John 11:1 - Exposition

Now a certain (man) was sick, (named) Lazarus, of Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister Martha . The certain man who was sick, Lazarus (or Eleazar) by name, £ was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. The two prepositions ἀπὸ and ἐκ generally denote procession from, but the latter implies closer and more intimate original association; they here are put in apposition, though there are passages where they are discriminated ( Luke 2:4 ; Acts 23:1-35 . 34; R.T. of Revelation 9:18 ). The contention of Gresswell that ἀπὸ referred to present residence, and ἐκ to nativity, and that the κώμη was to be found in Galilee, is not sound (see John 12:21 ; John 19:38 ). Bethany is mentioned to distinguish it from "Bethany beyond Jordan," referred to in John 1:28 (see note). The town is now known as El Azirieh , and is about a mile and a half from Jerusalem, on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. Simonis interpreted the name to mean "house of depression," "valley-town" היָּנִעֲ־תיבֵּ (Lightfoot); Reland derives its name from ינֵיהִ־תיבֵּ , "house of dates" (see Matthew 21:17 ). It seems that palm branches could be then torn from the trees in the neighborhood. Arnold (Herzog., 'Enc.') derives its name from איָּנְעֲ־תיבֵּ (Aramaic), "house of the afflicted." The village has become well known in the circle of evangelic narrative from St. Luke's reference to Mary and Martha ( Luke 10:38 , etc.). Mary's name is probably mentioned first from the further record of her ecstatic love, which the other Gospels were diffusing through the world, and to which John makes an anticipatory reference. Her name had not been given before. In Matthew 26:13 and Mark 14:3 she was "a certain woman." Jn throws light on the ground of her gratitude. The efforts made by Bunyan, in his 'Jerusalem Sinner Saved,' and by Hengstenberg, to defend the pre-Reformation identification of "Mary" with the "Magdalene," and the Magdalene with the woman that was a sinner (cf. Luke 7:37 with Luke 8:2 ), rest on insufficient grounds. The identification of the two anointings with each other is without justification. All the circumstances are different—the time, the place, the obvious reason, the motive assigned by our Lord, the conversations which followed. If a woman who was a sinner had taken such a step , and this expression of her gratitude had been accepted by Jesus, Mary of Bethany found more ample reason for following her example (see Dr. Schaff's admirable and extended reply to Hengstenberg). B. Weiss acutely observes that this reference shows that in the circle for which the evangelist wrote Bethany was known as the home of the sisters, and Mary as the heroine of the anointing incident. Numerous other identifications, i . e . of Simon the Leper with Simon the Pharisee, Martha with Simon's wife, are precarious. Dean Plumptre's identification £ of Lazarus with the "rich young man" who is supposed to have given his all away to the poor, and who possessed nothing but a solitary garment; and his subsequent identification with the young man who fled away naked on the night of Christ's arrest, are specimens of ingenuity, but carry no conviction. The contrast between the ideas involved in the parable of Luke 16:1-31 . and this narrative is so profound that we dismiss the hypothesis of the identity of the two Lazaruses. Strauss, Keim, and others deal with it as an expansion of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, who is supposed actually to have been sent unto the people from the dead, but, in agreement with our Lord's prediction, winning no obedience. Vehement efforts are made in this and other ways to undo the commanding significance of the miracle. Bishop Wordsworth and Archdeacon Watkins are disposed to identify the Lazarus of the parable and the Lazarus of Bethany; the latter supposes the parable to have been delivered at the very time mentioned in Persea. Our Lord's statement, that the brothers of the rich man would not believe though one rose from the dead, was in some sense paralleled by the desire of the Jews to put Lazarus to death; but the reason given is that by reason of Lazarus "many of the Jews went away from them, and believed on Jesus" ( John 12:11 ; cf. also John 11:45 , "Many of the Jews, when they beheld what he did, believed on him").