John 11:38-39

“ Jesus therefore, shuddering in himself again, comes to the sepulchre; it was a cave and a stone was placed before it. 39. Jesus says, Take away the stone. The sister of the dead man Martha, says to him, Lord, by this time he stinketh; for he has been dead four days. ”

The new inward disturbance which Jesus feels is evidently called forth by the malevolent remark of the Jews (John 11:37); John himself gives us to understand this by the therefore (John 11:38). But this agitation seems to have been less profound than the first, and more readily overcome. This very natural detail is a new proof of the fidelity of the narrative.

The sepulchre was a cave dug in the rock, either horizontally or vertically. The verb ἐπέκειτο signifies, in the first case, that the stone was placed before the entrance of the cave; in the second, that it was placed on its opening. Numerous tombs are seen around Jerusalem both of the one form and the other. If the tomb which is shown at the present day as that of Lazarus, was really such, it was of the second sort. It is a cave hollowed out in the rock into which one descends by a narrow staircase of twenty-six steps. Robinson has proved the non-authenticity of the tradition on this point, as on many others. The stones by which these caves were closed might easily be removed; they were designed only to keep off wild beasts. There is between the second movement of indignation in Jesus and the decisive command: Take away the stone, a relation analogous to that which we have noticed between the first emotion of this kind and the question: Where have you laid him? We can easily imagine the state of expectation into which this question threw the whole company.

Did the remark of Martha (John 11:39), proceed, as some interpreters think, from a feeling of incredulity. But could she who hoped for the return of her brother to life before the promise of Jesus (John 11:22-23), have doubted after such a declaration? This is impossible. By this remark she does not by any means wish to prevent the opening of the sepulchre; she simply expresses the anxiety which is caused in her mind by the painful sensation about to be experienced by Jesus and the spectators because of one who was so near and dear to her. As the dead man's sister, she feels a kind of embarrassment and confusion. We must recall to mind how closely the idea of defilement was connected, among the Jews, with that of death and corruption. Here, therefore, is an exclamation dictated by a feeling of respect for Him to whom she is speaking: “ Lord,” and by a sort of delicacy for the person of him who is in question: the sister of the dead man. It has been thought (Weiss, Keil) that the affirmation of Martha: by this time he stinketh, was on her part only a supposition, since she justifies it logically by adding: For he is there four days already. But we must rather see in these words the declaration of a fact which she has herself ascertained by visiting the sepulchre; comp. John 11:31.

The words: For he is there...already, indicate the cause, not the proof, of the fact which the care of the two sisters had not been able to prevent. This reflection, far from proving, as Weiss thinks, that Lazarus had not been embalmed, implies, on the contrary, that he had been, with all possible care, but only after the manner of the Jews. Among the Egyptians the entrails and everything which readily decays were removed, while among the Jews the embalming was limited to wrapping the body in perfumes, which could not long arrest corruption. The expectation of Jesus' arrival had certainly not prevented them, as some have supposed, from performing this ceremony. Does not John 11:44 show that Lazarus had his limbs enveloped with bandages like other dead persons (comp. John 19:40)? But even if Martha's remark did not arise from a feeling of incredulity, the fact indicated might nevertheless occasion in her a failing of faith at this decisive moment; so Jesus exhorts her to raise her faith to the whole height of the promise which He has made to her.