JesusThe name "Jesus" is the Greek form of the Hebrew name "Yeshua" or "Joshua," meaning "The Lord is salvation." In the context of
John 11, Jesus is the central figure, the Messiah, who performs miracles and teaches about the Kingdom of God. This passage occurs during His ministry, shortly before His crucifixion. Jesus is in Bethany, a village near Jerusalem, where He has come to raise Lazarus from the dead. This act is a significant demonstration of His divine authority and foreshadows His own resurrection.
wept.
The act of weeping here is significant as it shows Jesus' humanity and His deep compassion. In the cultural context of the time, public mourning was common, and tears were a natural expression of grief. Jesus' weeping demonstrates His empathy and love for Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha. It also reflects His sorrow over the effects of sin and death in the world. This moment connects to other scriptures where Jesus shows compassion, such as inMatthew 9:36, where He is moved with compassion for the crowds. Additionally, it fulfills the prophecy of the Suffering Servant inIsaiah 53:3, who is "a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief." Jesus' tears also serve as a type of His ultimate sacrifice, where He would bear the sins of humanity, showing His deep love and commitment to His mission.
Persons / Places / Events
1.
JesusThe central figure in this passage, Jesus is the Son of God, who demonstrates His humanity and compassion through His tears.
2.
LazarusA close friend of Jesus who has died, prompting Jesus to visit Bethany and ultimately raise him from the dead.
3.
Mary and MarthaSisters of Lazarus, who are mourning their brother's death. Their interaction with Jesus highlights His empathy and love.
4.
BethanyThe village where Lazarus, Mary, and Martha lived, located near Jerusalem. It is the setting for this miraculous event.
5.
The JewsThose who were present to comfort Mary and Martha, witnessing Jesus' emotional response and the subsequent miracle.
Teaching Points
The Humanity of JesusJesus' tears reveal His genuine human emotions, affirming His full humanity alongside His divinity. This encourages us to embrace our emotions and recognize that they are part of God's design.
Empathy and CompassionJesus' weeping demonstrates His deep empathy and compassion for those who are suffering. As followers of Christ, we are called to show empathy and support to those in mourning or distress.
The Power of PresenceJesus' presence with Mary and Martha in their grief highlights the importance of being present with others in their times of need. Sometimes, our presence and shared sorrow can be more comforting than words.
Hope in SorrowWhile Jesus wept, He also knew the hope of resurrection. This teaches us that even in our deepest sorrow, we can hold onto the hope and promise of eternal life through Christ.
Bible Study Questions and Answers
1.What is the meaning of John 11:35?
2.How does John 11:35 reveal Jesus' empathy and compassion for human suffering?
3.What does Jesus weeping in John 11:35 teach about His divine nature?
4.How can we emulate Jesus' compassion in our daily interactions with others?
5.What Old Testament prophecies connect to Jesus' display of emotion in John 11:35?
6.How does understanding Jesus' empathy in John 11:35 deepen our relationship with Him?
7.Why did Jesus weep in John 11:35 if He knew He would raise Lazarus?
8.What does Jesus' weeping in John 11:35 reveal about His humanity and divinity?
9.How does John 11:35 challenge the perception of Jesus as emotionally detached?
10.What are the top 10 Lessons from John 11?
11.Did Jesus ever experience laughter?
12.What defines toxic positivity?
13.Why did Jesus weep?
14.Did Jesus weep?What Does John 11:35 Mean
Jesus“Jesus” isn’t just a name in this verse; it carries the full weight of who He is.
• The eternal Word made flesh (John 1:14), the One through whom “all things were made” (John 1:3).
• Fully divine—“the radiance of God’s glory” (Hebrews 1:3), yet also fully human, able to draw near to us in every experience (Hebrews 4:15).
• A personal Friend who “loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5), making His coming tears deeply relational, not distant or abstract.
• The promised Messiah who came “to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), including death itself, which He is about to overturn in Lazarus’s tomb.
Seeing the verse begin with “Jesus” reminds us that the One who is about to weep possesses both absolute power and perfect compassion.
wept.“Jesus wept.” (John 11:35) is the shortest sentence in Scripture, yet it pulls back the curtain on God’s heart.
• Not weakness but love. His tears flow even though He knows He will raise Lazarus moments later (John 11:43–44). Love engages the pain before it removes it.
• Shared sorrow. Like Paul’s call to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15), the Lord stands beside Mary and Martha and joins them in grief.
• Holy anger at death’s sting. Earlier He was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” (John 11:33), echoing God’s hatred of the curse that sin brought (Genesis 2:17;1 Corinthians 15:26).
• Assurance for us. Because He “has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15), His tears confirm He understands every tear we shed (Psalm 56:8;Psalm 34:18).
• A preview of victory.Revelation 21:4 promises a day when “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,” and Jesus’ present weeping points forward to the final end of weeping itself.
summaryTwo words reveal two majestic truths: the sovereign Son of God stands with us, and the Savior’s heart breaks with us. “Jesus” assures us of His power; “wept” assures us of His compassion. Together they guarantee that every tear we shed matters to Him, and every grave will one day give way to His resurrection power.
(35)
Jesus wept.--The word is different from that which is used to express weeping in
John 11:33; but this latter is used of our Lord in
Luke 19:41. The present word means not the cry of lamentation nor the wail of excessive grief, but the calm shedding of tears. They are on the way to the sepulchre, near to which they have now arrived. He is conscious of the power which He is about to exercise, and that the first result will be the glory of God (
John 11:4); but He is conscious also of the suffering hearts near Him, and the sympathy with human sorrow is no less part of His nature than the union with divine strength. Men have wondered to find in the Gospel which opens with the express declaration of the divinity of our Lord, and at a moment when that divinity was about to receive its fullest manifestation, these words, which point them still to human weakness. But the central thought of St. John's Gospel is "The Word was made flesh," and He is for us the Resurrection and the Life, because He has been manifested to us, not as an abstraction which the intellect only could receive, but as a person, living a human life, and knowing its sorrows, whom the heart can grasp and love. A "God in tears" has provoked the smile of the stoic and the scorn of the unbeliever; but Christianity is not a gospel of self-sufficiency, and its message is not merely to the human intellect. It is salvation for the whole man and for every man; and the sorrowing heart of humanity has never seen more clearly the divinity of the Son of Man than when it has seen His glory shining through His human tears.
Verse 35. -
Jesus wept. The shortest verse, but one of the most suggestive in the entire Scripture. The great wrath against death is subdued now into
tears of love, of sympathy, and of deep emotion. Jesus shed tears of sympathetic sorrow. This is in sacred and eternal refutation of the theory which deprives the incarnate Logos of St. John of human heart and spirit. These tears have been for all the ages a grand testimony to the fullness of his humanity, and also a Diving revelation of the very heart of God (see
Isaiah 25:8). It was not a
κλαυθμός, as the weeping over Jerusalem (
Luke 19:41), but profound and wondrous fellow-feeling with human misery in all its forms, then imaged before him in the grave of Lazarus. It is akin to the judicial blindness which has obscured for the Tübingen school so much of the glory of Divine revelation, that Baur should regard this weeping of Jesus as unhistorical.
Parallel Commentaries ...
Greek
JesusἸησοῦς(Iēsous)Noun - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 2424:Of Hebrew origin; Jesus, the name of our Lord and two other Israelites.wept.Ἐδάκρυσεν(Edakrysen)Verb - Aorist Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 1145:To shed tears, weep. From dakru; to shed tears.
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NT Gospels: John 11:35 Jesus wept (Jhn Jo Jn) 
