When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.
the Jews.
Romans 12:15 Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
he groaned.
John 11:38 Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
John 12:27 Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.
Mark 3:5 And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
was troubled.
Genesis 43:30,31 And Joseph made haste; for his bowels did yearn upon his brother: and he sought where to weep; and he entered into his chamber, and wept there…
Genesis 45:1-5 Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren…
and the Jews who had come with her also weeping
The presence of the Jews indicates the communal nature of mourning in Jewish culture. In first-century Judea, mourning was a public and communal event, often involving professional mourners. This cultural practice is evident in passages like Jeremiah 9:17-18, where wailing women are called upon to lament. The Jews' participation in the mourning process shows the close-knit community and the shared grief over Lazarus's death, emphasizing the impact of his loss.
He was deeply moved in spirit
The phrase "deeply moved" can be translated from the Greek word "embrimaomai," which conveys a sense of strong emotion, often associated with indignation or anger. This suggests that Jesus' reaction was not just sadness but a profound disturbance at the effects of sin and death in the world. This aligns with Romans 8:22, where creation is described as groaning under the weight of sin. Jesus' response here foreshadows His ultimate victory over death through His resurrection.
and troubled
The term "troubled" indicates an inner turmoil or agitation. This reflects Jesus' awareness of the spiritual battle against sin and death. It connects to His later experience in the Garden of Gethsemane, where He is described as being "sorrowful and troubled" (Matthew 26:37-38). This emotional response highlights the cost of redemption and the depth of Jesus' love for humanity, as He prepares to demonstrate His power over death by raising Lazarus and ultimately through His own resurrection.
• Jesus has just arrived in Bethany and meets Mary, whose brother Lazarus has died (John 11:32).
• Her tears are real, personal grief; Jesus notices. He never overlooks individual sorrow (Luke 7:13; Psalm 56:8).
• Scripture records Jesus as omniscient, yet He still “saw” her pain, demonstrating that God’s foreknowledge never diminishes His present compassion (Hebrews 4:15).
• The mourners are sincere friends (John 11:19). Their shared lament highlights corporate grief—suffering rarely stays isolated.
• Their presence fulfills Romans 12:15: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.”
• Jesus’ ministry consistently touches crowds as well as individuals (Mark 5:38-40), showing the Shepherd cares for the flock and the one sheep alike.
• This is not detached sympathy; it is a stirring within His very being. The verb signals strong emotion.
• Jesus’ response illustrates that righteous anger and compassion can coexist—He confronts death’s tyranny even while feeling love (1 Corinthians 15:26; Isaiah 25:8).
• His emotion assures us that God’s Spirit grieves over sin’s consequences; we never face sorrow alone (Ephesians 4:30).
• The term conveys agitation, a holy unrest. Jesus is not confused; He is stirred to action.
• Moments later He will raise Lazarus (John 11:43-44), proving that divine empathy moves toward deliverance.
• This agitation prefigures His own anguish before the cross (John 12:27), reminding believers that Christ’s path to victory carries real cost (Hebrews 5:7-9).
John 11:33 shows Jesus fully engaged with human pain—seeing tears, sharing grief, feeling inner turmoil—while simultaneously opposing the power of death. His compassionate agitation reassures us that the Lord not only understands our sorrows but also acts to redeem them.
(33) He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.--The word rendered "groaned" occurs, besides in this verse and John 11:38, three times in the New Testament; in Matthew 9:30 ("and Jesus straitly charged them"); Mark 1:43 ("and He straitly charged him"); and Mark 14:5 ("and they murmured against her"). Comp. Notes at these places. The original meaning of the word is "to snort, as of horses." Passing to the moral sense, it expresses disturbance of the mind--vehement agitation. This may express itself in sharp admonition, in words of anger against a person, or in a physical shudder, answering to the intensity of the emotion. In each of the passages in the earlier Gospels the word is accompanied by an object upon which the feeling is directed. In the present context it does not go beyond the subject of the feeling. Here it is "in the spirit" (comp. John 13:21); and in John 11:38 it is "in Himself." Both mean the same thing; and point to the inner moral depth of His righteous indignation; the object of it, however, is not expressed. . . . Verses 33-44. -(3) The struggle with death. Verse 33. - When Jesus therefore saw her walling, and the Jews wailing who came with her, he was moved with indignation in the spirit, and troubled himself. The sight of the wailing Mary and the wailing Jews, who took up her grief and, according to Oriental custom, adopted her expression of it with loud cries and emphatic gestures, praising the dead, and lamenting his loss, produced a most wonderful impression on the Lord Jesus. Meyer thinks that the contrast between their hypocritical or professional tears and her genuine emotion, the blending of these incongruous elements, the combination of a profound affliction of a dear friend and the simulated grief of his bitter enemies, led him to manifest the feeling here described. But we have no right to import such an element into the scene. The concerted wailing was, however, the occasion of what is described in very remarkable terms, ἐνεβριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι καὶ ἐτάραξεν ἑαυτόν. The first expression occurs again in ver. 38. Westcott says in the three places where it elsewhere occurs (Matthew 9:30; Mark 1:43; Mark 14:5) there is "the notion of coercion arising out of displeasure," a motion "towards another of anger rather than sorrow." The verb βριμάομαι and its compounds is used in the classics and the LXX. in the sense of hot anger, neither pain nor grief (though it is not very evident that it goes so far as this in Mark 1:43). Luther translated it ergrimmete, and Passow gives no other meaning. This seems generally accepted. But at what was Jesus angered? This can be answered only by deciding whether τῷ πνεύματι is the dative of the object, or whether it is the instrument or sphere of his holy indignation. According to the old Greek expositors, Origen, Chrysostom, Cyril, Theophylact - and they are followed by Alford and Hilgenfeld, the latter of whom finds in it a hint of the Gnostic Christology which, in his opinion, pervades the Gospel - the anger might have been directed against his own human spirit, at that moment tempted into an unfilial strain of sympathy with the mourners; yet, if this be its meaning, why was it that Jesus subsequently wept himself? and why, instead of exciting himself, instead of shuddering with his bitterness of feeling, did he not (as Hengstenberg says) compose and quiet himself? Beside, τῇ ψυχῇ would have been a far more appropriate term to use for the effective and sympathetic part of his nature than πνεύματι. It is possible, if "the spirit" expresses that part of his human nature in special fellowship with the Father, to suppose that he felt a certain antagonism with that within himself which had prompted to some immediate manifestation of Divine power, and to translate, "He sternly checked his spirit." But the miracle of Divine struggle with death followed so immediately that this cannot be the true explanation (Westcott suggests it as an alternative, but not the best interpretation). The τῷ πνεύματι, must be the sphere of his holy wrath, for which we must find some explanation. Meyer's seems (as already said) to be altogether insufficient. So also in our opinion is that of Godet, viz. that this act of victorious conflict with death, on which he was entering, involved his own death-warrant by being the occasion of the last outbreak of malice on the part of the Jews. Such a fact would be out of harmony, not only with the Fourth Gospel, but with the (synoptic) struggle in Gethsemane. Now, without enumerating various other interpretations of the passage, we think Augustine, Erasmus, Luthardt, Hengstenberg, Moulton, meet our difficulty by the suggestion that death itself occasioned this indignation. Though, like the good Physician in the house of mourning, he knew the issue of his mighty act, yet he entered with vivid and intense human sympathy into all the primary and secondary sorrows of death. He saw the long procession of mourners from the first to the last, all the reckless agony, all the hopelessness of it, in thousands of millions of instances. There flashed upon his spirit all the terrible moral consequences of which death was the ghastly symbol. lie knew that within a short time he too, in taking upon himself the sins of men, would have taken upon himself their death, and there was enough to rouse in his spirit a Divine indignation, and he groaned and shuddered. He roused himself to a conflict which would be a prelibation of the cross and the burial. He took the diseases of men upon himself when he took them away. He took the death-agony of Lazarus and the humiliation of the grave and the tears of the sisters upon himself when he resolved to cry, "Lazarus, come forth!" and to snatch from the grasp of the grim conqueror for a little while one of his victims. Compare the toil of Hercules in wrestling with death for the wife of Admetus. Compare also John 13:21, where moral proximity to the treacherous heart and ghastly deed and approaching doom of Judas made him once more to shudder.
Parallel Commentaries ...