What Does John 11:17 Mean in the King James?
Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already.
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
Even after four days in the tomb, the Greek word for “grave” names a place of remembrance, not erasure.
THE MEANING
Jesus arrives and finds Lazarus already four days in the tomb; the condition is settled, not new. The reader stands where time has gathered around what seems finished, with Jesus present at that very point. The grave remains within the reach of remembrance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a loss becomes unreachable once it has lasted beyond repair.
THE ROOT
μνημεῖον
mnēmeion
GROWS FROM
μνη-
Remembering, keeping in mind.
The word for “grave” belongs to the Greek family of remembering: it can mean a tomb or memorial. English “grave” names the place of death; the Greek also carries the sense of a place held in remembrance.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmē: memory, remembrance
μνήμη
This branch makes explicit the remembrance carried within the word for the tomb.
mnēmoneuō: remember, call to mind
μνημονεύω
This related word shows the same consonantal family at work in the act of remembering.
THE PATTERN
A grave can hold a condition for a time, but it cannot place life beyond the reach of God’s call.
Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith 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 land of Israel.Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:THE THREAD
The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record.The same Greek noun translated “grave” here returns when Lazarus is called out of his tomb. The word links the place where he is found with the place from which he is summoned.
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