John 11:35
Jesus wept.
WEB
Jesus wept.
KJV
What John 11:35 means
At the grave of his friend Lazarus, and moments before raising him from the dead, Jesus breaks down and weeps; the Bible's shortest verse shows God himself grieving.
John 11:35 is famous for being the shortest verse in the Bible: in English, just two words, "Jesus wept."
It falls in the middle of one of the Gospels' most dramatic scenes. Jesus' friend Lazarus has died, and Jesus arrives at the tomb to find Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha, and a crowd of mourners in deep grief. Within minutes he will call Lazarus out of the grave alive.
What makes the verse remarkable is that Jesus weeps even though he already knows he is about to raise his friend. He is not crying because the situation is hopeless.
The verses around it say he was "deeply moved" and "troubled," and in that culture public mourning was loud and communal, with professional wailers and crowds. Into that, the Gospel records something simpler and stranger: the one with power over death stands at the grave and cries with the grieving.
A detail lives in the Greek that the translation smooths over.
The word rendered "deeply moved" a few lines earlier (embrimaomai) can carry the sense of indignation or anger, not only sorrow, as if Jesus is angry at death itself rather than merely sad. And the verb for "wept" here is different from the loud wailing of the crowd; it suggests quiet tears. Two plain words on the surface, and underneath them grief mixed with a kind of holy protest against death.