Lazarus
“Where have you put him?” He asked. John 11:34 · Berean Standard Bible
Jesus asks, 'Where have you put him?' They answer, 'Come and see, Lord.'
Jesus already knows the answer, but He asks because He's fully entering into their experience. He walks with them to the place of death.
Jesus asks about the tomb's location, and the mourners invite Him to come.
There's something profoundly human about Jesus asking to be shown where. He could have known, but He walks with them. He enters their grief completely.
Jesus asks where Lazarus has been laid, and they invite Him to 'come and see' (erchou kai ide)—an ironic echo of the disciples' invitation to others in 1:39, 46, now applied to a tomb rather than a living encounter.
The phrase 'erchou kai ide,' used earlier for encountering the living Christ, now invites Jesus to encounter death. The inversion will soon be reversed again when Jesus transforms the tomb into a place of life.
Jesus asks for the tomb's location, and the mourners invite Him to come see.
The question and response carry deep irony: Jesus, the resurrection and the life, asks to be led to death's domain—not to surrender to it but to conquer it.
32When Mary came to Jesus and saw Him, she fell at His feet and said, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”
33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
34“Where have you put him?” He asked.
35Jesus wept.
36Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!”
Read all of John 11 — Jesus weeps at a tomb. Then He calls a dead man out of it. The shortest verse in the Bible and the most powerful — separated by minutes.
This page covers one. BibleKey does all 31,102 — tap any verse for its meaning, any word for its Hebrew or Greek root, and keep reading without leaving the chapter.
Not just the famous ones. BibleKey is free on iPhone and iPad.
Download on the App StoreFree on iPhone & iPad