for duty and no more, but because, though we have a time of service and an opportunity, we have let both slip past us, and then the work is difficult and perilous if we do attempt it. Some have said that Judas, Peter, Thomas, etc., walked in the night, and that they stumbled and fell.

Joh_11:10

But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him. He shuts himself off from the light of God-given opportunity, and carries no lamp in his soul. There is no necessity to suppose, in Joh_9:4, that the day was drawing to a close, or that in this place a natural day was dawning; but there is some probability from this phraseology that John adopted the Babylonian rather than the Roman method of computing the hours of the day. This has decided bearing on several important questions (notes, Joh_1:39; Joh_4:6, Joh_4:52; Joh_19:14). The "twelve hours" shows, at all events, that the Jews at this time generally reckoned from sunrise to sunset. It must be remembered that the day differed considerably in length at different parts of the year, from fourteen hours to nine; but perhaps the emphatic use of the expression derives special interest from the fact that the equinox was approaching.

Joh_11:11

These things spake he, and probably many more words expository of the vast principle of service which he here propounded; and after this (for μετὰ τοῦτο implies a break, during which the disciples pondered his words) he saith, Our friend Lazarus; implying that Lazarus was well known to the disciples, and that the Lord classes himself here, in wondrous condescension, with them. He elsewhere speaks of the twelve as his "friends" (Joh_15:14, Joh_15:15, where he made it a higher designation than δοῦλοι ; see also Luk_12:4). John the Baptist also calls himself "the Bridegroom's friend" (Joh_3:29). Though Lazarus had passed into the region of the unknown and unseen, he was still" our friend." Hath fallen asleep. Meyer says that Jesus knew this by "spiritual far-seeing;" and Godet thinks that he knew it by supernatural process, and had known it all along. It does not require much beyond what we know to have occurred in thousands of instances, for our Lord to have perceived that his friend had died—had, as he said, "fallen asleep," in that new sense in which Jesus was teaching men to look on death. But I go, that I may awake him out of sleep ( ἐξυπνίσω is a late Greek word; of. Act_16:27). Wunsche says the Talmud often speaks of a rabbi's death under the form of" sleep" ('Moed. K.,' fol. 28, a; cf. Mat_9:24; 1Th_4:14). Homer spoke of death and sleep as "twin sisters," Christ's power and consciousness of power to awake Lazarus from sleep gives, however, to his use of the image a new meaning. It is not the eternal sleep of the Greek and Roman poets.

Joh_11:12

The disciples^{£ therefore say unto him, Lord, if he have fallen asleep, he will recover. Wunsche quotes 'Berach,' fol. 57, b, "Sleep is a good sign for the sick." The language of the disciples is somewhat remarkable; at least their misunderstanding is puzzling (Reuss and Strauss think it is a sign of the unhistorical); but it probably arose out of the statement, made two days before, that "the sickness was not unto death," and from their eager and affectionate desire to prevent their Lord's retraining to Judaea. If he have fallen asleep, he well recover (be saved). The whole narrative is throbbing with deeper meanings than lie on the surface of it. The theory of the sanitary effects of sleep in fever are well known, and the rousing from such sleep might seem hazardous; but the disciples were catching at straws to save their Master.

Joh_11:13

Now Jesus had spoken of his death: but they thought that he spake of taking rest in sleep.
Λέγει
, though in the present tense, represents a time anterior to the time of
ἔδοξαν
.
Κοίμησις
is found in Ecclus. 46:19. This is an explanation of the misunderstanding, occasioned, perhaps, by the statement of verse 4, and further elucidated by what follows. A difference prevails between
κοίμησις
and
ὕπνος
as both words are used for sleep; but the former has rather the idea of the repose accompanying sleep, the latter the phenomenon itself. With one or two exceptions,
κοιμᾶσθαι
is always used in the New Testament of the sleep of death,
ὑπνός
never.

Joh_11:14

Then Jesus therefore said to them plainly. Jesus spake at length (
παῤῥησίᾳ
) without metaphor (cf. Joh_11:11, note). Lazarus died; died, i.e. when he told them two days ago that this sickness would not have death as its end—died in the sense in which they ordinarily used the word. When Jesus described the condition of Lazarus in figurative language, he made use of a metaphor which would have peculiar application in his ease. The grace of Christ will turn the death of his beloved throughout all time into restful sleep. Lazarus was part of the method by which this transformation would be effected. The Christian idea soon found far richer expression than classical poetry or rabbinism could supply (Act_7:60; Mat_27:52; 1Co_15:6; 1Th_4:13; Rev_14:13).

Joh_11:15

And I rejoice that I was not there. Death could not have occurred in his presence; at least, as Bengel says, we never read of any one dying in the presence of the Prince of life. Whenever he came into contact with death, he conquered the great enemy. Still, this was not the absolute reason for his gladness. The gladness was conditioned by the need of the disciples, not merely for the comfort of the sisters, or for his own greater glory, but for your sakes, to the end that ye might believe. The word
πιστεύω
is often used absolutely (Joh_1:7, Joh_1:50; Joh_4:41, Joh_4:42; Joh_5:44; Joh_6:36; and many other places). The disciples had believed something of Christ's power before (see Joh_2:11, etc.); but every act of faith prepares the way for another. Every fresh exercise of faith makes all previous efforts in the same direction appear elementary (cf. 1Jn_5:13, T.R.). The joy of Jesus in the augmenting faith of his disciples is one of the most pathetic and instructive features of this Gospel (see Joh_16:31, and notes). The kingdom of God among men was, so far as we can see, dependent on the amount of faith that the apostles could be induced to cherish in the fact of the Incarnation during the brief period of this ministry. The Church has not yet come to a full understanding of all that he was. But if the disciples had not known his power over death, they would have been destitute of the alphabet of this new language, of the foundations of the spiritual city they had to build. Jesus rejoiced when disciples believed. So he does still. Nevertheless, let us go to him—to Lazarus, who still lives with God (cf. Mat_22:32, and parallel passages). This is very remarkable. Even the dead body is in this case still (cf. Joh_14:31).

Joh_11:16

Thomas, in Aramaic, is equivalent in meaning to the Greek name Didymus, or "twin." This apostle is mentioned in the synoptic Gospels with Matthew, and in Acts (Act_1:13) with Philip. He is classed with the fishermen (Joh_21:2), and may therefore have been a Galilaean. Ecclesiastical tradition has associated him with Judas (not Iscariot) (Eusebius, 'Hist. Eccl.,' Ecc_1:13), and with Judas the brother of Jesus. He is reputed to have preached ultimately in Parthia and India, there to have suffered martyrdom. The various references to him in this Gospel give, by a few vivid touches, a biography and characterization of singular congruity. He said to his fellow-disciples (the word
συμμαθητής
is only used in this place, and shows that the body of the disciples were being more and more blended into a unity), Let us go, that we may die with him. Here he manifests a fervent love to his Master, tinged with a sorrowful, melancholy temperament. He saw the danger to his Lord, but at once, with the spirit of self-surrender, was ready to share his fate. Moulton says these words reveal love, but they are "the language of despair and vanished hope. This is the end of all—death, not Messianic kingdom." Surely Thomas may have pondered much the Lord's words about his approaching death, and may have felt ready, along the same line, willingly to yield up his own life for his Master's or with his Master. Too much has been made of Thomas's skepticism and criticism. He was one who wanted visible, tangible evidence; but he was prepared to act impulsively, and to give powerful expression to his faith, whenever the evidence was granted. In Joh_14:5 he was still in the dark, but it was not an evil darkness. How could he know, with the clearness which his mind naturally desiderated, whither our Lord was going? No brainless or heartless unbelief led him to ask, "How can we know the way?" At last (Joh_20:24, etc.), when he wanted ocular, personal, tangible evidence of the resurrection of Jesus, and absented himself in deep melancholy from the company of the eleven, it is clear that his soul was ready for the full manifestation. Before he could have put his finger into the print of the nails, he exclaimed, with adoring gratitude, "MY LORD AND MY GOD!" His hesitation and his conviction, with his superlative ecstatic cry, form the culminating point of the Gospel.

Joh_11:17-32

(2) Human affection drawing from Christ the assertion and promise, "I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE."

Joh_11:17

So; or, thereupon; for
οὖν
not infrequently indicates the relation between two narratives, as well as between two state-meats or arguments. When Jesus came into the neighborhood of the village (see Joh_11:30), he found, on inquiry, that he (Lazarus) already ^£ during four days had been ^£ in the grave; or literally, had had four days. These four days are differently counted. Alford, Luthardt, Hengstenberg, Lange, Gorier, Westcott, and Moulton believe that this mention proves that Lazarus died and was buried on the day on which the message was sent, which, if it took one day to deliver, and if one day had been consumed in the return of Jesus, would leave the other two days as those of the delay in Peraea. Meyer and Ewald, with Bengel and Watkins, think that he died at the conclusion of the delay, that Jesus became aware of it, and told his disciples of it, and spent the two days, or parts of them, in the journey; that on the fourth day he reached Bethany. The former and usual view is the more obvious one, although it must turn ultimately on the position of Bethany beyond Jordan. If the recent speculations of the Palestine Exploration Society and Caspari be correct, the distance between the two Bethanys may have required at least two days for the journey, and therefore favors the latter interpretation. If Bethany (Bethabara) be near Jericho, the distance between them would be much less, and the former and usual reckoning must prevail.

Joh_11:18, Joh_11:19

Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem. This geographical observation is introduced to explain the following verse. Meyer and Alford think that the use of the past tense,
ἢν
, may be perfectly justified in making reference to past events; yet, since John is the only New Testament writer who uses it, the usage may have been adopted by him because, at the time when he wrote his Gospel, Bethany had been for the time destroyed with Jerusalem itself. The construction is peculiar:
ὡς ἀπὸ
. Many think that it is to be understood—about fifteen stadia from it—a kind of trajection of the preposition; but Winer thinks that it points to the spot where the fifteen stadia might be supposed to terminate, i.e. "lying off at the end of the fifteen stadia," and so giving an adverbial force to the preposition: and he adds a long list of similar constructions in later Greek writers. The stadium was 606.75 feet—less than the eighth of an English mile; the distance was therefore between a mile and a half and a mile and three quarters. And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary. "The Jews" is a phrase generally, not uniformly, used by John to denote those permanently hostile to our Lord, and often of the upper and ruling classes. These, therefore, had one more trial of faith, one further opportunity of recognizing his glory. Many of them came ^{£ to Martha and Mary. They came to comfort them, according to ordinary usage among the Jews after bereavement. This ceremony often lasted seven days. Concerning (their ^£) brother. We cling to earthly love. The gush of strong affection that mourners lavish on the dead deepens their love to one another, and the praises of the departed often gild and almost pierce the veil itself. The fact that many Jews should have taken the trouble to journey nearly two miles to comfort the bereaved sisters shows that the family at Bethany was one of some wealth, position, and importance (cf. Mat_26:6-13). If so, it is exceedingly unlikely that the narrative stands in any relation to the parable of the rich man and the beggar.

Joh_11:20

The
οὖν
points back probably to Joh_11:1. The type of character so beautifully contrasted in the previous reference to the family at Bethany appears again, and confirms the historical character of Luk_10:38, etc., as well as of the narrative before us. Thoma says that this picture is "simply painted with synoptic color." Martha is the mistress of the house. Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house. Martha was a woman of impulse, energy, practical duty; like Peter, she was ready even to give advice to her Lord, and eager to put everybody in his rightful place. On the first opportunity she hastened at once to "meet" Jesus, even without at first warning her sister of his approach. Mary, contemplative, pensive, undemonstrative under ordinary circumstances, but with a great fund of love, was sitting in the house receiving the condolences of the Jews (cf. Luk_10:19). Weiss suggests that Jesus was well aware, from the station of the family, and from the fact that hitherto his own friendship for the sisters had not submitted them to the ban, that "many Jews" would have congregated in the house of mourning. Consequently, Jesus does not come straight to the house, but allows it to be known that he is there.

Joh_11:21

Martha therefore (having met her Lord) said unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here—the
εἰ ἦς ὦδε
expresses no complaint: "If thou hadst been here," a simple condition of what is now an impossible event—my brother had not died. Meyer says, "If thou weft making thy residence in Bethany rather than in Peraea." This is somewhat unnatural, and would have been a complaint. Her faith had at least ground enough for this assurance, but she mounts above it. The two sisters, with their contrasted natures, had grasped the life-giving, joy-diffusing, heaven-revealing powers of Jesus. They had believed in him, with a gracious abandonment of all prejudice and in the sweeping force of a great illuminating love. They had said often this same thing to one another, and now Martha pours her high persuasion into the ears of her Lord; but she proceeds further.

Joh_11:22

And even now I know, that whatsoever thing thou shalt ask of God, God will give it thee.
Νῦν οἶδα
may be contrasted with Joh_11:27. In his presence she knows intuitively that nothing is impossible. The
αἰτήση
is a word of more human quality than that which our Lord customarily used for his own appeals to God. He spoke of
ἐρωτᾶν
, to seek as an equal;
παρακαλεῖν
, to intercede for another;
προσεύχεσθαι
, to pray;
δεῖσθαι
, to supplicate. It was appropriate enough that Martha should use the verb
αἰτήση
. Her word was a burst of excited feeling, and does not dictate to the Master what he should do. Her twofold mention of the name of God with "thou" and "thee," shows that she had not risen to highest light on the Lord's mysterious relation to the Father. She speaks of him and to him as of a strangely gifted human Friend. But she had doubtless heard of the widow of Nain, and of Jairus's daughter, and she made no irrational suggestion. The
ὅσα
covers much. Jesus loved Lazarus. He was Friend to the whole group, and known to them all.

Joh_11:23

Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Hengstenberg thinks that the reply of Jesus is a grand dogmatic assertion of the resurrection of the dead, in special application to Lazarus, and it covers the kind of
ἀνάστασις
which takes place at death, as well as the resurrection at the last day. If so, surely our Lord would have said, "Lazarus is risen again." The Lord does elsewhere speak of the dead as risen, and of their angelic state, and of all the dead living unto God; but he is here speaking of the immediate resurrection of Lazarus from what is called death to that which is called life, and which would be a pledge and type of the final resurrection of all.

Joh_11:24

Martha saith to him, I know that he will rise again at the resurrection in the last day. Some disappointment is revealed in this speech, such as we have all felt with the promise of an ultimate resurrection, when the grave has closed over some dear friend. We find small relief in the assurance. The old ties are snapped, the old ways are at an end. We shall go to the dead: he will not return to us. The last day is too far off to comfort us concerning our brother. That the answer of Martha is important as revealing belief in the resurrection at the last day; of which, however, it must be remembered those who had heard our Lord's own assertions about it could no longer have doubted (Joh_6:39, Joh_6:40, Joh_6:44, Joh_6:54; Joh_12:48). The teachings of Jesus in this Gospel with reference to eternal life made the promise of resurrection, the transfiguration of the physical life of man, a necessity, not a contradiction. The reply of Martha shows that she does not as yet grasp the whole truth. "The last day" may be far nearer in her thought than we now know it to have been, or them it is to us; still, however near, it would imply a complete transformation of all these sweet human relationships. She longed to have the home as it was before Lazarus died. It is, however, of very great interest that we have, on the part of a Jew, this profound expectation of resurrection and immortality. Jews, or at least Pharisees, had derived from Old Testament thought—from Genesis, and from Job, and from the Psalter, from the Books of Daniel and Ezekiel, and from the progress of human thought as evinced in 'Wisdom of Solomon'—a great belief in both. Martha reveals incidentally the new light which had been cast on the mystery of the grave by the words and acts of Jesus.

Joh_11:25, Joh_11:26

Jesus said to her, I am the Resurrection. Not merely that God will give me what I ask, but that I am in some sense already his gift to man of resurrection, inasmuch as I am that of Life. (So Luthardt and Godet, but not Meyer, who makes
ζωή
the positive result of
ἀνάστασις
.) By taking humanity into his Person, Christ reveals the permanence of human individuality, that is, of such individuality as is in union with himself. He associates (Joh_14:6) "the Life" which he gives with" the Way" and "the Truth," i.e. with the whole sum of human experience and of human meditation and speculation, i.e. with all the conduct of the will and the mind. He that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live. In these words he identifies the "life" with the transfiguration of the bodily life. The grand method of this blessed life is faith. The life which is the condition and ground of resurrection is the natural consequence of a faith which accepts Christ, and identifies itself with him. But "there are some who have believed, and have what you call died"—though they die, they shall live. In such cases, so-called "death" is veritable "life." The life of faith will survive the shock of death, and whosoever liveth, and believeth on me, shall never die—shall never taste of death (cf. Joh_6:51, Joh_8:51). This is no new teaching for the more thoughtful of his hearers. There are multitudes now believing (and therefore living) in him. They shall never die in the sense in which death has been hitherto regarded; they shall by no means die forever. Faith is eternal life: death is only a momentary shadow upon a life which is far better. Whether the corruption of the grave passes over the believer or not, he lives an eternal life, which has no element of death nor proclivity to death in it. So far the Lord is lifting Martha to a higher experience of life and a comparative in difference to death. Before he offers any further consolation, he probes to the quick her faith in him and in the eternal life. Believest thou this?
Τοῦτο
; "Is this thy belief?" not
τουτῷ
; "Dost thou believe in my statement?" "Believest thou that the Resurrection which I am and which I give can thus transform for thee the whole meaning of death?" The fullness of life after death is assured in virtue of the resurrection which Christ could effect at any moment, and will eventually effect for all. This life of which Christ speaks may be the life which is the consequence of the resurrection (
ἀνὰστασις
) of man effected in the Incarnation, or it may be the condition of "resurrection" and sufficient proof that, if a man receive it by faith, he is free' from all the curse of physical death, and assured of a perfect victory over it. So also the
οὐ μὴ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα
may either mean "not forever," and thus the words may be taken to refer to the resurrection. "He will not forever die," i.e. death may supervene, but will be conquered; or
οὐ μὴ
may mean "never," "in no wise," and the "never die" may refer to spiritual death, overlooking physical death altogether. The whole narrative is a great parable of life through death.

Joh_11:27

She saith unto him: Yea, Lord. The reply admits the
τοῦτο
; Many seem to think that Martha falls back on theocratic technicality after a high flight of faith, and leaves the solution of her deepest anxieties to the Lord. I have believed, not now for the first time, that thou art the Christ of all our highest hopes and of our prophetic Scriptures—the Son of God in the sense in which Nathanael, and the healed blind man, and the heroic Peter, and John the Baptist have regarded thee, not now dawning on the world as an unexpected apparition, but long since awaited—even he that cometh into the world, the Hope of all, in fact, the Resurrection and the Life because the Christ, and the Christ because the Son of God. In her great faith these deeper truths, just announced, are implicitly involved.

Joh_11:28

When she had said this, ^£ she departed, and called Mary her sister secretly. Observe the important emendation of text from
ταῦτα
to τοῦτο. When she had made this great utterance, her heart is big with hope. The grim shadow of death is now transparent to a heavenly light. She must share her hope with her sister. Jesus gave the commission to fetch Mary, as is obvious from the words of Martha which follow. The term "secretly" (
λάθρα
), when elsewhere used, precedes the verb with which it is associated, and therefore here it is joined with
εἰποῦσα
, whispering to her, lest the hostile Jews should hear and intercept the interview. The Master (the Teacher) used absolutely (cf. Joh_13:13)—is here, and calleth for thee. Sacred summons! Martha expected (as Euthymius suggested) that some blessing might come from his words.

Joh_11:29

And she, as soon as she heard, arose (aorist) quickly, and went forth to (meet) him (imperfect); or, was ^{£ on the way to come to him—a vivid touch conveyed by the change of tense which has been introduced into the text by the Revisers. The summons is met by prompt obedience, and we see it in immediate resolution and activity.

Joh_11:30

Now Jesus was not yet come into the village, but was still ^{£ in that place where Martha met him. At no great distance from the grave or from the village. The Lord probably sought to comfort the sisters apart from the crowd. Thus say most commentators. This is not in the text. If it were his purpose, it was frustrated. Hengstenberg thinks our Lord did not object to the crowds witnessing the miracle, but if so, it would be without any arrangement on his part.

Joh_11:31

The Jews therefore who were with her in the house, and were comforting her. If the "Jews" (see note, Joh_11:19) were comforting Mary, and (Joh_11:37) recognized his love in its Divine depths, and if (see Joh_11:45) (
πολλοὶ
) "many believed on him," and only (
τινές
) some of them (Joh_11:46) made the stupendous miracle a new occasion for expressing their inveterate malignity, there is no reason to import the element of hostility into the word
ἰδόντες
. When they observed Mary, that she suddenly rose and (silently) went out (of the house), followed her, supposing that she goeth ^{£ to the grave to wail there. This custom was followed widely in the East, ^£ and is still observed in Roman Catholic communities. The word
κλαίω
is to be carefully distinguished from
δακρύω
of Joh_11:35; it denotes the loud expressive wailing and manifestation of grief of which so many instances occur, while the latter word means the shedding of tears. "Wailing" is often the regulated expression of professional grief; "weeping" the irresistible burst of personal sorrow. The first may be violent and obtrusive, the other silent and pathetic.

Joh_11:32

Mary therefore, when she came where Jesus was, and when she saw him, fell at his feet, and in other ways showed more intensity of feeling than did the energetic sister, who in many ways is the feminine type of what Peter was as a man. She is not altogether silent, but sobbed forth the very words which her sister had uttered before. Thus had they often said one to another while Lazarus was yet alive, "Oh that the Lord Jesus were here!" Lord, said she, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. The position of
μου
, which in some manuscripts was placed before
ἀπέθανεν
is here emphatic, as though Mary had in some way especially claimed Lazarus as her brother more than Martha's. She does not add a word of remonstrance or suggestion. She moans forth the same confident expression of her sense of the love and power of Jesus.

Joh_11:33-44

(3) The struggle with death.

Joh_11:33

When Jesus therefore saw her walling, and the Jews wailing who came with her, he was moved with indignation in the spirit, and troubled himself. The sight of the wailing Mary and the wailing Jews, who took up her grief and, according to Oriental custom, adopted her expression of it with loud cries and emphatic gestures, praising the dead, and lamenting his loss, produced a most wonderful impression on the Lord Jesus. Meyer thinks that the contrast between their hypocritical or professional tears and her genuine emotion, the blending of these incongruous elements, the combination of a profound affliction of a dear friend and the simulated grief of his bitter enemies, led him to manifest the feeling here described. But we have no right to import such an element into the scene. The concerted wailing was, however, the occasion of what is described in very remarkable terms,
ἐνεβριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι καὶ ἐτάραξεν

ἑαυτόν
. The first expression occurs again in Joh_11:38. Westcott says in the three places where it elsewhere occurs there is "the notion of coercion arising out of displeasure," a motion "towards another of anger rather than sorrow." The verb
βριμάομαι
and its compounds is used in the classics and the LXX. in the sense of hot anger, neither pain nor grief. Luther translated it ergrimmete, and Passow gives no other meaning. This seems generally accepted. But at what was Jesus angered? This can be answered only by deciding whether
τῷ πνεύματι
is the dative of the object, or whether it is the instrument or sphere of his holy indignation. According to the old Greek expositors, Origen, Chrysostom, Cyril, Theophylact—and they are followed by Alford and Hilgenfeld, the latter of whom finds in it a hint of the Gnostic Christology which, in his opinion, pervades the Gospel—the anger might have been directed against his own human spirit, at that moment tempted into an unfilial strain of sympathy with the mourners; yet, if this be its meaning, why was it that Jesus subsequently wept himself? and why, instead of exciting himself, instead of shuddering with his bitterness of feeling, did he not (as Hengstenberg says) compose and quiet himself? Beside,
τῇ ψυχῇ
would have been a far more appropriate term to use for the effective and sympathetic part of his nature than
πνεύματι
. It is possible, if "the spirit" expresses that part of his human nature in special fellowship with the Father, to suppose that he felt a certain antagonism with that within himself which had prompted to some immediate manifestation of Divine power, and to translate, "He sternly checked his spirit." But the miracle of Divine struggle with death followed so immediately that this cannot be the true explanation (Westcott suggests it as an alternative, but not the best interpretation). The
τῷ

πνεύματι
, must be the sphere of his holy wrath, for which we must find some explanation. Meyer's seems (as already said) to be altogether insufficient. So also in our opinion is that of Godet, viz. that this act of victorious conflict with death, on which he was entering, involved his own death-warrant by being the occasion of the last outbreak of malice on the part of the Jews. Such a fact would be out of harmony, not only with the Fourth Gospel, but with the (synoptic) struggle in Gethsemane. Now, without enumerating various other interpretations of the passage, we think Augustine, Erasmus, Luthardt, Hengstenberg, Moulton, meet our difficulty by the suggestion that death itself occasioned this indignation. Though, like the good Physician in the house of mourning, he knew the issue of his mighty act, yet he entered with vivid and intense human sympathy into all the primary and secondary sorrows of death. He saw the long procession of mourners from the first to the last, all the reckless agony, all the hopelessness of it, in thousands of millions of instances. There flashed upon his spirit all the terrible moral consequences of which death was the ghastly symbol. lie knew that within a short time he too, in taking upon himself the sins of men, would have taken upon himself their death, and there was enough to rouse in his spirit a Divine indignation, and he groaned and shuddered. He roused himself to a conflict which would be a prelibation of the cross and the burial. He took the diseases of men upon himself when he took them away. He took the death-agony of Lazarus and the humiliation of the grave and the tears of the sisters upon himself when he resolved to cry, "Lazarus, come forth!" and to snatch from the grasp of the grim conqueror for a little while one of his victims. Compare the toil of Hercules in wrestling with death for the wife of Admetus. Compare also Joh_13:21, where moral proximity to the treacherous heart and ghastly deed and approaching doom of Judas made him once more to shudder.

Joh_11:34

And he said, Where have ye laid him? They say unto him, Lord, come and see. A strange echo of Joh_1:39 (cf. Rev_6:1, Rev_6:5, Rev_6:7)—Christ asking for information. The Lord was answered out of his own words. His mind was made up.

Joh_11:35

Jesus wept. The shortest verse, but one of the most suggestive in the entire Scripture. The great wrath against death is subdued now into tears of love, of sympathy, and of deep emotion. Jesus shed tears of sympathetic sorrow. This is in sacred and eternal refutation of the theory which deprives the incarnate Logos of St. John of human heart and spirit. These tears have been for all the ages a grand testimony to the fullness of his humanity, and also a Diving revelation of the very heart of God (see Isa_25:8). It was not a
κλαυθμός
, as the weeping over Jerusalem (Luk_19:41), but profound and wondrous fellow-feeling with human misery in all its forms, then imaged before him in the grave of Lazarus. It is akin to the judicial blindness which has obscured for the Tübingen school so much of the glory of Divine revelation, that Baur should regard this weeping of Jesus as unhistorical.

Joh_11:36, Joh_11:37

The Jews therefore said, Behold how he loved him! But some of them said, Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that this man also should not die? The effect upon the
Ἰουδαῖοι
differs here, as always; but if (
πολλοὶ
, Joh_11:45) many were favorably impressed, we may believe here that the
πολλοὶ
said one to another with genuine emotion, "Behold how he loved him!" (
ἐφίλει
, not
ἠγάπα
; amabat, not diligebat<}}}}}