This verse occurs in John's narrative of the death of Lazarus of Bethany, a follower of Jesus. Lazarus's sisters—Mary and Martha—sent word to Jesus of their brother's illness and impending death, but Jesus arrived four days after Lazarus died. Jesus, after talking to the grieving sisters and seeing Lazarus's friends weeping, was deeply troubled and moved. After asking where Lazarus had been laid and being invited to come see him, Jesus wept. He then went to the tomb and told the people to remove the stone covering it, prayed aloud to his Father, and ordered Lazarus to come out, resurrected.[3]
Significance has been attributed to Jesus's deep emotional response to his friends' weeping, and his own tears, including the following:
Weeping demonstrates that Christ was a true man, with real bodily functions[5] (such as tears, sweat, blood, eating and drinking—note, for comparison, the emphasis laid on Jesus's eating during the post-resurrection appearances). His emotions and reactions were genuine; Christ was not an illusion or spirit (see the heresy of Docetism). Pope Leo I referred to this passage when he discussed the two natures of Jesus: "In His humanity Jesus wept for Lazarus; in His divinity he raised him from the dead."
The sorrow, sympathy, and compassion Jesus felt for all mankind.
The rage he felt against the tyranny of death over mankind.[6]
↑In the NIV, Job 3:2 is the shortest biblical verse. Whereas the KJV reads "And Job spake, and said," the NIV simply has "He said".
↑The shortest verse in the Greek New Testament is Luke 20:30 ("καὶ ὁ δεύτερος", "And the second") with twelve letters, according to the Westcott and Hort text. The shortest verse in the Pentateuch, Genesis 26:6, also has twelve letters in the original Hebrew. The shortest verse in the Hagiographa, 1 Chronicles 1:25, has nine letters in the original Hebrew.
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