Jesus
The name "Jesus" is derived from the Greek "Iēsous," which corresponds to the Hebrew name "Yeshua" or "Joshua," meaning "Yahweh is salvation." This name is significant as it encapsulates the mission and identity of Christ as the Savior of humanity. In this context, the use of "Jesus" emphasizes His humanity and divinity, reminding us that He is both fully God and fully man. Theologically, this dual nature is crucial because it allows Jesus to empathize with human suffering while possessing the divine power to overcome it.

wept
The Greek word used here is "edakrysen," which is a verb indicating a moment of deep emotional response. Unlike other Greek terms for weeping that might suggest loud wailing, "edakrysen" implies a more subdued, personal expression of grief. This choice of word highlights the genuine compassion and empathy of Jesus. His tears are not just for Lazarus, but for the pain and suffering of humanity as a whole. Historically, this moment is profound because it shows that Jesus, though divine, fully participates in the human experience, including sorrow and loss. This verse, the shortest in the Bible, powerfully conveys the depth of Christ's love and His willingness to enter into our suffering. It serves as a reminder that in our moments of grief, we are not alone; Jesus is with us, sharing in our pain and offering comfort.

(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 ...


Jesus
Ἰησοῦς (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)