sleep," He proclaims His deliberate intention and purpose to raise Lazarus from the dead. He boldly challenges the attention of the disciples, and declares that He is going to Bethany, to restore a dead man to life. Never was bolder declaration made. None surely would make it but One who knew that He was very God.
" I go," is equivalent to saying, " I am at once setting forth on a journey to Bethany." The expression, that " I may awake him out of sleep," is one word in Greek, and is equivalent to " that I may unsleep him." What our Lord went to do at Bethany, He is soon coining to do for all our friends who are asleep in Christ. He is coming to awaken them.
Some commentators have thought that Lazarus died in the very moment that our Lord said, " Our friend sleepeth," and that it means, "Lazarus has just fallen asleep and died." But this is only conjecture, though doubtless our Lord knew the moment of his decease.
Let it be noted that our Lord says, "I go," in the singular number, and not " Let us go." Does it not look as if He meant, "Whether you like to go or not, I intend to go?"
Hall remarks : " None can awaken Lazarus out of this sleep, but He that made Lazarus. Every mouse or gnat can raise us up from that other sleep ; none but an omnipotent power from this."
12. — {Then said.. .disciples... sleep. ..well.'] It seems strange that the disciples should misunderstand our Lord's words, considering how commonly death was called sleep. But their unwillingness to go into Judaea probably made them shut their eyes to our Lord's real meaning.
Most writers think that the disciples referred to the general opinion, that sleep in a sickness is a sign of amendment. Some, however, suggest that they had gathered from the messenger sent by Martha and Mary what was the precise nature of Laza- rus' illness, and therefore knew that it was one in which sleep was a favourable symptom.
The Greek word for " he shall do well," is curious. It is the same that is often rendered " shall be made whole." Some- times it is " healed," and generally "saved."
The latent thought is manifest : " If Lazarus sleeps, he is get- ting better, and there is no need of our going to Judaea."
13. — [Hoiobeit Jesus spake, etc.] This verse is one of those ex- planatory glosses which St. John frequently puts into his nar- rative parenthetically. The three first words of the verse would be more literally rendered, "But Jesus had spoken."
How the disciples could have " thought " or " supposed " that our Lord meant literal sleep, and not death, seems strange, when we remember that Peter, James, and John, had heard Him