Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
All Commentaries on John 11:1 Go To John 11
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Lazarus, a man honourable and rich, and therefore another person than the Lazarus who lay full of sores at the doors of the rich glutton ( Luke 16)
Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha, in which, i.e, they dwelt as honoured residents, and as disciples and hostesses of Christ.
Mystically, Bethany is in the Hebrew the house of affliction, according to the Syriac version, and this agrees to the circumstances; for the sickness and death of Lazarus afflicted both him and his sisters.
Secondly, Bethany is house of obedience.
Thirdly, Bethany, says Pagninus, is the same as the house of reply, or of the Lord"s hearing, because there Christ heard the prayer of Martha and Mary, interceding for the life of Lazarus.
John passes from what Christ did in the Feast of the Dedication, as appears from John 10:22, to the doings of Christ a little before the last Passover, as appears in John 5:55; that Isaiah , he leaps from December to March: he omits therefore the doings of Christ in January and February, because Luke relates those at length from chapters15. to19.
