Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
And—rather, "But."
some . . . said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that this man should not have died?—The former exclamation came from the better-feeling portion of the spectators; this betokens a measure of suspicion. It hardly goes the length of attesting the miracle on the blind man; but "if (as everybody says) He did that, why could He not also have kept Lazarus alive?" As to the restoration of the dead man to life, they never so much as thought of it. But this disposition to dictate to divine power, and almost to peril our confidence in it upon its doing our bidding, is not confined to men of no faith.
When Jesus . . . saw her weeping, and the Jews . . . weeping . . . he groaned in the spirit—the tears of Mary and her friends acting sympathetically upon Jesus, and drawing forth His emotions. What a vivid and beautiful outcoming of His "real" humanity! The word here rendered "groaned" does not mean "sighed" or "grieved," but rather "powerfully checked his emotion"—made a visible effort to restrain those tears which were ready to gush from His eyes.
and was troubled—rather, "troubled himself" (Margin); referring probably to this visible difficulty of repressing His emotions.
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