John 11:38

(Hom. lxiii. 2) But why did He not raise him without taking away the stone? Could not He who moved a dead body by His voice, much more have moved a stone? He purposely did not do so, in order that the miracle might take place in the sight of all; to give no room for saying, as they had said in the case of the blind man, This is not he. Now they might go into the grave, and feel and see that this was the man. (Hom. lxiii. 2) Thus every thing tends to stop the months of the unbelieving. Their hands take away the stone, their ears hear Christ's voice, their eyes see Lazarus come forth, they perceive the smell of the dead body.

He cometh then to the tomb; and again rebuketh His feelings. Why doth the Evangelist carefully in several places mention that "He wept," and that, "He groaned"? That thou mayest learn that He had of a truth put on our nature. For when this Evangelist is remarkable for uttering great things concerning Christ more than the others, in matters relating to the body, here he also speaketh much more humbly than they. For instance, concerning His death he hath said nothing of the kind; the other Evangelists declare that He was exceedingly sorrowful, that He was in an agony; but John, on the contrary, saith, that He even cast the officers backwards. So that he hath made up here what is omitted there, by mentioning His grief. When speaking of His death, Christ saith "I have power to lay down My life", and then He uttereth no lowly word; therefore at the Passion they attribute to Him much that is human, to show the reality of the Dispensation. And Matthew proves this by the Agony, the trouble, the trembling, and the sweat; but John by His sorrow.

Jesus therefore again groaning. Here the second point is touched upon, namely the sign of being heard, which is manifested in this, that he came to the tomb and caused the stone to be removed: and compassion moved him to do these things. Therefore he …

1540 The Evangelist, after having given certain preambles to the raising of Lazarus, now presents the raising itself. He considers four things: first, Christ's arrival at the tomb; second, the removal of the stone (v 39); third, Christ's prayer; and fourth, the actual raising of …

A cave is a hollow in a rock. It is called a monument, because it reminds us of the dead. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. (non occ. [Nic.]) Or, these are not words of despair, but of wonder.

Why does the Evangelist again note that Jesus wept and grieved out of compassion? So that we may know that He truly clothed Himself in our nature. John, compared with the other Evangelists, proclaims the highest teaching about the Lord and theologizes something great; therefore, …

It was a cave - So Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their wives, except Rachel, were buried in the cave of Machpelah, Gen. xlix, 29-31. These caves were commonly in rocks, which abounded in that country, either hollowed by nature or hewn by art. And the entrance was shut up with a great stone, which sometimes had a monumental inscription.

Jesus therefore groaning in himself,....

It was a cave, etc. - It is likely that several of the Jewish burying-places were made in the sides of rocks; some were probably dug down like a well from the upper surface, and then hollowed under into niches, and a flat stone, laid down upon the top, would serve for a door. Yet, from what the evangelist says, there seems to have been something peculiar in the formation of this tomb.

These verses record one of the greatest miracles the Lord Jesus Christ ever worked, and supply an unanswerable proof of His divinity. He whose voice could bring back from the grave one that had been four days dead, must indeed have been very God! The miracle itself is described in such simple language that no human comment can throw light upon it. But the sayings of our Lord on this occasion are peculiarly interesting, and demand special notice. We should mark, first, our Lord's words about the STONE which lay upon the grave of Lazarus.

Jesus again groaning in himself--that is, as at Joh 11:33, checked or repressed His rising feelings, in the former instance, of sorrow, here of righteous indignation at their unreasonable unbelief; (compare Mr 3:5) [WEBSTER and WILKINSON].

The word here rendered "groaned" does not mean "sighed" or "grieved," but rather "powerfully checked his emotion"--made a visible effort to restrain those tears which were ready to gush from His eyes. and was troubled--rather, "troubled himself" (Margin); referring probably to this visible difficulty of repressing His emotions.

These verses record one of the greatest miracles the Lord Jesus Christ ever worked, and supply an unanswerable proof of His divinity. He whose voice could bring back from the grave one that had been four days dead, must indeed have been very God! The miracle itself is described in such simple language that no human comment can throw light upon it. But the sayings of our Lord on this occasion are peculiarly interesting, and demand special notice. We should mark, first, our Lord's words about the STONE which lay upon the grave of Lazarus. We read that He said to those around Him, when he came to the place of burial, "Take you away the stone." Now why did our Lord say this? It was doubtless as easy for Him to command the stone to roll away untouched as to call a dead body from the tomb. But such was not His mode of proceeding. Here, as in other cases, He chose to give man something to do. Here, as elsewhere, He taught the great lesson that His almighty power was not meant to destroy man's responsibility. Even when He was ready and willing to raise the dead, He would not have man stand by altogether idle. Let us treasure up this in our memories. It involves a point of great importance. In doing spiritual good to others—in training up our children for heaven—in following after holiness in our own daily walk—in all these things it is undoubtedly true that we are weak and helpless. "Without Christ we can do nothing." But still we must remember that Christ expects us to do what we can. "Take you away the stone" is the daily command which He gives us. Let us beware that we do not stand still in idleness, under the pretense of humility. Let us daily try to do what we can, and in the trying Christ will meet us and grant His blessing. We should mark, secondly, the words which our Lord addressed to MARTHA, when she objected to the stone being removed from the grave.

It was a cave - This was a common mode of burial. See the notes at Mat 8:28. A stone lay upon it - Over the mouth of the cave. See Mat 27:60.