For who but Himself could trouble Him? Christ was troubled, because it pleased Him to be troubled; He hungered, because it pleased Him to hunger. It was in His own power to be affected in this or that way or not. The Word took up soul and flesh, and whole man, and fitted it to Himself in unity of person. And thus according to the nod and will of that higher nature in Him, in which the sovereign power resides, He becomes weak and troubled.
And said, Where have you laid him? He knew where but He asked to try the faith of the people.
The question has an allusion too to our hidden calling. That, predestination by which we are called, is hidden; and the sign of its being so is our Lord asking the question. He being as it were in ignorance, so long as we are ignorant ourselves. Or because our Lord elsewhere shows that He knows not sinners, saying, I know you not, because in keeping His commandments there is no sin.
The Lord sees when He pities, as we read, Look upon my adversity and misery, ...
It is customary to mourn over the death of friends; and thus the Jews explained our Lord’s weeping: Then said the Jews, Behold how He loved him.
A cave is a hollow in a rock. It is called a monument, because it reminds us of the dead.
Or, these are not words of despair, but of wonder.
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, &c. You will ask, of what nature was the groaning and trouble of Christ?
First, Eusebius Emissenus, or rather Gallus: He groaned that He might teach us to groan over sinners. (Infremuit) that Isaiah , He groaned: But the groan is of one who pities, the murmur of one who is indignant. Nonnus translates agitated or disturbed by His fatherly mind. But this is too general, nor does it explain what or of what nature this trouble was.
Secondly, Theophylact by spirit understands Divinity; as if it were said, Jesus by His Spirit, i.e, by His Divinity, powerfully and as if by groaning, repressed His tears and the feeling of commiseration which was aroused in Him because of the lamentation of Mary and of the Jews, lest bursting forth into tears; and sobbing like others, He might speak in a voice weak and tearful, such as would be unfitting one so grave and holy.
To this agree S. Chrysostom and others, who by "murmur" understand the feeling of anger, indig...
Or thus we must understand the words: He groaned in the spirit and was troubled, viz:----as equivalent to: "Being moved to compassion by reason of many weeping, He in a manner gave commandment to His own Spirit to overthrow death before the time, and to raise up Lazarus." And it is not as being ignorant that He asks: Where have ye laid him? For He Who had known of Lazarus' death when He was in another part of the country, how could He be ignorant about the tomb? But He speaks thus as being averse to arrogance: therefore He did not say: "Let us go to the tomb, for I will awaken him," although asking the question particularly in the way He did has this significance. Moreover also by saying this, He prepared many to go before Him that they might shew Him that which He sought. With a set purpose therefore He said this also, drawing by His words many to the place, and appears not to know, not at all shrinking from the poverty of man's condition, although in His Nature God and knowing all th...
He groaned in the spirit, and troubled himself. The Latin and Greek, both in this and the 38th verse, express a more than ordinary inward trouble. Christ, as he was truly man, had the affections and passions of human nature; yet so that he was master, even of the first motions, which could not raise in him any disturbance or disorderly inclinations. He permitted, therefore, and, as it is said, raised in himself these affections of compassion and grief at this time. (Witham)
Christ did not answer Mary, as He had her; sister, on account of the people present. In condescension to them He humbled Himself, and let His human nature be seen, in order to gain them as witnesses to the miracle: When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in His spirit, and was troubled.
He did not wish to thrust the miracle upon them, but to make them ask for it, and thus do away with all suspicions.
He had not yet raised anyone from the dead; and seemed as if He came to weep, not to raise to life. Wherefore they say to Him, Come and see.
It was His enemies who said this. The very works, which should have evidenced His power, they turn against Him, as if He had not really done them. This is the way that they speak of the miracle of opening the eyes of the man that was born blind. They even prejudge Christ before He has come to the grave, and have not the patience to wait for the issue of the matter. Jesus therefore again groaning ...
To prove His human nature He sometimes gives it free vent, while at other times He commands, and restrains it by, the power of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord allows His nature to be affected in these ways both to prove that He is very Man, not Man in appearance only; and also to teach us by His own example the due measures of joy and grief. For the absence altogether of sympathy and sorrow is brutal, the excess of them is womanly.
Martha said this from weakness of faith, thinking it impossible that Christ could raise her brother, so long after death.
Christ reminds Martha of what He had told her before, which she had forgotten: Jesus said to her, Said I to you, that, if you would believe, you should see the glory of God?
