What Does John 11:39 Mean?
Jesus said, Lift away the stone. Martha, sister of the one who had died, said to him, Lord, by now he stinks, for he has been dead four days.
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
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.THE KEY
The command to lift the stone opens the grave while leaving its unmistakable evidence of death fully exposed.
THE MEANING
The verse lets you name what is unmistakable: death has been present long enough to leave a smell, and no one denies it. Yet the first command is to move the stone, opening the closed place before life is called into it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that visible decay means a place is beyond reach. Martha’s report remains true; it does not settle what happens next.
THE ROOT
ἄρατε
árate
GROWS FROM
αἴρω
αἴρω (airō) means to lift, raise, take up, or remove.
“Lift away” in this verse is árate. The command ἄρατε comes from αἴρω, a verb that holds lifting and removal together: the stone is taken away by lifting it out of the way. The grave is opened through a concrete act that exposes what is inside; the text does not conceal the reality Martha names.
ALSO GROWS
epairō: To lift up or raise
ἐπαίρω
This compound retains the αἴρω core, making the physical sense of lifting audible in the command to move the stone.
apairō: To lift off, remove, or depart
ἀπαίρω
This compound makes the removal sense explicit: what seals the tomb is cleared away.
THE PATTERN
The boundary of death is not closed to divine action: graves open, and the dead hear a call into life.
Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the ground of Israel.Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear and respond to his voice,And he came and touched the bier, and those carrying him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say to you, Wake.THE THREAD
And when he had said these things, he cried out with a great voice, Lazarus, come out!The stone is commanded away first; then Lazarus is called from within. The sequence makes opening the grave part of the encounter with death, not a detail skipped over by the call.
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