Yohanes 11:30-44
Konteks11:30 (Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still in the place where Martha had come out to meet him.) 11:31 Then the people 1 who were with Mary 2 in the house consoling her saw her 3 get up quickly and go out. They followed her, because they thought she was going to the tomb to weep 4 there.
11:32 Now when Mary came to the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 11:33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the people 5 who had come with her weeping, he was intensely moved 6 in spirit and greatly distressed. 7 11:34 He asked, 8 “Where have you laid him?” 9 They replied, 10 “Lord, come and see.” 11:35 Jesus wept. 11 11:36 Thus the people who had come to mourn 12 said, “Look how much he loved him!” 11:37 But some of them said, “This is the man who caused the blind man to see! 13 Couldn’t he have done something to keep Lazarus 14 from dying?”
11:38 Jesus, intensely moved 15 again, came to the tomb. (Now it was a cave, and a stone was placed across it.) 16 11:39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” 17 Martha, the sister of the deceased, 18 replied, “Lord, by this time the body will have a bad smell, 19 because he has been buried 20 four days.” 21 11:40 Jesus responded, 22 “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you would see the glory of God?” 11:41 So they took away 23 the stone. Jesus looked upward 24 and said, “Father, I thank you that you have listened to me. 25 11:42 I knew that you always listen to me, 26 but I said this 27 for the sake of the crowd standing around here, that they may believe that you sent me.” 11:43 When 28 he had said this, he shouted in a loud voice, 29 “Lazarus, come out!” 11:44 The one who had died came out, his feet and hands tied up with strips of cloth, 30 and a cloth wrapped around his face. 31 Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him 32 and let him go.”
[11:31] 1 tn Or “the Judeans”; Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the friends, acquaintances, and relatives of Lazarus or his sisters who had come to mourn, since the Jewish religious authorities are specifically mentioned as a separate group in John 11:46-47. See also the notes on the phrase “the Jewish leaders” in v. 8 and “the Jewish people of the region” in v. 19.
[11:31] 2 tn Grk “her”; the referent (Mary) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
[11:31] 3 tn Grk “Mary”; the proper name (Mary) has been replaced with the pronoun (her) in keeping with conventional English style, to avoid repetition.
[11:31] 4 tn Or “to mourn” (referring to the loud wailing or crying typical of public mourning in that culture).
[11:33] 5 tn Or “the Judeans”; Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the friends, acquaintances, and relatives of Lazarus or his sisters who had come to mourn, since the Jewish religious authorities are specifically mentioned as a separate group in John 11:46-47. See also the notes on the phrase “the Jewish leaders” in v. 8, “the Jewish people of the region” in v. 19, and the word “people” in v. 31.
[11:33] 6 tn Or (perhaps) “he was deeply indignant.” The verb ἐνεβριμήσατο (enebrimhsato), which is repeated in John 11:38, indicates a strong display of emotion, somewhat difficult to translate – “shuddered, moved with the deepest emotions.” In the LXX, the verb and its cognates are used to describe a display of indignation (Dan 11:30, for example – see also Mark 14:5). Jesus displayed this reaction to the afflicted in Mark 1:43, Matt 9:30. Was he angry at the afflicted? No, but he was angry because he found himself face-to-face with the manifestations of Satan’s kingdom of evil. Here, the realm of Satan was represented by death.
[11:33] 7 tn Or “greatly troubled.” The verb ταράσσω (tarassw) also occurs in similar contexts to those of ἐνεβριμήσατο (enebrimhsato). John uses it in 14:1 and 27 to describe the reaction of the disciples to the imminent death of Jesus, and in 13:21 the verb describes how Jesus reacted to the thought of being betrayed by Judas, into whose heart Satan had entered.
[11:34] 8 tn Grk “And he said.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.
[11:34] 9 tn Or “Where have you placed him?”
[11:34] 10 tn Grk “They said to him.” The indirect object αὐτῷ (autw) has not been translated here for stylistic reasons.
[11:35] 11 sn Jesus wept. The Greek word used here for Jesus’ weeping (ἐδάκρυσεν, edakrusen) is different from the one used to describe the weeping of Mary and the Jews in v. 33 which indicated loud wailing and cries of lament. This word simply means “to shed tears” and has more the idea of quiet grief. But why did Jesus do this? Not out of grief for Lazarus, since he was about to be raised to life again. L. Morris (John [NICNT], 558) thinks it was grief over the misconception of those round about. But it seems that in the context the weeping is triggered by the thought of Lazarus in the tomb: This was not personal grief over the loss of a friend (since Lazarus was about to be restored to life) but grief over the effects of sin, death, and the realm of Satan. It was a natural complement to the previous emotional expression of anger (11:33). It is also possible that Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus because he knew there was also a tomb for himself ahead.
[11:36] 12 tn Or “the Judeans”; Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the friends, acquaintances, and relatives of Lazarus or his sisters who had come to mourn, since the Jewish religious authorities are specifically mentioned as a separate group in John 11:46-47. See also the notes on the phrase “the Jewish leaders” in v. 8 and “the Jewish people of the region” in v. 19, as well as the notes on the word “people” in vv. 31, 33.
[11:37] 13 tn Grk “who opened the eyes of the blind man” (“opening the eyes” is an idiom referring to restoration of sight).
[11:37] 14 tn Grk “this one”; the second half of 11:37 reads Grk “Could not this one who opened the eyes of the blind have done something to keep this one from dying?” In the Greek text the repetition of “this one” in 11:37b referring to two different persons (first Jesus, second Lazarus) could confuse a modern reader. Thus the first reference, to Jesus, has been translated as “he” to refer back to the beginning of v. 37, where the reference to “the man who caused the blind man to see” is clearly a reference to Jesus. The second reference, to Lazarus, has been specified (“Lazarus”) in the translation for clarity.
[11:38] 15 tn Or (perhaps) “Jesus was deeply indignant.”
[11:38] 16 sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.
[11:39] 17 tn Or “Remove the stone.”
[11:39] 18 tn Grk “the sister of the one who had died.”
[11:39] 19 tn Grk “already he stinks.”
[11:39] 20 tn Or “been there” (in the tomb – see John 11:17).
[11:39] 21 sn He has been buried four days. Although all the details of the miracle itself are not given, those details which are mentioned are important. The statement made by Martha is extremely significant for understanding what actually took place. There is no doubt that Lazarus had really died, because the decomposition of his body had already begun to take place, since he had been dead for four days.
[11:40] 22 tn Grk “Jesus said to her.”
[11:41] 23 tn Or “they removed.”
[11:41] 24 tn Grk “lifted up his eyes above.”
[11:41] 25 tn Or “that you have heard me.”
[11:42] 26 tn Grk “that you always hear me.”
[11:42] 27 tn The word “this” is not in the Greek text. Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when clear from the context.
[11:43] 29 sn The purpose of the loud voice was probably to ensure that all in the crowd could hear (compare the purpose of the prayer of thanksgiving in vv. 41-42).
[11:44] 30 sn Many have wondered how Lazarus got out of the tomb if his hands and feet were still tied up with strips of cloth. The author does not tell, and with a miracle of this magnitude, this is not an important fact to know. If Lazarus’ decomposing body was brought back to life by the power of God, then it could certainly have been moved out of the tomb by that same power. Others have suggested that the legs were bound separately, which would remove the difficulty, but the account gives no indication of this. What may be of more significance for the author is the comparison which this picture naturally evokes with the resurrection of Jesus, where the graveclothes stayed in the tomb neatly folded (20:6-7). Jesus, unlike Lazarus, would never need graveclothes again.
