Lazarus has almost no words in the Gospels, yet his story is among the most vivid. In John 11 Jesus stands at a cave with a stone across it, and Martha warns, “by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.” Jesus asks for the stone to be rolled away, prays aloud, and then calls, “Lazarus, come forth.” The dead man walks out still wrapped in graveclothes, and Jesus tells those standing near, “Loose him, and let him go.” John adds that many believed because of it, and the chief priests plotted against Lazarus as well.
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Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.
Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.
And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death;
Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.
Matthew George Easton, 1897
An abbreviation of Eleazar, whom God helps. (1.) The brother of Mary and Martha of Bethany. He was raised from the dead after he had lain four days in the tomb (John 11:1-44). This miracle so excited the wrath of the Jews that they sought to put both Jesus and Lazarus to death.
(2.) A beggar named in the parable recorded Luke 16:19-31.
William Smith, 1884
(whom God helps), another form of the Hebrew name Eleazar.
(1.) Lazarus of Bethany, the brother of Martha and Mary. (John 11:1) All that we know of him is derived from the Gospel of St. John, and that records little more than the facts of his death and resurrection. The language of (John 11:1) implies that the sisters were the better known. Lazarus is "of Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister Martha." From this and from the order of the three names in (John 11:5) we may reasonably infer that Lazarus was the youngest of the family. All the circumstances of John 11 and 12 point to wealth and social position above the average.
(2.) The name of a poor man in the well-known parable of (Luke 16:19-31) The name of Lazarus has been perpetuated in an institution of the Christian Church. The leper of the Middle Ages appears as a lazzaro . The use of lazaretto and lazarhouse for the leper hospitals then founded in all parts of western Christendom, no less than that of lazaroni for the mendicants of Italian towns, is an indication of the effect of the parable upon the mind of Europe in the Middle Ages, and thence upon its later speech.