What Does John 11:1 Mean in the King James?
Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Lazarus’s name carries the meaning “God has helped,” placing his real weakness inside a story whose name already holds help.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks of sickness without reducing Lazarus to it: he belongs within a town and a family. Lazarus (Λάζαρος, Lázaros) carries the name-sense of Eleazar (אֶלְעָזָר, ʾElʿāzār), “God has helped.” Your vulnerability, too, can be named truthfully while belonging and help remain part of the account.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A weak or sick body tells the whole truth about a person.
THE ROOT
ἀσθενῶν
asthenōn
GROWS FROM
σθεν
Strength or vigor; with the privative ἀ- in ἀσθενῶν, the sense is lacking strength.
The Greek word rendered “sick” carries the language of strength: Lazarus is described as lacking it. That root also appears in words for weakness and infirmity, keeping bodily vulnerability visible without making it the whole measure of a person.
ALSO GROWS
sthenos: Strength, vigor.
σθένος
This is the strength-word beneath the family; its presence clarifies the contrast carried by ἀσθενῶν, “lacking strength.”
asthenēs: Weak, without strength.
ἀσθενής
This adjective shares the σθεν consonants and makes the weakness in Lazarus’s condition explicit.
astheneia: Weakness, infirmity.
ἀσθένεια
This related noun appears in Romans 8:26, connecting Lazarus’s sickness with the weakness named there.
THE PATTERN
Weakness is named honestly while the person remains held within a wider relation and meaning.
Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.THE THREAD
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.John’s ἀσθενῶν (asthenōn, “sick” or “lacking strength”) and Romans’ ἀσθένεια (astheneia, “weakness” or “infirmity”) share the σθεν root. Romans also names πνεῦμα (pneuma, “breath”) as present within weakness, opening a connection between frailty and breath.
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