(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.

For the rendering "and was troubled" the margin gives, as the exact force of the Greek, "and He troubled Himself"; and this is to be preferred. These words do not express the inner emotion; for that has been expressed in the strong words which have gone before. They point rather to the physical movement which accompanied the emotion, and made known to others the indignation which was excited in His own spirit. The force of the whole sentence would require, in English, some such rendering as "He was indignant in the spirit, and caused Himself to shudder."

Very different views have been put forth as to the cause of this intensity of emotion in our Lord. The cause supplied by the text is that He saw Mary lying at His feet weeping; and the Jews also weeping which came with her. Real sorrow, which calls forth all His sympathy, is accompanied by the mockery of sorrow, which can shed tears for the brother, whom they afterwards seek to kill (John 12:10)! These Jews are those who had sought to stone their Teacher, and had resolved to cut off from all religious and social intercourse every one who acknowledged Him as the Messiah! With hearts full of hatred they can profess to be comforters, and can mingle their tears with hers. The severest words that fell from the lips of Christ were those which denounced the hypocrisy of priests, Pharisees, and scribes. It is this hypocrisy which now stirs in His spirit an anger so intense that it causes nerve and muscle and limb to tremble beneath its force.

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.

11:33-46 Christ's tender sympathy with these afflicted friends, appeared by the troubles of his spirit. In all the afflictions of believers he is afflicted. His concern for them was shown by his kind inquiry after the remains of his deceased friend. Being found in fashion as a man, he acts in the way and manner of the sons of men. It was shown by his tears. He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Tears of compassion resemble those of Christ. But Christ never approved that sensibility of which many are proud, while they weep at mere tales of distress, but are hardened to real woe. He sets us an example to withdraw from scenes of giddy mirth, that we may comfort the afflicted. And we have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. It is a good step toward raising a soul to spiritual life, when the stone is taken away, when prejudices are removed, and got over, and way is made for the word to enter the heart. If we take Christ's word, and rely on his power and faithfulness, we shall see the glory of God, and be happy in the sight. Our Lord Jesus has taught us, by his own example, to call God Father, in prayer, and to draw nigh to him as children to a father, with humble reverence, yet with holy boldness. He openly made this address to God, with uplifted eyes and loud voice, that they might be convinced the Father had sent him as his beloved Son into the world. He could have raised Lazarus by the silent exertion of his power and will, and the unseen working of the Spirit of life; but he did it by a loud call. This was a figure of the gospel call, by which dead souls are brought out of the grave of sin: and of the sound of the archangel's trumpet at the last day, with which all that sleep in the dust shall be awakened, and summoned before the great tribunal. The grave of sin and this world, is no place for those whom Christ has quickened; they must come forth. Lazarus was thoroughly revived, and returned not only to life, but to health. The sinner cannot quicken his own soul, but he is to use the means of grace; the believer cannot sanctify himself, but he is to lay aside every weight and hinderance. We cannot convert our relatives and friends, but we should instruct, warn, and invite them.When Jesus therefore saw her weeping,.... At his feet, who, for sorrow and grief of heart, could say no more to him; but having expressed these words, burst out into floods of tears:

and the Jews also weeping, which came with her; either through sympathy with her, or hypocritically:

he groaned in the spirit; in his human soul; and which shows, that he had a real human soul, subject to passions, though sinless ones. The word signifies an inward motion of the mind, through indignation and anger; and it may be partly at the weakness of Mary's faith, and at her immoderate sorrow; and partly at the hypocrisy of the Jews: or else this inward groaning was through grief, sympathizing with Mary, and her friends, his human soul being touched with a fellow feeling of their griefs and sorrows:

and was troubled; or troubled himself; threw himself into some forms and gestures of sorrow, and mourning, as lifting up his eyes, wringing his hands, and changing the form of his countenance.