Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.
Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus. Crowds of the Jews of Jerusalem hastened, it seems, to Bethany (scarcely two miles distant), not so much to see Jesus, whom they knew to be there, as to see the dead Lazarus who had been raised to life. This, as was to be expected, issued in immense accessions to Christ (John 12:19); and, as the necessary means of arresting these triumphs of the hated One, a plot is laid against the Life of Lazarus also: to such a pitch had these ecclesiastics come of diabolical determination not only to shut out the light from their own minds, but to extinguish it from the earth!
For Remarks on these three verses, see those on John 11:1-57.