Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to John · About this commentary
Lazarus, Come Out!
John 11:38-44
38 Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay against it. · WEB
He tells them to move the stone, prays out loud for the crowd's benefit, and shouts a name.
Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay against it John 11:38.
The anger is noted a second time, at the tomb itself. And the description is exact — a rock chamber with a stone rolled against the mouth, which is what he will be laid in himself within a week.
"Take away the stone" John 11:39.
The instruction is given to men with hands. A voice that is about to call a dead man out of a cave could plainly have moved a stone, and it does not. What people can do, people are told to do — as the servants filled the jars at Cana and the man washed at Siloam.
"Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days."
Martha's objection is the most human sentence in the chapter, and it is why the verse is unforgettable. Ten minutes ago she made a full confession of faith on the road; now the stone is about to come off and she is thinking about the smell.
Faith and revulsion in the same person within a page, and the account does not treat it as hypocrisy. It is what people are like.
"Didn't I tell you that if you believed, you would see God's glory?" John 11:40. The reminder is gentle and the order in it is the reverse of what she wants: believing comes before seeing, not after.
Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you that you listened to me. I know that you always listen to me, but because of the multitude standing around I said this, that they may believe that you sent me" John 11:41–42.
The prayer is unusual in two ways and he explains both. It is thanks rather than a request — the asking has already happened, somewhere the account does not record, most likely during the two days of waiting. And it is spoken aloud deliberately, for the crowd.
He says so, which is the striking part. There is nothing performed about it; he tells them that he is praying out loud so they will understand where the next thing comes from. Everything in this Gospel is about the sending, and the last public sign is being labeled before it happens.
He cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" John 11:43.
A shout, at a sealed cave, at a man four days dead. And a name — the same shepherd who calls his own sheep by name John 10:3, two chapters earlier.
The voice is worth holding beside a sentence in chapter five: the hour comes in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out John 5:28–29. That is exactly what is being demonstrated, once, in front of witnesses, on a small scale.
He who was dead came out, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth John 11:44.
The detail is grotesque and it is the sign of a witness. He does not stride out; he is bound, shuffling, with his face covered. Nothing here is dignified.
It is also worth comparing with what is found in another tomb in nine chapters, where the cloths are lying by themselves and nobody needed to be unwrapped John 20:6–7. Lazarus came back into the same life and would need the wrappings again. That is the difference between a resuscitation and a resurrection.
"Free him, and let him go."
The last instruction is given to the bystanders again. He raises the dead; they untie the grave clothes.
settled What this mark means