What Does John 11:19 Mean?
And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.THE KEY
The comfort begins before grief is explained: people come close enough to share it.
THE MEANING
When grief holds you, this verse makes room for people to come near and meet you in sorrow over what is lost. Comfort can begin in their presence while the loss remains.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that grief must be solved before anyone can meet it dissolves here: the visitors come to comfort Martha and Mary while their brother’s death is still the pain before them.
THE ROOT
παρακαλέσαι
parakalesai
GROWS FROM
παρακαλέω
parakaleō
To comfort or console; in other contexts, to urge or appeal.
The Greek verb here means to comfort, and its word family also includes consolation and advocacy. The verse gives that comfort a concrete shape: people come to Martha and Mary and meet them in their grief.
ALSO GROWS
paraklēsis: Consolation, comfort, or appeal.
παράκλησις
This noun names the consolation offered here as something people can give and receive.
paraklētos: Advocate or helper.
παράκλητος
This related word carries the sense of support; it shows how the same Greek word family reaches beyond consolation to someone who stands for another.
THE PATTERN
Comfort takes shape when someone enters another person’s sorrow and stays present to it.
Now when Job's three friends heard of all this harm that had come upon him, they came each from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; for they had made an appointment together to come to shake their heads with him and to comfort him.Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.Who comforts us in all our pressure, so that we are able to comfort those in every pressure, through the same comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.THE THREAD
Who comforts us in all our pressure, so that we are able to comfort those in every pressure, through the same comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.John’s “comfort” and the repeated “comfort” in this verse come from the Greek family of παρακαλέω (parakaleō), meaning to comfort or console. The connection opens comfort as something that can be received in hardship and then shared with others.
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