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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "//www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="//www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0;"/><title>John 11 Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</title><link rel="canonical" href="https://biblehub.com/commentaries/expositors/john/11.htm" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/5001com.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 4800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 4800px)" href="/4801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1550px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1550px)" href="/1551.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1250px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1250px)" href="/1251.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1050px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1050px)" href="/1051.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 900px), only screen and (max-device-width: 900px)" href="/901.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 800px)" href="/801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 575px), only screen and (max-device-width: 575px)" href="/501.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-height: 450px), only screen and (max-device-height: 450px)" href="/h451.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /><script type="application/javascript" src="https://scripts.webcontentassessor.com/scripts/8a2459b64f9cac8122fc7f2eac4409c8555fac9383016db59c4c26e3d5b8b157"></script><script src='https://qd.admetricspro.com/js/biblehub/biblehub-layout-loader-revcatch.js'></script><script id='HyDgbd_1s' src='https://prebidads.revcatch.com/ads.js' type='text/javascript' async></script><script>(function(w,d,b,s,i){var cts=d.createElement(s);cts.async=true;cts.id='catchscript'; cts.dataset.appid=i;cts.src='https://app.protectsubrev.com/catch_rp.js?cb='+Math.random(); document.head.appendChild(cts); }) (window,document,'head','script','rc-anksrH');</script></head><body><div id="fx"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx2"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="30" scrolling="no" src="../cmenus/john/11.htm" align="left" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div><div id="blnk"></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable"><tr><td><div id="fx5"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx6"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="245" scrolling="no" src="//biblehu.com/bmcom/john/11-1.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable3"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center" id="announce"><tr><td><div id="l1"><div id="breadcrumbs"><a href="//biblehub.com">Bible</a> > <a href="/commentaries/">Commentary</a> > <a href="../">Ellicott</a> > <a href="../john/">John</a></div><div id="anc"><iframe src="/anc.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></div><div id="anc2"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><iframe src="/anc2.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></div></td></tr></table><div id="movebox2"><table border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><div id="topheading"><a href="../john/10.htm" title="John 10">◄</a> John 11 <a href="../john/12.htm" title="John 12">►</a></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center" class="maintable2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><div id="leftbox"><div class="padleft"><div class="vheading">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</div><div class="chap"><span class= "bld">XI.</span><p>[(3) LIFE, TRUTH, LIGHT, AND LOVE ‘MORE FULLY MANIFESTED. CORRESPONDING INCREASE OF THE UNBELIEF OF THE JEWS (<a href="/john/11-1.htm" title="Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.">John 11:1</a> to <a href="/john/12-50.htm" title="And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatever I speak therefore, even as the Father said to me, so I speak.">John 12:50</a>).<p>(<span class= "ital">a</span>)<span class= "ital">Lazarus restored to life</span> (<a href="/context/john/11-1.htm" title="Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.">John 11:1-46</a>).<p>(<span class= "greekheb"><span class= "ital">α</span></span>)The journey to Bethany. Sleep and death (<a href="/context/john/11-1.htm" title="Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.">John 11:1-16</a>).<p>(<span class= "greekheb"><span class= "ital">β</span></span>)The interview with Martha. The Resurrection and the Life (<a href="/context/john/11-17.htm" title="Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already.">John 11:17-27</a>).<p>(<span class= "greekheb"><span class= "ital">γ</span></span>)The interview with Mary. Sorrow and love (<a href="/context/john/11-28.htm" title="And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calls for you.">John 11:28-38</a>).<p>(<span class= "greekheb"><span class= "ital">δ</span></span>)The open sepulchre. The corruptible and incorruption (<a href="/context/john/11-39.htm" title="Jesus said, Take you away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, said to him, Lord, by this time he stinks: for he has been dead four days.">John 11:39-46</a>).]<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-1.htm">John 11:1</a></div><div class="verse">Now a certain <i>man</i> was sick, <i>named</i> Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.</div>(1) <span class= "bld">Now a certain man was sick.</span>—This is connected with the preceding narrative to introduce the reason for our Lord’s leaving His retirement to go again into the neighbourhood of Jerusalem.<p><span class= "bld">Named Lazarus, of Bethany.</span>—For the name “Lazarus,” comp. Note on <a href="/luke/16-20.htm" title="And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,">Luke 16:20</a>, where it occurs as the solitary instance of a name in our Lord’s parables. It will be seen from the <span class= "ital">Chronological Harmony of the Gospels,</span> p. 36, that the parable was closely connected with the miracle in order of time. It is in every way probable that the form in which the truths of the world beyond the grave there took shape was suggested by the incidents which are here recorded. See also the suggestion that this Lazarus may have been identical with the young man that had great possessions, in Notes on <a href="/matthew/19-16.htm" title="And, behold, one came and said to him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?">Matthew 19:16</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.</span> The induction rests upon an enumeration of instances which makes it at least probable in a high degree.<p>“Bethany,” too, is familiar to us from the earlier Gospels (<a href="/matthew/21-17.htm" title="And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there.">Matthew 21:17</a>; <a href="/matthew/26-6.htm" title="Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,">Matthew 26:6</a>; <a href="/mark/11-12.htm" title="And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry:">Mark 11:12</a>; <a href="/mark/14-3.htm" title="And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she broke the box, and poured it on his head.">Mark 14:3</a>; <a href="/luke/19-29.htm" title="And it came to pass, when he was come near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount called the mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples,">Luke 19:29</a>; <a href="/luke/24-50.htm" title="And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.">Luke 24:50</a>). The modern name, <span class= "ital">El-Azirieh, </span>or <span class= "ital">El-Lazirieh,</span> connects it with the events of this chapter, being formed from <span class= "ital">El-Azir,</span> the Arabic form of the name Lazarus. It is a poor village on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, about two miles from Jerusalem (<a href="/john/11-18.htm" title="Now Bethany was near to Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off:">John 11:18</a>).<p><span class= "bld">The town of Mary and her sister Martha.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">the village . . .</span> (Comp. <a href="/luke/10-38.htm" title="Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.">Luke 10:38</a>.) This is the general meaning of the Greek word, which is distinguished from that for “city” or “town,” as in <a href="/matthew/9-35.htm" title="And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.">Matthew 9:35</a>; <a href="/matthew/10-11.htm" title="And into whatever city or town you shall enter, inquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till you go there.">Matthew 10:11</a>; but John uses it in <a href="/john/7-42.htm" title="Has not the scripture said, That Christ comes of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?">John 7:42</a> for Bethlehem. For the relative position of Mary and Martha, comp. Notes on <a href="/context/luke/10-38.htm" title="Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.">Luke 10:38-42</a>. The younger sister is here mentioned first as the better known from <span class= "ital">the</span> events related in <a href="/john/11-2.htm" title="(It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)">John 11:2</a>. Lazarus was probably younger than his sisters (<a href="/john/12-2.htm" title="There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.">John 12:2</a>). The village was known, then, in the circles of the first disciples, as the village of Mary and Martha, by way of distinction from the “Bethany beyond Jordan”; and the distinction is marked here on account of the paragraph at the end of the preceding chapter. (See <a href="/john/1-28.htm" title="These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.">John 1:28</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-2.htm">John 11:2</a></div><div class="verse">(It was <i>that</i> Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)</div>(2) <span class= "bld">It was that Mary which anointed the Lord.</span>—Comp. Notes on <a href="/matthew/26-6.htm" title="Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,">Matthew 26:6</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.,</span> and <a href="/mark/14-3.htm" title="And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she broke the box, and poured it on his head.">Mark 14:3</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.</span> John himself relates the anointing in <a href="/john/12-3.htm" title="Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment.">John 12:3</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.</span> Here he simply mentions it as distinguishing Mary from others of the same name. and assumes it as a well-known incident which had been, as Christ declared it should be, “told for a memorial of her wheresoever the gospel had been preached” (<a href="/matthew/26-13.htm" title="Truly I say to you, Wherever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman has done, be told for a memorial of her.">Matthew 26:13</a>). Still, the other Evangelists had not told the name, and St. John, when the name first occurs in his narrative, connects it with the person whose deed of love was known to all.<p>There is no sufficient reason for identifying Mary of Bethany with the “woman which was a sinner” (see Notes on <a href="/luke/7-37.htm" title="And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,">Luke 7:37</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.</span>)<span class= "ital">,</span> or for identifying either with Mary Magdalene.<p>This verse should not be placed in parenthesis, as in our version. It is immediately connected with the verse which precedes, as well as with that which follows.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-3.htm">John 11:3</a></div><div class="verse">Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.</div>(3) <span class= "bld">Therefore his sisters sent unto him.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">The sisters therefore sent unto Him</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> because of the fact of the illness, which has been repeated at the close of the last verse, and also because of the intimacy between our Lord and this family, of which the anointing was a proof. (Comp. <a href="/john/11-5.htm" title="Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.">John 11:5</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.</span>—The words are given in the touching simplicity of the message just as they were sent by the sorrowing sisters. They feel that the sad news needs no addition, and that there is no necessity for a prayer for help. Weakness, conscious of strength which loves, needs but to utter itself. (Comp. <a href="/john/11-21.htm" title="Then said Martha to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother had not died.">John 11:21</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-4.htm">John 11:4</a></div><div class="verse">When Jesus heard <i>that</i>, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.</div>(4) <span class= "bld">When Jesus heard that, he said.</span>—These words are not simply an answer sent to the sisters, but the uttered thought which arose in our Lord’s mind as He heard that Lazarus was ill, and were spoken in the presence of the disciples who were with Him, and doubtless in that of the messengers also.<p><span class= "bld">This sickness is not unto death</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> “will not issue in death: will not have death as its final result.” (Comp. <a href="/john/11-11.htm" title="These things said he: and after that he said to them, Our friend Lazarus sleeps; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.">John 11:11</a>; <a href="/john/11-14.htm" title="Then said Jesus to them plainly, Lazarus is dead.">John 11:14</a>. and <a href="/john/8-51.htm" title="Truly, truly, I say to you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.">John 8:51</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">But for the glory of God</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> “the furtherance and accomplishment of the glory of God.”<p><span class= "bld">That the Son of God might be glorified thereby.</span>—This furtherance of the glory of God with the purpose of glorifying the Son carries us back, as all the expositors note, to the oneness of the work of the Father and Son which has been made prominent in our Lord’s words. (Comp. <a href="/john/10-38.htm" title="But if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works: that you may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.">John 10:38</a>, and references in Note there.) But the words seem to carry us forwards as well as backwards. In the next chapter (<a href="/john/11-23.htm" title="Jesus said to her, Your brother shall rise again.">John 11:23</a>) our Lord says. “The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified,” and the reference is to His death. Is that thought absent from the words here? The sickness of Lazarus would not indeed issue in death, though it would end in what men call death, and would be the immediate cause leading to the death of the Son of Man. The one would be as a sleep from which he would awake, the other should be the glorifying the Son of God, which would issue in the life of the world.<p>“Thereby” is probably to be interpreted “by means of the illness,” not “by means of the glory.”<p>This verse should be compared with <a href="/john/9-3.htm" title="Jesus answered, Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.">John 9:3</a>. Here, as there, part of the meaning is that the glory of God would be effected in the person of him upon whom the miracle would be wrought. It was a spiritual crisis in the case of the man born blind. It cannot have been otherwise in the case of Lazarus.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-5.htm">John 11:5</a></div><div class="verse">Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.</div>(5) <span class= "bld">Now Jesus loved Martha.</span>—It is not easy to see the connection of this verse with that which precedes, or with that which immediately follows. The fact of His abiding two days where He was, seems indeed opposed to the thought of <span class= "ital">His</span> special love for the family. The most probable explanation is that which connects <a href="/context/john/11-5.htm" title="Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.">John 11:5-7</a> together, and makes the love the motive for going into Judæa again.<p>The word rendered “loved” here is different from that in <a href="/john/11-3.htm" title="Therefore his sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.">John 11:3</a>. There the word signifies the love of tender affection; here the word, means the love of chosen friendship. (Comp. <a href="/john/20-2.htm" title="Then she runs, and comes to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They have taken away the LORD out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him.">John 20:2</a>; <a href="/john/21-15.htm" title="So when they had dined, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, love you me more than these? He said to him, Yes, Lord; you know that I love you. He said to him, Feed my lambs.">John 21:15</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.</span>) The difference here is not to be explained, as it frequently has been, by the difference in the persons who were the objects of the love; but by the difference of the persons whose words we read. In the language of the sisters, whose hearts are moved by the brother’s illness, the word of fullest emotion is natural. In the language of the Evangelist the other word is no less so.<p>It will be observed that in this verse, as in <a href="/john/11-19.htm" title="And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.">John 11:19</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.,</span> Martha takes the first place as the elder sister.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-6.htm">John 11:6</a></div><div class="verse">When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.</div>(6) <span class= "bld">When he had heard therefore.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">When He heard therefore</span> . . .<p><span class= "bld">He abode two days still.</span>—It is usual to explain this delay as caused by His wish to test the faith of the sisters, or by the nature of the work which He was then doing, and was unwilling to leave. But the first reason passes over the fact that their faith had been shown in their message to Him; and the second postulates His presence at Bethany as necessary for the restoration of Lazarus. (Comp. <a href="/context/john/4-49.htm" title="The nobleman said to him, Sir, come down ere my child die.">John 4:49-50</a>.) A juster view is that which remembers the principle which He had taught at the first miracle (<a href="/john/2-4.htm" title="Jesus said to her, Woman, what have I to do with you? my hour is not yet come.">John 2:4</a>), that the hours of His work were marked out by signs that He alone could read, but that every hour had its work, and every work its hour. (Comp. <a href="/john/11-4.htm" title="When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.">John 11:4</a>; <a href="/john/11-9.htm" title="Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbles not, because he sees the light of this world.">John 11:9</a>, and <a href="/context/john/9-3.htm" title="Jesus answered, Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.">John 9:3-4</a>.)<p>A comparison with <a href="/john/11-11.htm" title="These things said he: and after that he said to them, Our friend Lazarus sleeps; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.">John 11:11</a> makes it certain that Lazarus was dead before they set out for Judæa, but he was living when the words of <a href="/john/11-4.htm" title="When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.">John 11:4</a> were spoken. The fact of death may have determined the hour of their departure.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-7.htm">John 11:7</a></div><div class="verse">Then after that saith he to <i>his</i> disciples, Let us go into Judaea again.</div>(7) <span class= "bld">Let us go into Judæa again.</span>—He does not mark out the place more definitely, and the word “again” recalls the dangers from which they had escaped at the close of their last visit to Jerusalem.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-8.htm">John 11:8</a></div><div class="verse"><i>His</i> disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?</div>(8) <span class= "bld">Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone Thee.</span> (Comp. Notes on <a href="/john/1-39.htm" title="He said to them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelled, and stayed with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour.">John 1:39</a>; <a href="/john/10-31.htm" title="Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.">John 10:31</a>.) They think of the danger to Him, and are not without thought of the danger to themselves (<a href="/john/11-16.htm" title="Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, to his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.">John 11:16</a>). It shows that the hatred of the Jews had now made it unsafe for our Lord and His disciples to be within their reach. The impression we derive from this verse is that the retirement into Gaulonitis had been of no long duration, when the message from Bethany came to interrupt it.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-9.htm">John 11:9</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.</div>(9) <span class= "bld">Are there not twelve hours in the day?</span>—Or more exactly, <span class= "ital">Are not the hours of the day twelve? </span>They had expressed their fears that danger and death would be the result of going into Judæa. His answer would say that the darkness of the night which they dreaded could not come yet. The natural night would come not until its appointed hour, until the twelve hours of the day had run their course. The day of His life is marked out by limits no less sure. The night indeed cometh, but it is as yet full day, and in that day He and they must do the work which is appointed of the Father. (Comp. <a href="/john/11-6.htm" title="When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he stayed two days still in the same place where he was.">John 11:6</a>; and Notes on <a href="/john/2-4.htm" title="Jesus said to her, Woman, what have I to do with you? my hour is not yet come.">John 2:4</a>; <a href="/john/7-30.htm" title="Then they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come.">John 7:30</a>; <a href="/john/8-20.htm" title="These words spoke Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come.">John 8:20</a>; <a href="/john/9-4.htm" title="I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night comes, when no man can work.">John 9:4</a>; <a href="/john/12-27.htm" title="Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I to this hour.">John 12:27</a>; <a href="/john/17-1.htm" title="These words spoke Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you:">John 17:1</a>.)<p>Incidentally these words bear on the question of St. John’s method of counting the hours of the day, and support the view which from other passages seems quite evident that he follows the ordinary Babylonian numeration. (Comp. Notes on <a href="/john/1-40.htm" title="One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.">John 1:40</a>; <a href="/john/4-6.htm" title="Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.">John 4:6</a>; <a href="/john/4-52.htm" title="Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said to him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.">John 4:52</a>; <a href="/john/19-14.htm" title="And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he said to the Jews, Behold your King!">John 19:14</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">Because he seeth the light of this world</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> the natural light of the sun. While the earth is illumined by it, men follow the course of their work without danger of stumbling. In the application to their own position, the truth holds good. The day of His work is illumined by the light of heaven, and for Him and them there is safety.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-10.htm">John 11:10</a></div><div class="verse">But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.</div>(10) <span class= "bld">But if a man walk in the night . . .</span>—He passes in this verse from the material to the spiritual truth. This first clause still holds of the natural night, and the danger to men who walk in it, but it holds, too, of the darkness in which men walk who do not see, as He is seeing, the light of heaven falling upon the moral path. In the second clause the moral truth is expressed with a prominence which excludes the other.<p><span class= "bld">Because there is no light in him.</span>—The light is now not that “of this world,” but that which is within man.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-11.htm">John 11:11</a></div><div class="verse">These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.</div>(11) <span class= "bld">Our friend Lazarus sleepeth.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">Our friend Lazarus is fallen asleep.</span> They had probably understood the words of <a href="/john/11-4.htm" title="When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.">John 11:4</a> to express that the illness was not mortal, and that Lazarus would recover. They have seen, therefore, no reason for facing the danger of Judæa (<a href="/context/john/11-7.htm" title="Then after that said he to his disciples, Let us go into Judaea again.">John 11:7-8</a>). He now supplies that reason, and for the first time speaks of going to the family at Bethany.<p>His words “our friend” gently remind them that Lazarus was their friend as well as His, for they as well as He had probably been welcome guests in the well-known house.<p>The fact of our Lord’s knowledge of the death of Lazarus is stated by St. John without any explanation. Prom his point of view it could need none. He who needed not that any should testify of man, because of His own self-knowledge of what was in man (<a href="/john/2-25.htm" title="And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.">John 2:25</a>), needed not that any should testify of what had passed in the chamber of His friend.<p>For the idea of sleep as the image of death, comp. Notes on <a href="/john/8-51.htm" title="Truly, truly, I say to you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.">John 8:51</a>, <a href="/matthew/9-24.htm" title="He said to them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleeps. And they laughed him to scorn.">Matthew 9:24</a>, and <a href="/1_thessalonians/4-14.htm" title="For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.">1Thessalonians 4:14</a>. It is not unfrequent in other passages of both the Old and New Testaments, and, from the time of Homer downwards, poets have spoken of sleep and death as twin-sisters.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-12.htm">John 11:12</a></div><div class="verse">Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.</div>(12) <span class= "bld">Then said his disciples.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">Therefore</span> . . . Their remark immediately arises out of what our Lord has said. They are glad to catch at any reason for not going to Judæa.<p><span class= "bld">If he sleep, he shall do well.</span>—More exactly, <span class= "ital">If he be fallen asleep, he shall be saved.</span> There could be, therefore, no reason for His going, as the disease had passed the crisis. Sleep is given by the Rabbis as one of six favourable symptoms, and that it is so is a common-place in authors of all periods. From the apparent suddenness of the attack, and rapidity of the progress of the disease, it would seem to have been the “great fever” which was common in Palestine (comp. <a href="/john/4-52.htm" title="Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said to him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.">John 4:52</a>, and especially Note on <a href="/luke/4-38.htm" title="And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered into Simon's house. And Simon's wife's mother was taken with a great fever; and they sought him for her.">Luke 4:38</a>), and in which sleep would be the sign that the fever had ceased.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-13.htm">John 11:13</a></div><div class="verse">Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.</div>(13) <span class= "bld">They thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.</span>—These words forbid the thought that they really understood that Lazarus was dead, but did not wish to seem to know it. Three of them, indeed, had heard our Lord apply the word “sleep” to death before (<a href="/matthew/9-24.htm" title="He said to them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleeps. And they laughed him to scorn.">Matthew 9:24</a>), but this instance of misunderstanding on their part takes its place with others of a like kind, as showing that the surface meaning of words was that which naturally suggested itself to them. (Comp. <a href="/context/matthew/16-6.htm" title="Then Jesus said to them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.">Matthew 16:6-12</a>, and <a href="/luke/22-38.htm" title="And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said to them, It is enough.">Luke 22:38</a>) It is not likely that all “the three” were present during this interview. If it took place at <span class= "ital">Tellanihje,</span> then the nearness of Bethsaida and <span class= "ital">the</span> other towns of Galilee may have led some of the Twelve to visit their old homes. (Comp. <a href="/john/1-28.htm" title="These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.">John 1:28</a>; <a href="/john/1-48.htm" title="Nathanael said to him, From where know you me? Jesus answered and said to him, Before that Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.">John 1:48</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.</span>) We can hardly imagine that Peter was present without taking a prominent part in the conversation, or that Thomas would have been in his presence the representative speaker (<a href="/john/11-16.htm" title="Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, to his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.">John 11:16</a>). His absence may be taken as one of the reasons why the account of the miracle which follows is absent from St. Mark’s Gospel, which is, like St. John’s, the Gospel of an eye-witness. (Comp. <span class= "ital">Introduction to St. Mark,</span> p. 189, and <span class= "ital">Excursus E: The Omission of the Raising of Lazarus, in the Synoptic Gospels.</span>)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-14.htm">John 11:14</a></div><div class="verse">Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.</div>(14) <span class= "bld">Lazarus is dead.</span>—The words of deeper truth, “Our friend Lazarus is fallen asleep,” have conveyed no true meaning to their minds. He uses words, therefore, which fall short of that truth, but are the only words which they can understand.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-15.htm">John 11:15</a></div><div class="verse">And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.</div>(15) <span class= "bld">And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there.</span>—The words are at first sound startling, as following immediately upon the plain statement, “Lazarus is dead.” The utterance is not of sorrow, but of joy; but the joy is not at the fact of death, but at the fact that He was not there. Had He been there, Lazarus would not have died (<a href="/john/11-21.htm" title="Then said Martha to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother had not died.">John 11:21</a>; <a href="/john/11-32.htm" title="Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother had not died.">John 11:32</a>), and his recovery would have added to the work of healing. There is the assured consciousness of power over death itself, which sees as present all that is to follow, and sees in the strengthening of their faith ground for joy.<p><span class= "bld">To the intent ye may believe.</span>—They were already disciples, but this sign would be to them the vehicle of a higher spiritual truth, and the growth of their spiritual life would be such that it may be regarded as a new act of faith. (Comp. Note on <a href="/john/2-11.htm" title="This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.">John 2:11</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">Nevertheless let us go unto him.</span>—The thought of the final issue of the sleep brings the whole future before the mind. But for this, His presence is needed at Bethany, and He abruptly breaks off this conversation about it, by what is at once a resolution and a summons to go there.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-16.htm">John 11:16</a></div><div class="verse">Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellowdisciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.</div>(16) <span class= "bld">Then </span>(or, better, <span class= "ital">therefore</span>) <span class= "bld">said Thomas, which is called Didymus.</span>—The second of these names is the Greek translation of the first, which is Hebrew. Both mean “twin.” Both are found together again in <a href="/john/20-24.htm" title="But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.">John 20:24</a>; <a href="/john/21-2.htm" title="There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples.">John 21:2</a>. Comp. Notes on the Catalogues of the Apostles in <a href="/matthew/10-3.htm" title="Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus;">Matthew 10:3</a>, <a href="/mark/3-18.htm" title="And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite,">Mark 3:18</a>, <a href="/luke/6-15.htm" title="Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes,">Luke 6:15</a>, in all of which he is coupled with Matthew, whose twin-brother he possibly was; and in <a href="/acts/1-13.htm" title="And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where stayed both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James.">Acts 1:13</a>, where he is coupled with Philip. The name belonged probably to his childhood, and we are wholly without the knowledge which can explain it. The various theories which attempt to do so, from the statement of the Apostolical Constitutions that he had a twin sister Lydia, to the view that the name was given by our Lord to signify his double or halting spiritual nature, are never more than, and are sometimes much less than, elaborate guesses. We may well believe that the name is due to the fact that he was a twin, but of whom it is of no importance that we should know, and it is quite certain that we cannot know.<p>And yet Peter, John, and Judas, are the only Apostles whose characters we know as well. This is owing to three incidents preserved to us by St. John—the present passage, <a href="/john/14-5.htm" title="Thomas said to him, Lord, we know not where you go; and how can we know the way?">John 14:5</a>, and <a href="/john/20-24.htm" title="But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.">John 20:24</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.</span> We have before us here a man looking at events from a mind full of the darkest apprehension. He is without hope that a return to Judæa can have any but one issue for his Master. The night is so clearly seen that the brightness of day is obscured. But with all this there is the full love of a devoted disciple, who will follow his Master even unto death.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-17.htm">John 11:17</a></div><div class="verse">Then when Jesus came, he found that he had <i>lain</i> in the grave four days already.</div>(17) <span class= "bld">Then when Jesus came</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> to the neighbourhood of Bethany. He did not at once enter the village itself (<a href="/john/11-20.htm" title="Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.">John 11:20</a>; <a href="/john/11-30.htm" title="Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him.">John 11:30</a>).<p><span class= "bld">He found that he had lain in the grave four days already.</span>—The Jewish custom was to bury on the day of death. (Comp. <a href="/context/acts/5-6.htm" title="And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.">Acts 5:6-10</a>.) The whole tone of the narrative places the time of death at the point indicated by the summons to go into Judæa, in <a href="/john/11-7.htm" title="Then after that said he to his disciples, Let us go into Judaea again.">John 11:7</a> (see Note there). Counting the parts of the days on which they set out and on which they arrived as included in the four days, in accordance with the Jewish method, we have two whole days and parts of two other days spent upon the journey. There is no indication that they halted on the way, but everything suggests rather that they went as quickly as possible. The common view, which supposes the place where John was baptising to have been on the southern Jordan, cannot be made consistent with this long journey; and it is usual to assume that Lazarus died on the day that the message reached the Lord, that after his death our Lord remained two days where He was, and that the fourth day was occupied on the journey to Bethany. It is believed that the meaning of the narrative is brought out more fully by the interpretation which has been followed above, and that the four days for the journey is perfectly natural on the supposition which has been adopted, that the journey was from <span class= "ital">Tellanihje,</span> which was north of the Sea of Galilee.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-18.htm">John 11:18</a></div><div class="verse">Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off:</div>(18) <span class= "bld">Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem.</span>—This way of speaking of places in the past tense is not found in the other Gospels. (Comp., in this Gospel, <a href="/john/18-1.htm" title="When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples.">John 18:1</a>; <a href="/john/19-41.htm" title="Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid.">John 19:41</a>; and, on the other hand, Note on <a href="/john/5-2.htm" title="Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.">John 5:2</a>.) The explanation may be that from St. John’s point of view, writing after the destruction of Jerusalem, the buildings and gardens could no longer be described as still existing.<p><span class= "bld">About fifteen furlongs off.</span>—The Greek stadium which is here rendered “furlong” was 606¾ English feet. The distance was, then, as the margin gives it, not much short of two English miles. This is mentioned to account for the fact stated in the following verse, that many of the Jews came to comfort Martha and Mary.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-19.htm">John 11:19</a></div><div class="verse">And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.</div>(19) <span class= "bld">And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">and many of the Jews had come . . .—</span>They had come before our Lord’s arrival. The word “Jews” is to be understood in St. John’s general sense (comp. Note on <a href="/john/1-19.htm" title="And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you?">John 1:19</a>) of those opposed to our Lord, who had lately sought to stone Him (<a href="/john/10-31.htm" title="Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.">John 10:31</a>), and afterwards to take Him by force (<a href="/john/10-39.htm" title="Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand,">John 10:39</a>). The family at Bethany was one of position and substance (comp. Notes on <a href="/context/matthew/26-6.htm" title="Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,">Matthew 26:6-13</a>; <a href="/context/mark/14-3.htm" title="And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she broke the box, and poured it on his head.">Mark 14:3-9</a>), and they would naturally have had many friends among the higher rank of the Jews. Another reading, which has considerable authority, is “had come to the women with Martha and Mary,” or “to Martha and Mary and their friends.”<p><span class= "bld">To comfort them concerning their brother.</span>—The days of mourning were usually thirty, which were divided into (1) three days of weeping; (2) seven days of lamentation; (3) twenty days of sorrow. This fourth day after the death was the first of the seven days of lamentation. Lightfoot has collected, in a long note on this text, quotations from the Rabbis illustrating the mourning customs, and giving examples of the words used.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-20.htm">John 11:20</a></div><div class="verse">Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat <i>still</i> in the house.</div>(20) <span class= "bld">Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming . . .</span>—This is partly to be explained from the position in which they stood towards Him, and partly from the fact of the presence of the Jews at the house. She goes forth to meet Him in a place where she can speak her heart’s thoughts, apart from the oppressive ceremonial of the formal lamentation, and where He would not be exposed to a renewal of the attempts against His life.<p><span class= "bld">But Mary sat still in the house.</span>—Better, without the word in italics, <span class= "ital">but Mary was sitting in the house.</span> The characteristics of the two sisters, which we find in <a href="/luke/10-38.htm" title="Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.">Luke 10:38</a> (see Note there), are strikingly preserved in this narrative. The clause describes precisely the position of the mourner, who sat on or near the ground, while those who came to lament with her sat around. (Comp. <a href="/context/job/2-13.htm" title="So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word to him: for they saw that his grief was very great.">Job 2:13-13</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-21.htm">John 11:21</a></div><div class="verse">Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.</div>(21) <span class= "bld">Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.</span>—We have exactly the same words spoken by Mary in <a href="/john/11-32.htm" title="Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother had not died.">John 11:32</a>. They are the utterance of the thought which had already been expressed in their message (<a href="/john/11-3.htm" title="Therefore his sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.">John 11:3</a>), and had, we may think, been spoken more than once by the sisters to each other. These sisters are among the many who had received our Lord in the fulness of a true faith, of whom the Gospel narrative tells us nothing, or gives us, as here, but a passing glimpse. Their belief is stated in the definiteness of full conviction; but they, like the courtier, connect the power to save with the bodily presence of our Lord. (Comp. <a href="/john/4-49.htm" title="The nobleman said to him, Sir, come down ere my child die.">John 4:49</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-22.htm">John 11:22</a></div><div class="verse">But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give <i>it</i> thee.</div>(22) <span class= "bld">But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God .</span> <span class= "bld">. .</span>—The words express a half-formed hope, which she dare not utter, perhaps dare not even think, that her brother may be restored to life again. She had heard probably of the young maid whose body was reanimated by the life which had but just left it (comp. <a href="/mark/5-35.htm" title="While he yet spoke, there came from the ruler of the synagogue's house certain which said, Your daughter is dead: why trouble you the Master any further?">Mark 5:35</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.;</span> <a href="/context/luke/8-41.htm" title="And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus' feet, and sought him that he would come into his house:">Luke 8:41-42</a>), and of the young man whose body was being carried to the grave, when at His command it was restored living to the widowed mother. (Comp. <a href="/luke/7-11.htm" title="And it came to pass the day after, that he went into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples went with him, and much people.">Luke 7:11</a> <span class= "ital">et seq.</span>) Her brother had been the friend of Jesus; they had all trusted in His power and His love. Words had come to them from Him telling that this sickness should not issue in death, but that it should further God’s glory and glorify the Son. And now He <span class= "ital">is</span> Himself present. His words cannot fail, and He Himself cannot be there without a purpose. She dare not say more; but she rests in this, that there is unity of power and will between Him and the Father. Whatsoever He asks, God will give.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-23.htm">John 11:23</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.</div>(23) <span class= "bld">Thy brother shall rise again.</span>—These words, spoken as they were by our Lord after the purpose of His journey, as expressed in <a href="/john/11-11.htm" title="These things said he: and after that he said to them, Our friend Lazarus sleeps; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.">John 11:11</a>, and immediately before the accomplishment of it, cannot be taken to exclude the restoration of Lazarus to physical life. At the same time, the form of the words clearly point, as Martha understood them to point, to “the resurrection at the last day.” They are chosen for this very purpose; to lead her from the passionate longing for her brother’s restoration, and from a vague thought of the Lord’s power and will to restore him, to a wider and truer conception of what life really is, and to a realisation of the truth that for a true believer in Him there can be no such thing as death. This “sign,” like every other, is to be no mere wonder, nor is it to be limited to our restored life. It is to lead to the spiritual truth which is signified; and is to be for them and for mankind the true conquest of death by Life.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-24.htm">John 11:24</a></div><div class="verse">Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.</div>(24) <span class= "bld">I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection . . .</span>—Her answer expresses something of disappointment. Her whole heart had been fixed on one thought, and in all that had passed her hopes had found a support which seemed to warrant the hope for its accomplishment. She is now reminded of a general truth which she had rested in before, but this does not satisfy the expectation she had formed now. We have all felt something of her disappointment as we have stood beside the sepulchre. We have known, with a knowledge more full than hers, that “he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day;” but this knowledge has often had little power to remove the deep sorrow of the heart. We conquer the pagan thought “lost for ever”; but we are often conquered by the thought “lost for the present.”<p>For the thought of the resurrection, comp. Notes on <a href="/john/5-29.htm" title="And shall come forth; they that have done good, to the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection of damnation.">John 5:29</a> and <a href="/luke/14-14.htm" title="And you shall be blessed; for they cannot recompense you: for you shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.">Luke 14:14</a>. The Pharisees expected the resurrection of the just to accompany the Messianic advent. (Comp. <a href="/daniel/12-2.htm" title="And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.">Daniel 12:2</a> and <a href="//apocrypha.org/2_maccabees/7-9.htm" title="And when he was at the last gasp, he said, Thou like a fury takest us out of this present life, but the King of the world shall raise us up, who have died for his laws, unto everlasting life.">2 Maccabees 7:9</a>.) Still, the answer is in advance of that which we should expect, as compared with the dimness which rests upon even the fullest expression with regard to the resurrection in the Old Testament, and is to be traced to earlier lessons she had received from Him who is teaching her now.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-25.htm">John 11:25</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:</div>(25) <span class= "bld">I am the resurrection, and the life.</span>—She has spoken of the resurrection as a truth which she believes, and as an event in the far-off future, so remote from the present life indeed, as to be powerless to comfort her now. The two first words of His answer, expressed in the fulness of emphasis, teach her that the resurrection is to be thought of as His person, and that it is to be thought of as actually present. “<span class= "ital">I,</span>”—his words mean—“and none beside Me, am the Resurrection. I <span class= "ital">am</span> the Resurrection—a. present life, and not simply a life in the remoteness of the last day.” In the same sense in which He has declared Himself to be the Water of Life and the Bread of Life, supplying in Himself every need of spiritual thirst and spiritual hunger, He declares Himself to be the Resurrection, revealing in His own person all that men had ever thought and hoped of a future life, being Himself the power which shall raise them at the last day, and could therefore raise them now. This is because He is also “the Life,” and therefore every one in communion<p><span class= "bld">He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">though he have died</span> . . . She thinks and speaks of Lazarus as dead. He asserts that in the true thought of the spiritual life the fact of physical death does not interrupt that life.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-26.htm">John 11:26</a></div><div class="verse">And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?</div>(26) <span class= "bld">And whosoever liveth and believeth in me.</span>—This is to be understood of the physical life answering to “though he have died” of the last verse.<p><span class= "bld">Shall never die.</span>—Comp. especially Note on <a href="/john/8-51.htm" title="Truly, truly, I say to you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.">John 8:51</a>. He <span class= "ital">shall by no means die for ever.</span> Not through the infinite course of ages shall there be that which makes for him the sting of death. The fact of what we call physical death is not denied, but in the fulness of the thought of life it is regarded as the passage to a new and higher life.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-27.htm">John 11:27</a></div><div class="verse">She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.</div>(27) <span class= "bld">She saith unto him, Yea, Lord.</span>—This is her assent to the question He asked. She believed all that He had told her. It is not that she expresses her belief, in answer to His question, in the remainder of this verse. The answer is simply “Yea, Lord.” Then she proceeds to give the foundation on which that answer rested.<p><span class= "bld">I believe that thou art the Christ.</span>—The word means, “I have believed, and do now;” “I have convinced myself, and do believe.” But this being so, convinced that He is the Messiah, she has in that conviction the ground for believing all that He has now taught her of Resurrection and Life.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-28.htm">John 11:28</a></div><div class="verse">And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee.</div>(28) <span class= "bld">And called Mary her sister secretly.</span>—It was done secretly to avoid attracting the notice of the Jews who were with her (<a href="/john/11-19.htm" title="And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.">John 11:19</a>; <a href="/john/11-31.htm" title="The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goes to the grave to weep there.">John 11:31</a>). This, we have seen (<a href="/john/11-20.htm" title="Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.">John 11:20</a>), accounts for the fact that our Lord did not Himself go to the house. That the care was not unnecessary is seen from <a href="/john/11-46.htm" title="But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.">John 11:46</a>.<p><span class= "bld">The Master is come </span>(better, <span class= "ital">is here</span>)<span class= "ital">,</span> <span class= "bld">and calleth for thee.</span>—The word here rendered “Master” is not the Hebrew Rabbi (comp. Note on <a href="/john/1-38.htm" title="Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, What seek you? They said to him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwell you?">John 1:38</a>), but the Greek word answering to our “Teacher.” (Comp. <a href="/context/john/13-13.htm" title="You call me Master and Lord: and you say well; for so I am.">John 13:13-14</a>.) He is not named, but Mary at once knows who is intended. (Comp. <a href="/mark/14-14.htm" title="And wherever he shall go in, say you to the manager of the house, The Master said, Where is the guest room, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples?">Mark 14:14</a>.) Perhaps the name was that by which they usually spoke of Him who had been their Teacher. We are not told that our Lord sent for Mary, but we must assume that Martha conveyed the message which she herself had heard.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-29.htm">John 11:29</a></div><div class="verse">As soon as she heard <i>that</i>, she arose quickly, and came unto him.</div>(29) <span class= "bld">She arose quickly.</span>—She was sitting in the house (<a href="/john/11-20.htm" title="Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.">John 11:20</a>), after the manner of mourners. The news she now hears tells her that their true Comforter was at hand, and she at once goes forth to meet Him.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-30.htm">John 11:30</a></div><div class="verse">Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him.</div>(30) <span class= "bld">Now Jesus was not yet come into the town.</span>—Better, as before, <span class= "ital">into the village</span> (<a href="/john/11-1.htm" title="Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.">John 11:1</a>).<p><span class= "bld">Where Martha met him.</span>—Comp. <a href="/john/11-20.htm" title="Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.">John 11:20</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-31.htm">John 11:31</a></div><div class="verse">The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there.</div>(31) <span class= "bld">And comforted her.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">were comforting her</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> were engaged in the prescribed ceremonial of those who were called comforters.<p><span class= "bld">Saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there.</span>—The better reading is, <span class= "ital">thinking, She goeth .</span> . . The practice was and is common among the Orientals, as well as among other nations.<p>Their following her, defeats the object Martha had in view in calling her secretly. We may say, also, that it defeated our Lord’s object in remaining outside the village; but this is not inconsistent with His knowing that it would be so.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-32.htm">John 11:32</a></div><div class="verse">Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.</div>(32) <span class= "bld">Lord, if thou hadst been here.</span>—The words are precisely the same as those which Martha had uttered (<a href="/john/11-21.htm" title="Then said Martha to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother had not died.">John 11:21</a>). She adds no more. It may be that she was prevented doing so by the presence of the Jews; but the next verse suggests rather that her emotion was too powerful for words, and that the only possible language was that of a suppliant lying at His feet and weeping.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-33.htm">John 11:33</a></div><div class="verse">When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,</div>(33) <span class= "bld">He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.</span>—The word rendered “groaned” occurs, besides in this verse and <a href="/john/11-38.htm" title="Jesus therefore again groaning in himself comes to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay on it.">John 11:38</a>, three times in the New Testament; in <a href="/matthew/9-30.htm" title="And their eyes were opened; and Jesus straightly charged them, saying, See that no man know it.">Matthew 9:30</a> (“and Jesus straitly charged them”); <a href="/mark/1-43.htm" title="And he straightly charged him, and immediately sent him away;">Mark 1:43</a> (“and He straitly charged him”); and <a href="/mark/14-5.htm" title="For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her.">Mark 14:5</a> (“and they murmured against her”). Comp. Notes at these places. The original meaning of the word is “to snort, as of horses.” Passing to the moral sense, it expresses disturbance of the mind—vehement agitation. This may express itself in sharp admonition, in words of anger against a person, or in a physical shudder, answering to the intensity of the emotion. In each of the passages in the earlier Gospels the word is accompanied by an object upon which the feeling is directed. In the present context it does not go beyond the subject of the feeling. Here it is “in the spirit” (comp. <a href="/john/13-21.htm" title="When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you shall betray me.">John 13:21</a>); and in <a href="/john/11-38.htm" title="Jesus therefore again groaning in himself comes to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay on it.">John 11:38</a> it is “in Himself.” Both mean the same thing; and point to the inner moral depth of His righteous indignation; the object of it, however, is not expressed.<p>For the rendering “and was troubled” the margin gives, as the exact force of the Greek, “and He troubled Himself”; and this is to be preferred. These words do not express the inner emotion; for that has been expressed in the strong words which have gone before. They point rather to the physical movement which accompanied the emotion, and made known to others the indignation which was excited in His own spirit. The force of the whole sentence would require, in English, some such rendering as “He was indignant in the spirit, and caused Himself to shudder.”<p>Very different views have been put forth as to the cause of this intensity of emotion in our Lord. The cause supplied by the text is that He saw Mary lying at His feet weeping; and the Jews also weeping which came with her. Real sorrow, which calls forth all His sympathy, is accompanied by the mockery of sorrow, which can shed tears for the brother, whom they afterwards seek to kill (<a href="/john/12-10.htm" title="But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death;">John 12:10</a>)! These Jews are those who had sought to stone their Teacher, and had resolved to cut off from all religious and social intercourse every one who acknowledged Him as the Messiah! With hearts full of hatred they can profess to be comforters, and can mingle their tears with hers. The severest words that fell from the lips of Christ were those which denounced the hypocrisy of priests, Pharisees, and scribes. It is this hypocrisy which now stirs in His spirit an anger so intense that it causes nerve and muscle and limb to tremble beneath its force.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-34.htm">John 11:34</a></div><div class="verse">And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.</div>(34) <span class= "bld">Where have ye laid him?</span>—The question is directed, of course, to the sisters. This is further shown by the answer, “Lord, come and see.” Both question and answer are expressed in the shortest form. Grief speaks in the fewest possible words.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-35.htm">John 11:35</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus wept.</div>(35) <span class= "bld">Jesus wept.</span>—The word is different from that which is used to express weeping in <a href="/john/11-33.htm" title="When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.">John 11:33</a>; but this latter is used of our Lord in <a href="/luke/19-41.htm" title="And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,">Luke 19:41</a>. The present word means not the cry of lamentation nor the wail of excessive grief, but the calm shedding of tears. They are on the way to the sepulchre, near to which they have now arrived. He is conscious of the power which He is about to exercise, and that the first result will be the glory of God (<a href="/john/11-4.htm" title="When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.">John 11:4</a>); but He is conscious also of the suffering hearts near Him, and the sympathy with human sorrow is no less part of His nature than the union with divine strength. Men have wondered to find in the Gospel which opens with the express declaration of the divinity of our Lord, and at a moment when that divinity was about to receive its fullest manifestation, these words, which point them still to human weakness. But the central thought of St. John’s Gospel is “The Word was made flesh,” and He is for us the Resurrection and the Life, because He has been manifested to us, not as an abstraction which the intellect only could receive, but as a person, living a human life, and knowing its sorrows, whom the heart can grasp and love. A “God in tears” has provoked the smile of the stoic and the scorn of the unbeliever; but Christianity is not a gospel of self-sufficiency, and its message is not merely to the human intellect. It is salvation for the whole man and for every man; and the sorrowing heart of humanity has never seen more clearly the divinity of the Son of Man than when it has seen His glory shining through His human tears.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-36.htm">John 11:36</a></div><div class="verse">Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!</div>(36) <span class= "bld">Then said the Jews</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> part of them. (See the next verse.) The term “Jews” is repeated with a frequency (<a href="/john/11-31.htm" title="The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goes to the grave to weep there.">John 11:31</a>; <a href="/john/11-33.htm" title="When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.">John 11:33</a>) which makes prominent their hostile position.<p><span class= "bld">Behold how he loved him!</span>—Or, more exactly, <span class= "ital">how He used to love him.</span> The word used is the strong word for love which the sisters had themselves used in <a href="/john/11-3.htm" title="Therefore his sisters sent to him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.">John 11:3</a>. “How He must have loved him,” they think, “during his life, if He thus sheds tears for him after his death!”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-37.htm">John 11:37</a></div><div class="verse">And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?</div>(37) <span class= "bld">And some of them said.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">But some of them said</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> another party of the Jews, differing from those mentioned in the last verse.<p><span class= "bld">Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind</span> <span class= "bld">. .?</span>—They refer to the greatest miracle which had taken place within the limits of their own knowledge. The other miracles of raising the dead they must have heard of, but had not believed. What they think of here is not raising the dead, but the possibility of preventing death; and their question is meant to imply that He could not have prevented this death. If He could, surely He would have done so for one whom He had loved, and would have come at once, instead of waiting until death had taken place. The inference they would draw is that, after all, the present failure is a proof that He did not open the eyes of the blind.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-38.htm">John 11:38</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.</div>(38) <span class= "bld">Jesus therefore again groaning in himself.</span>—See Note on <a href="/john/11-33.htm" title="When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.">John 11:33</a>. Their evil thoughts, expressed in <a href="/john/11-37.htm" title="And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?">John 11:37</a>, are the cause of this new emotion of anger.<p><span class= "bld">Cometh to the grave.</span>—Comp. <a href="/john/11-31.htm" title="The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goes to the grave to weep there.">John 11:31</a>. Here, as there, it would be better to render it <span class= "ital">sepulchre.</span> The same word occurs again in <a href="/john/12-17.htm" title="The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bore record.">John 12:17</a>; <a href="/context/john/19-41.htm" title="Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid.">John 19:41-42</a>; <a href="/context/john/20-1.htm" title="The first day of the week comes Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, to the sepulcher, and sees the stone taken away from the sepulcher.">John 20:1-11</a>.<p><span class= "bld">It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.</span>—The sepulchres were dug in the rock, either vertically, with an entrance from above (comp. Note on <a href="/luke/11-44.htm" title="Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.">Luke 11:44</a>), or horizontally, with an entrance from the side, and were frequently adaptations of natural caves. (Comp. Note on <a href="/matthew/27-60.htm" title="And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed.">Matthew 27:60</a>.) Such sepulchres remain to the present day, and travellers are shown one which is said to be that of Lazarus. The entrance is from above it by twenty-six steps; and this must have been so, if we press the words “lay upon it.” The original words, however, may certainly apply to the horizontal slab which closes the entrance to the sepulchre; and the identification of this particular sepulchre is to be received with caution. The tact of the body being laid in a sepulchre agrees with the general tone of the narrative that the family was one of substance.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-39.htm">John 11:39</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been <i>dead</i> four days.</div>(39) <span class= "bld">Martha, the sister of him that was dead.</span>—This fact of close relationship is mentioned again to account for her remark. We know, from the whole narrative, that she was his sister; but this verse would say, not simply that Martha spoke, but that that in Martha which was sister to him who was dead spoke. She thinks that the form of him she loved has now passed to corruption; she cannot bear that her own eyes or the eyes of others should see it.<p><span class= "bld">For he hath been dead four days.</span>—The word “dead” is not expressed in the Greek, which says literally, <span class= "ital">for he hath been of the fourth day;</span> and the thought is rather of the sepulchre than of death—“for he hath been in the sepulchre four days.” (Comp. <a href="/john/11-17.htm" title="Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already.">John 11:17</a>.) The body had been embalmed (<a href="/john/11-44.htm" title="And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave clothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them, Loose him, and let him go.">John 11:44</a>); but the manner of the Jews was to embalm only with spice, and to wrap in linen clothes (<a href="/context/john/19-40.htm" title="Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.">John 19:40-42</a>), and there is no evidence that they at any time followed the Egyptian method of embalming. The only instance of Jewish embalming mentioned in the Old Testament is that of Asa (<a href="/2_chronicles/16-14.htm" title="And they buried him in his own sepulchers, which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odors and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries' are: and they made a very great burning for him.">2Chronicles 16:14</a>).<p>The fact that the body had been in the sepulcher four days is given by the sister as a proof that decomposition must have taken place, and expositors have generally assumed that it was so. This is, however, not stated in the text, and the assumption is opposed by the fact that there was an interval during which the sepulchre was open, and Jesus prayed to the Father (<a href="/context/john/11-41.htm" title="Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me.">John 11:41-42</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-40.htm">John 11:40</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?</div>(40) <span class= "bld">If thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God.</span>—He takes her back to the promise which she had heard from the messengers (<a href="/john/11-4.htm" title="When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.">John 11:4</a>), and which had led to her brightest hopes, and reminds her too of His own teaching and her own faith (<a href="/context/john/11-21.htm" title="Then said Martha to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother had not died.">John 11:21-27</a>). Her last remark had more of the human and less of the divine than was contained in her earliest words (<a href="/john/11-22.htm" title="But I know, that even now, whatever you will ask of God, God will give it you.">John 11:22</a>). Then her faith had reached “whatsoever Thou shalt ask”; and later she had accepted the truth, “He that believeth in Me, though he have died, yet shall he live.” “Let her hold fast to this faith,” His words would now say, in a gentleness that is yet not wholly without rebuke, “and she shall see the glory of God.” By this more is meant than the restoration of Lazarus to physical life. That was seen by those who did not believe; for her it should be a sign, teaching that He is the Resurrection and the Life.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-41.htm">John 11:41</a></div><div class="verse">Then they took away the stone <i>from the place</i> where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up <i>his</i> eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.</div>(41) <span class= "bld">Then they took away the stone.</span>—This could be done without difficulty, for it would be nothing more than a rough slab placed at the entrance of the cave, to prevent the approach of jackals or other beasts of prey.<p><span class= "bld">From the place where the dead was laid </span>is omitted by all the better MSS. It is an unnecessary gloss, to explain what stone is meant.<p><span class= "bld">And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said . . .</span>—His attitude, as well as His words, is meant to express that the work which He is about to do, is one of the works from His Father.<p><span class= "bld">I thank thee that thou hast heard me.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">I thank Thee that Thou didst hear Me;</span> the time referred to being that of the offering of the prayer. Of this we have no notice. It was the will of the Son expressing itself in moral harmony with the will of the Father. “I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me” (<a href="/john/5-30.htm" title="I can of my own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father which has sent me.">John 5:30</a>; comp. <a href="/context/john/12-27.htm" title="Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I to this hour.">John 12:27-28</a>), and therefore in the expression receiving the answer. The promise of <a href="/john/11-4.htm" title="When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.">John 11:4</a> was the utterance of the divine will to the disciples and the messengers, and we are, it may be, to think of that moment as the time of its realisation by the Son.<p>This thanksgiving for the answer to His prayer has been uttered aloud in the presence of the multitude. The verse which follows was spoken to prevent a misunderstanding on the part of the disciples and in all times.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-42.htm">John 11:42</a></div><div class="verse">And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said <i>it</i>, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.</div>(42) <span class= "bld">And I knew that thou hearest me always.</span>—The meaning depends upon the emphatic position of the pronoun, “I, for My part, knew.” “It is not for My own sake that I speak these words.” This union of the will of the Father and the Son, by which every prayer of the Son was an expression of the will of the Father, and every work of the Father was in harmony with the will of the Son, was not exceptional, but the law of His human life. There is ever the consciousness, “I and My Father are one” (<a href="/john/10-30.htm" title="I and my Father are one.">John 10:30</a>).<p><span class= "bld">But because of the people which stand by I said it.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">because of the multitude.</span> He had before instructed the disciples and the sisters. He would instruct the multitude also, so that to them this “miracle” may be more than a wonder, and may teach them that He is sent of God. (Comp. Notes on <a href="/john/9-29.htm" title="We know that God spoke to Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from where he is.">John 9:29</a>; <a href="/john/9-31.htm" title="Now we know that God hears not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and does his will, him he hears.">John 9:31</a>; <a href="/john/10-21.htm" title="Others said, These are not the words of him that has a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?">John 10:21</a>.)<p>That which He said must be the words “I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me.” Some have referred them to the words of <a href="/john/11-4.htm" title="When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.">John 11:4</a>, but this is in itself improbable, and is besides excluded by the reference to the multitude.<p><span class= "bld">That they may believe that thou hast sent me.</span>—The pronoun is again emphatic. His words mean “That <span class= "ital">Thou</span> and none beside Thee.” They had ascribed the sight given to the blind to deceit, or the work of a demon. This sign is preceded by a thanksgiving to the God of heaven in the presence of them all. It is a solemn appeal, proving His divinity at once by the confidence in which He utters it, and by the answer which Heaven gives to it.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-43.htm">John 11:43</a></div><div class="verse">And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.</div>(43) <span class= "bld">He cried with a loud voice.</span>—Comp. <a href="/john/5-25.htm" title="Truly, truly, I say to you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.">John 5:25</a>; <a href="/john/5-28.htm" title="Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,">John 5:28</a>, and Notes there. These verses lead to the opinion that it was at the moment of the cry, and not before, as some have thought, that life returned. This is the only passage where the word rendered “cried” is used of our Lord. (Comp. <a href="/matthew/12-19.htm" title="He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets.">Matthew 12:19</a>.) It occurs again in this Gospel in <a href="/john/12-13.htm" title="Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that comes in the name of the Lord.">John 12:13</a>; <a href="/john/18-40.htm" title="Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.">John 18:40</a>; <a href="/john/19-6.htm" title="When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, Take you him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.">John 19:6</a>; <a href="/john/19-12.htm" title="And from thereafter Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If you let this man go, you are not Caesar's friend: whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar.">John 19:12</a>; <a href="/john/19-15.htm" title="But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.">John 19:15</a>.<p><span class= "bld">Lazarus, come forth.</span>—He addresses him as we should address a friend whom we wished to arouse from sleep, by his name, the most familiar of all sounds, and marking his personality. (Comp. <a href="/john/20-16.htm" title="Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned herself, and said to him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.">John 20:16</a>.) Literally, the Greek means, <span class= "ital">Lazarus, Hither, out!</span> and contains no verb. There is a fitness in them as addressed to one already lying in the sepulchre. Comp. “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise” (<a href="/luke/7-15.htm" title="And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother.">Luke 7:15</a>), and “Maid, arise” (<a href="/luke/8-54.htm" title="And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise.">Luke 8:54</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-44.htm">John 11:44</a></div><div class="verse">And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.</div>(44) <span class= "bld">And he that was dead came forth.</span>—“Wonder at a wonder within a wonder!” is Basil’s comment on these words; and many of the older expositors regard the power to move, when bound hand and foot, as itself a miracle. But this seems not to be necessary, and if not necessary, is not to be resorted to. (Comp. Note on <a href="/john/6-21.htm" title="Then they willingly received him into the ship: and immediately the ship was at the land where they went.">John 6:21</a>.) The grave-clothes may have been bound round the limbs separately, as in the Egyptian mummies, and this would not prevent motion; or (and this is more probable) the body may have been “wrapped in a linen cloth,” which encompassed the whole, except the head (<a href="/matthew/27-59.htm" title="And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,">Matthew 27:59</a>), but still left motion possible. The word rendered “grave-clothes” is used nowhere in the New Testament except in this passage. It means properly the bands or straps by which the linen sheet was fastened to the body, and which kept the spice from falling out. (Comp. <a href="/john/19-40.htm" title="Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.">John 19:40</a>.) We find it used elsewhere for straps and thongs generally. They were made of rushes, linen,, and other materials. The word is used once in the Greek of the Old Testament, where it means the belts by which beds are girded (<a href="/proverbs/7-16.htm" title="I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.">Proverbs 7:16</a>).<p><span class= "bld">And his face was bound about with a napkin.</span>—For the word “napkin,” comp. Note on <a href="/luke/19-20.htm" title="And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here is your pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin:">Luke 19:20</a>. It means here the cloth placed round the forehead and under the chin, but probably not covering the face.<p><span class= "bld">Loose him, and let him go.</span>—This command is in itself strong proof that the earlier part of the verse is not to be interpreted as a narrative of miraculous incidents.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-45.htm">John 11:45</a></div><div class="verse">Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.</div>(45) <span class= "bld">Then many of the Jews which came to-Mary, and had seen . . .</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">Many therefore of the Jews, which had come to Mary and seen .</span> . . The comma should be placed after the word Jews. The Greek cannot mean, “Then many of the Jews, <span class= "ital">i.e., of those</span> which came to Mary.” It must mean, “Many therefore of the Jews, <span class= "ital">i.e., all those</span> which had come to Mary.” The miracle is so utterly beyond all their conceptions that it carries conviction to every heart, and leaves no further possibility of doubt. They are called those “which had come to Mary,” because they had remained with her after Martha had gone to meet our Lord, and had followed her when she herself went.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-46.htm">John 11:46</a></div><div class="verse">But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.</div>(46) <span class= "bld">But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> necessarily, some of those who had been with Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, and had believed. But why did they then go and tell the Pharisees? It is contrary to their position as believers to think that they did this as informers against Jesus. What they have seen has carried conviction to their own minds, and they report it to the Pharisees, either as a proof that He really was the Messiah, or in any case to demand from them a judgment on the facts which they report.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-47.htm">John 11:47</a></div><div class="verse">Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.</div>[(3) LIFE, TRUTH, LIGHT, AND LOVE MORE FULLY MANIFESTED. CORRESPONDING INCREASE OF THE UNBELIEF OF THE JEWS (<span class= "ital">continued</span>)<span class= "ital">.</span><p>(<span class= "ital">b</span>)<span class= "ital">The council of the Jews. The decree of death against the Giver of Life</span> (<a href="/context/john/11-47.htm" title="Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man does many miracles.">John 11:47-53</a>).<p>(c)<span class= "ital">The withdrawal to Ephraim. Many seek for Jesus</span> (<a href="/context/john/11-54.htm" title="Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went there to a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples.">John 11:54-57</a>).<p>(<span class= "ital">d</span>)<span class= "ital">The supper at Bethany. Mary, Judas, the chief priests </span>(<span class= "ital">love, selfishness, hatred</span>) (<a href="/context/john/12-1.htm" title="Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.">John 12:1-11</a>).<p>(<span class= "ital">e</span>)<span class= "ital">The entry into Jerusalem. The King and His people</span> (<a href="/context/john/11-12.htm" title="Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.">John 11:12-19</a>).<p>(<span class= "ital">f</span>)<span class= "ital">The wider kingdom</span> (<a href="/context/john/11-20.htm" title="Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.">John 11:20-36</a>).<p>Certain Greeks would see Jesus. The firstfruits of the West (<a href="/context/john/11-20.htm" title="Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.">John 11:20-22</a>).<p>The seed and the harvest. Life in death (<a href="/context/john/11-23.htm" title="Jesus said to her, Your brother shall rise again.">John 11:23-26</a>).<p>(<span class= "ital">f</span>)<span class= "ital">The wider kingdom</span> (continued).<p>The world-wide attraction of the Cross. Light in darkness (<a href="/context/john/11-27.htm" title="She said to him, Yes, Lord: I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.">John 11:27-36</a>).<p>(<span class= "ital">g</span>)<span class= "ital">The final issue of the unbelief of the Jews.</span><p>(<span class= "greekheb"><span class= "ital">α</span></span>)The writer’s own judgment (<a href="/context/john/11-37.htm" title="And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?">John 11:37-43</a>)—<p>On no-faith (<a href="/context/john/11-37.htm" title="And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?">John 11:37-41</a>);<p>On half-faith (<a href="/context/john/11-42.htm" title="And I knew that you hear me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that you have sent me.">John 11:42-43</a>).<p>(<span class= "greekheb"><span class= "ital">β</span></span>)The Judgment of Jesus (<a href="/context/john/11-44.htm" title="And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave clothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them, Loose him, and let him go.">John 11:44-50</a>).<p>The rejection of light (<a href="/john/11-46.htm" title="But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.">John 11:46</a>); love (“that I might save the world,” <a href="/john/11-47.htm" title="Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man does many miracles.">John 11:47</a>); truth (<a href="/john/11-49.htm" title="And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said to them, You know nothing at all,">John 11:49</a>); life (<a href="/john/11-50.htm" title="Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.">John 11:50</a>).]<p>(47) <span class= "bld">Then gathered the chief priests and</span> <span class= "ital"><span class= "bld">the</span></span> <span class= "bld">Pharisees a council.</span>—Matters have reached too serious a stage for them to allow further delay. Opponents have become believers; enemies have become friends; and there are men of their own rank, and men with whom they had taken counsel against Him, who have now believed. The Pharisees go in their difficulty to the chief priests, who were for the most part Sadducees, and they together summon a meeting of the Sanhedrin.<p><span class= "bld">What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.</span>—The note of interrogation may be placed in the middle or at the end of the clause. The latter suits better the energy of their language. “What do we, seeing that this Man doeth many miracles?” They accept the testimony of the Jews who have come to them, and cannot longer throw doubt upon His miracles. The question is asked in the present tense; it is not a matter for future action. “What are we doing, seeing what this Man is doing?” They feel that they have been inactive but too long, while He has been daily gaining influence. The form of their question is a strange contradiction; they cannot but admit that He doeth many signs, and yet their pride will call Him by no name but the contemptuous “this Man!”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-48.htm">John 11:48</a></div><div class="verse">If we let him thus alone, all <i>men</i> will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.</div>(48) <span class= "bld">If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him.</span>—He who but a short time since had escaped from their stones and violence, and had retired to Bethany, was now within two miles of Jerusalem. One work had carried conviction to the minds of all who had seen it, though many of them were of their own party. Another such miracle in the city itself would carry conviction, they think, to the minds of all.<p><span class= "bld">And the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.</span>—The dread of the Roman power must have been constantly present to the Jews of that generation. They had seen Archelaus deposed, and a Roman procurator had come to carry into effect the enrolment decreed by Augustus (<a href="/luke/2-1.htm" title="And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.">Luke 2:1</a>). Pontius Pilate had suppressed outbreaks by violence in the Temple itself. There had been tumults in connection with the Corban money and with Barabbas. The Temple mountain was the site of the Roman fortress Antonia, and this dread power may at any moment destroy the national life, which only existed on sufferance.<p>The attempts to prove that “our place” can mean “the Temple” must now be given up; and if we attach a local meaning to the word we must understand it of Jerusalem. It may, however, be questioned whether the word has any local signification here. Like our words “standing,” and “place,” and “position,” it certainly may have a moral sense, and New Testament examples of this usage are frequent. (See <a href="/acts/1-25.htm" title="That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.">Acts 1:25</a>; <a href="/romans/15-23.htm" title="But now having no more place in these parts, and having a great desire these many years to come to you;">Romans 15:23</a>; <a href="/1_corinthians/14-16.htm" title="Else when you shall bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupies the room of the unlearned say Amen at your giving of thanks, seeing he understands not what you say?">1Corinthians 14:16</a>; <a href="/hebrews/12-17.htm" title="For you know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.">Hebrews 12:17</a>.) It is suggested that this sense is more in harmony with the feeling of the Pharisees. They possessed no local power; and the city could not be taken away from them more entirely than it already was. Their existence as rulers depended upon the Mosaic law and upon the services of the Temple. Round these centres they had gathered human tradition and ordinance, to which they clung because they only could interpret them, and they only could use the vast powers which were thus exercised over men. The Law had become practically an intricate system of tradition, and the Temple-service had become practically an intricate system of ritual. With this the Roman empire, following its usual policy, had not interfered, and the Jewish hierarchy had become the centre and the rulers of the national life. But in direct opposition to both of them had been the work and teaching of Christ. He had sought to establish for law and service the simplicity of their first spiritual principles. His spiritual teaching was a cutting to the very root of their whole being. If all the people believed on Him their <span class= "ital">raison d’être</span> would be gone, and the Romans would no longer suffer an <span class= "ital">imperium in imperio,</span> which they now allowed because it swayed the masses of the people. They would take both their position, and with it the rank which they still claimed as a nation.<p>The emphatic position of the word “our” should be noted, and also that “place and nation” are linked together as one complex thought attached to it.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-49.htm">John 11:49</a></div><div class="verse">And one of them, <i>named</i> Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all,</div>(49) <span class= "bld">And one of them, named Caiaphas.</span>—Comp. Notes on <a href="/matthew/26-3.htm" title="Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, to the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas,">Matthew 26:3</a>; <a href="/luke/3-2.htm" title="Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.">Luke 3:2</a>. His proper name was Joseph, and the name Caiaphas is the Syriac form of Cephas. He, like Peter, took the name of “Rockman,” as a title to indicate his work! For the succession of high priests at this time, see Jos. <span class= "ital">Ant. xviii.</span> 2, § 2. Caiaphas himself was priest from A.D. 26-36.<p><span class= "bld">Being the high priest that same year.</span>—The words occur again in <a href="/john/11-51.htm" title="And this spoke he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation;">John 11:51</a> and in <a href="/john/18-13.htm" title="And led him away to Annas first; for he was father in law to Caiaphas, which was the high priest that same year.">John 18:13</a>. They are used with a solemnity of meaning to express “that fatal and decisive year.”<p><span class= "bld">Ye know nothing at all.</span>—There had probably been various suggestions made by different members of the Sanhedrin which seemed to him to miss the mark, or to fall short of the one means which would have a successful issue.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-50.htm">John 11:50</a></div><div class="verse">Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.</div>(50) <span class= "bld">Nor consider that it is expedient for us . . .</span>—This remarkable counsel has linked itself in St. John’s thoughts with the name of Caiaphas. He quotes it again in <a href="/john/18-14.htm" title="Now Caiaphas was he, which gave counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people.">John 18:14</a>.<p><span class= "bld">Should die for the people, and that the whole nation . . .</span>—Different words are used here in the Greek, as in the English. The former word represents the theocratic people, those who were united together as the servants of God; the latter word is that which is used in <a href="/john/11-48.htm" title="If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.">John 11:48</a>, and represents the political nation as one of the nations of the earth.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-51.htm">John 11:51</a></div><div class="verse">And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation;</div>(51) <span class= "bld">And this spake he not of himself.</span>—There is a moral beauty in the Words, in spite of the diabolical intent with which they are uttered; and St. John adds the explanation that they had an origin higher than him who spake them. Writing after the events, he has seen them fulfilled, and regards them as an unconscious prophecy. Like another Balaam, Caiaphas was the oracle or God in spite of himself, and there is in his words a meaning far beyond any that he had intended.<p><span class= "bld">Being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation.</span>—He stood, therefore, in a relation which made him the official representative of God to the people, and gave him an official capacity to convey God’s truth. This was represented in the days of Samuel by the Urim and Thummim; and John, himself a Jew, still thinks of the high priest’s breast as bearing the oracle which declared the will of God, whatever unworthy human thoughts may have filled the heart beneath. It may be that another reference to the high priest’s office is present in these thrice-written words. It was the high priest’s duty to “enter within the veil,” and “make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year” (Leviticus 16). In that year the veil was rent, and the first step taken by which the holy place was destroyed, and the high priest’s office ceased to exist. With the destruction of the holy place the Jewish day of Atonement lost its significance, but the high priest that year, by his counsel and action in the Sanhedrin, was causing the sacrifice which should be presented by another high priest, in the Holy of Holies as an Atonement for the world—“Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption” (<a href="/context/hebrews/9-11.htm" title="But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;">Hebrews 9:11-12</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-52.htm">John 11:52</a></div><div class="verse">And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.</div>(52) <span class= "bld">And not for that nation only.</span>—Caiaphas had said “die for the people,” using the word which meant the people of the Jews. St. John said, “die for that nation,” using the wider word which meant the nation as one of the nations of the earth. He now passes to a wider meaning still. He has lived to see a partial fulfilment of the ingathering of the “other sheep” of <a href="/john/10-16.htm" title="And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.">John 10:16</a>, and he thinks of that death as for God’s children in all nations, who shall be one flock under one shepherd.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-53.htm">John 11:53</a></div><div class="verse">Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.</div>(53) <span class= "bld">Then from that day forth they took! counsel . . .</span>—On that day, then, the Sanhedrin officially decreed His death. The remaining question was how they could carry out this decree without exciting a popular tumult, or bringing themselves into collision with the Romans. (Comp. Note on <a href="/matthew/26-4.htm" title="And consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety, and kill him.">Matthew 26:4</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-54.htm">John 11:54</a></div><div class="verse">Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples.</div>(54) <span class= "bld">Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews.</span>—He had heard of the decree of the Sanhedrin which had been publicly made known (<a href="/john/11-57.htm" title="Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he were, he should show it, that they might take him.">John 11:57</a>), and therefore avoided persons who would have carried it into effect.<p>“The Jews” are, as before, the hostile party. The passage is a good illustration of St. John’s use of the term, for He was of course among Jews, in the ordinary meaning of the word, during the sojourn at Ephraim. (Comp. Note on <a href="/john/1-19.htm" title="And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you?">John 1:19</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">But went thence unto a country near to the wilderness.</span>—All the better MSS. read “unto the country . . .” as in contrast to the city, Jerusalem, where “the Jews” dwelt. He went from Bethany, when He had heard of what had taken place at Jerusalem, “into the country.” This is further defined as “near to the wilderness,” and then the name of the city is given.<p><span class= "bld">Into a city called Ephraim.</span>—The position of this “city” is not known. The MSS. spell it variously as <span class= "ital">Ephraim, Ephrem, Ephram,</span> and <span class= "ital">Ephratha.</span> Eusebius and Jerome both assumed it to be the same place as Ephron, but differed as to its position, the former fixing it at eight, and the latter at twenty miles, north-east from Jerusalem. Both would place it, therefore, in Judæa; and this agrees with its position “near to the wilderness,” for the desert of Judæa extended nearly as far as Jericho. In <a href="/2_chronicles/13-19.htm" title="And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him, Bethel with the towns thereof, and Jeshanah with the towns thereof, and Ephraim with the towns thereof.">2Chronicles 13:19</a>, we have an Ephrain or Ephron (according to the written text and the LXX.) in connection with the neighbourhood of Bethel. This is mentioned by Josephus (<span class= "ital">Wars,</span> iv. 9, § 9), and is near to the wilderness of Bethaven. It is possibly the place named here; but a Jew would naturally use the phrase, “the wilderness,” to mean the desert of Judæa. Dr. Robinson would identify Ephraim and Ephron with Ophrah (<a href="/joshua/18-23.htm" title="And Avim, and Pharah, and Ophrah,">Joshua 18:23</a>; <a href="/1_samuel/17-23.htm" title="And as he talked with them, behold, there came up the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, out of the armies of the Philistines, and spoke according to the same words: and David heard them.">1Samuel 17:23</a>), and fix the locality at the modern <span class= "ital">el-Taiyibeh,</span> four or five miles east from Bethel, and sixteen from Jerusalem, which would agree roughly with the position assigned by Jerome. We must be content to leave the matter in this uncertainty. (Comp. <span class= "ital">Note</span> on <a href="/luke/17-11.htm" title="And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the middle of Samaria and Galilee.">Luke 17:11</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-55.htm">John 11:55</a></div><div class="verse">And the Jews' passover was nigh at hand: and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves.</div>(55) <span class= "bld">And the Jews’ passover was nigh at hand.</span>—Comp. Notes on <a href="/john/2-13.htm" title="And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.">John 2:13</a>; <a href="/john/6-4.htm" title="And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was near.">John 6:4</a>.<p><span class= "bld">Out of the country.</span>—Not the country near Ephraim, but the country generally, as opposed to the city.<p><span class= "bld">To purify themselves.</span>—The Law ordained no special purifications before the Passover, but on the general principle of ceremonial cleanness, a large number of pilgrims would necessarily go up before the feast to observe the legal rites and offer the required sacrifices. The time required varied from one to six days. (Comp. <a href="/genesis/35-2.htm" title="Then Jacob said to his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments:">Genesis 35:2</a>; <a href="/context/exodus/19-10.htm" title="And the LORD said to Moses, Go to the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes,">Exodus 19:10-11</a>; <a href="/numbers/9-10.htm" title="Speak to the children of Israel, saying, If any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the passover to the LORD.">Numbers 9:10</a>; <a href="/context/2_chronicles/30-17.htm" title="For there were many in the congregation that were not sanctified: therefore the Levites had the charge of the killing of the passovers for every one that was not clean, to sanctify them to the LORD.">2Chronicles 30:17-18</a>; and Notes on <a href="/john/18-28.htm" title="Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas to the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover.">John 18:28</a>, and <a href="/acts/21-24.htm" title="Them take, and purify yourself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads: and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning you, are nothing; but that you yourself also walk orderly, and keep the law.">Acts 21:24</a>; <a href="/acts/21-26.htm" title="Then Paul took the men, and the next day purifying himself with them entered into the temple, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification, until that an offering should be offered for every one of them.">Acts 21:26</a>; <a href="/acts/24-18.htm" title="Whereupon certain Jews from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither with multitude, nor with tumult.">Acts 24:18</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-56.htm">John 11:56</a></div><div class="verse">Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple, What think ye, that he will not come to the feast?</div>(56) <span class= "bld">Then sought they for Jesus, and spake . . .</span>—The words imply a continuance of seeking and speaking. They describe the scene as it took place ay after day as they stood in the Temple courts. They had heard rumours of recent events in the various parts from which they had come. Many of them had seen and heard Him at earlier feasts at Jerusalem, and they wonder whether He will come to the Passover, or whether the decree of the Jews will deter Him.<p><span class= "bld">What think ye, that he will not come to the feast?</span>—The words contain two questions: <span class= "ital">What think ye? That He will not come to the feast?</span> He has not been seen in any of the caravans, and the place of His retirement is not known to them. They ask the question one of another; but the tone of doubt is prevalent.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/john/11-57.htm">John 11:57</a></div><div class="verse">Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he were, he should shew <i>it</i>, that they might take him.</div>(57) <span class= "bld">Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees.</span>—If the word rendered “both” is regarded as part of the text, it would connect this verse with the fact that the people sought for Jesus—“They on the one hand sought and asked questions about Him; but besides this, the chief priests and the Pharisees had given commandment . . .” But the great majority of the best MSS. omit the word, and we must therefore read, <span class= "ital">Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given commandment</span> . . . The words are an explanation of their question—“Will He come in the face of this commandment? “Their resolve to take Him has been arrived at as the result of their counsel (<a href="/john/11-53.htm" title="Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.">John 11:53</a>).<p><span class= "bld"><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers<br /><br />Text Courtesy of <a href="//biblesupport.com" target="_top">BibleSupport.com</a>. 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