John 11:40-45

11:40 Jesus responded, ¹  “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you would see the glory of God?” 11:41 So they took away ²  the stone. Jesus looked upward ³  and said, “Father, I thank you that you have listened to me. ⁴  11:42 I knew that you always listen to me, ⁵  but I said this ⁶  for the sake of the crowd standing around here, that they may believe that you sent me.” 11:43 When ⁷  he had said this, he shouted in a loud voice, ⁸  “Lazarus, come out!” 11:44 The one who had died came out, his feet and hands tied up with strips of cloth, ⁹  and a cloth wrapped around his face. ¹⁰  Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him ¹¹  and let him go.”

The Response of the Jewish Leaders

11:45 Then many of the people, ¹²  who had come with Mary and had seen the things Jesus ¹³  did, believed in him.

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¹ tn Grk “Jesus said to her.”

² tn Or “they removed.”

³ tn Grk “lifted up his eyes above.”

⁴ tn Or “that you have heard me.”

⁵ tn Grk “that you always hear me.”

⁶ tn The word “this” is not in the Greek text. Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when clear from the context.

⁷ tn Grk “And when.”

⁸ 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).

⁹ 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.

¹⁰ tn Grk “and his face tied around with cloth.”

¹¹ tn Grk “Loose him.”

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 and the phrase “people who had come to mourn” in v. 36.

¹³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.