Death meets the Resurrection and the Life. Jesus deliberately delays his arrival in Bethany until his friend Lazarus has been dead four days, then raises him from the tomb in his most dramatic sign yet. This miracle provokes radically different responses: many believe in Jesus, but the religious authorities decide he must die. The chapter marks a turning point as Jesus moves from public ministry toward his own death and resurrection.
The chapter opens with a triple identification (vv. 1-2): the sick man is named (Λάζαρος, the only named recipient of a Johannine sign), located (Βηθανία, "house of affliction" or "house of figs"), and connected back to a story John has not yet narrated—Mary's anointing of Jesus' feet (12:1-8). The retroactive reference (ἦν δὲ Μαρία ἡ ἀλείψασα) is striking; John addresses readers who already know the gospel tradition and assumes that their identification of Mary is more secure than the events about to unfold. The sisters' message in v. 3 is a model of restrained theology: they do not request action, only state a fact—"he whom You love is sick." The verb φιλεῖς (not ἀγαπᾷς) is deliberate and intimate; the family-language of friendship establishes that this miracle springs from personal affection, not abstract messianic agenda. John then doubles the love-vocabulary in v. 5 with ἠγάπα, signaling that the affectionate φιλία of v. 3 is contained within the broader divine ἀγάπη.
Verse 4 carries the chapter's interpretive frame: αὕτη ἡ ἀσθένεια οὐκ ἔστιν πρὸς θάνατον. The preposition πρός marks goal or telos—the sickness's destination is not death but δόξα. Yet the chapter will narrate Lazarus's death in plain words (v. 14, ἀπέθανεν). The apparent contradiction resolves theologically: death is not the terminus but a way-station to glorification. The ἵνα-clause specifies the purpose: ἵνα δοξασθῇ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ δι' αὐτῆς. This is the Johannine signature—the works of Jesus exist for the revelation of glory, and glory in this Gospel is consistently linked to the cross (12:23-24; 13:31-32; 17:1). The sign at Bethany is therefore also a rehearsal: Lazarus comes out of his tomb so that within days the One who summoned him will enter His own.
The narrator's editorial in v. 6—ὡς οὖν ἤκουσεν… ἔμεινεν δύο ἡμέρας—is theologically jarring and was clearly meant to be. The conjunction οὖν ("therefore") yokes the two-day delay directly to Jesus' love (v. 5), refusing the reader any sentimental softening. The delay is purposive, not passive. The four-day timeline that this delay engineers (vv. 17, 39) matters because rabbinic tradition (cf. Genesis Rabbah 100.7; Leviticus Rabbah 18.1) held that the soul hovered near the body for three days before departing decisively on the fourth—a folk-conviction that would render any "resuscitation" indistinguishable from a Lazarus already truly gone. Jesus' delay forecloses every category but resurrection.
Verses 7-10 form a rabbinic disputation in miniature. The disciples' ῥαββί (v. 8, the only place in John where the disciples address Him with this honorific, though see 1:38, 49) registers anxious deference—"Teacher, the Jews were just now (νῦν) seeking to stone you." The imperfect ἐζήτουν depicts ongoing intent rather than a discrete past event, and "just now" recalls the stoning attempts of 8:59 and 10:31. Jesus' reply in vv. 9-10 invokes the standard Jewish daylight-reckoning of twelve hours (m. Berakhot 1.1-2; cf. Matt 20:1-16). The saying operates simultaneously on three levels: practically (one walks safely while the sun is up), christologically (Jesus' earthly hour has its allotted span and is not yet expended), and ethically (the one who walks in fellowship with the Light of the world does not stumble; cf. 8:12, 9:5). The phrase τὸ φῶς οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν αὐτῷ ("the light is not in him") is emphatically interior—stumbling is not a fact about external darkness but about the absence of indwelling light.
Verses 11-15 trade on the Christian euphemism κοιμάομαι. The perfect κεκοίμηται ("has fallen asleep and remains so") is paradoxical: the perfect tense usually signals settled state, yet Jesus immediately announces his intent to ἐξυπνίσω—"awaken from sleep," a verb chosen (over the more common ἐγείρω) for its semantic precision. The disciples take εἶπεν περὶ τοῦ θανάτου for κοίμησιν τοῦ ὕπνου (literal sleep), forcing the παρρησίᾳ shift in v. 14: λάζαρος ἀπέθανεν. The aorist is blunt. χαίρω δι' ὑμᾶς in v. 15 is one of the strangest sentences in the Gospel—Jesus rejoices at His friend's death, not callously but pedagogically, because the sign demands the death to teach what could not otherwise be taught: ἵνα πιστεύσητε. Faith here is the goal, not the cause, of the miracle.
The unit closes (v. 16) on Thomas's tragicomic declaration. ἄγωμεν καὶ ἡμεῖς ἵνα ἀποθάνωμεν μετ' αὐτοῦ ("Let us also go that we may die with Him") fuses despair and devotion. He misreads the situation—Jesus is not going to die from stoning on this trip—but the deeper truth is right: discipleship does mean συναποθνῄσκειν with the Master (cf. Mark 8:34-35; Rom 6:8). Thomas's συμμαθηταί ("fellow-disciples," NT hapax) is striking: he addresses peers, not subordinates. The "Twin" who will later demand to put his finger in Jesus' wounds (20:25) here speaks first into the silence with a death-vow. John lets the irony stand uncorrected—Thomas's misunderstanding contains its own true word.
Love sometimes delays so that what it gives may be unmistakable; the two days Jesus stays where He is are not absence but the space He clears for resurrection to be unmistakably His own work.
The narrator in v. 17 marks the four-day count with deliberate emphasis: τέσσαρας ἤδη ἡμέρας ἔχοντα ἐν τῷ μνημείῳ. The verb ἔχοντα ("having") with a temporal accusative is idiomatic for "having spent (so much) time"; the perfect-aspect quality of the participle stresses settled state. Behind the detail stands the rabbinic tradition (later codified in Genesis Rabbah 100.7 and Leviticus Rabbah 18.1) that the soul lingered near the body for three days; on the fourth, decomposition foreclosed identification and the soul departed irrevocably. The four-day datum is therefore not a journalistic detail but a theological seal: any miracle Jesus now performs cannot be explained as resuscitation, only as resurrection. Bethany's proximity to Jerusalem (v. 18, fifteen stadia) ensures that the sign will be done under the gaze of the city's mourners—and indirectly under the gaze of the Sanhedrin.
The sisters' parallel speeches (vv. 21, 32) are framed identically: κύριε, εἰ ἦς ὧδε οὐκ ἂν ἀπέθανεν ὁ ἀδελφός μου. The conditional is contrary-to-fact past (εἰ + imperfect, then ἂν + aorist indicative). They are not accusing—both sentences are theological confessions: your presence and death are mutually exclusive. Yet from there the sisters diverge. Martha extends the confession (v. 22): ἀλλὰ καὶ νῦν οἶδα ὅτι ὅσα ἂν αἰτήσῃ τὸν θεὸν δώσει σοι ὁ θεός. The verb αἰτέω (rather than ἐρωτάω, the verb Jesus uses for His own asking of the Father, e.g., 14:16) marks her as still imagining Jesus as a particularly favored intercessor—the kind of holy man the rabbis told stories about (cf. m. Ta'anit 3.8 on Honi the Circle-Drawer). She has not yet grasped that He is the answer rather than the asker. Mary, by contrast, will fall at His feet and weep without further speech (v. 32)—her theology is not articulated but embodied.
Vv. 23-26 form the heart of the chapter and arguably of the Fourth Gospel's Christology. Jesus' bare future, ἀναστήσεται ὁ ἀδελφός σου, is heard by Martha in standard Pharisaic terms (v. 24: ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ). Jesus then collapses the eschatological future into His own person with the fifth ἐγώ εἰμι predicate-saying: ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἀνάστασις καὶ ἡ ζωή. The two nouns, governed by a single articular εἰμί, form a hendiadys—resurrection-and-life as a single Christological reality. The two-clause exposition that follows (vv. 25b-26a) operates in deliberate paradox. First, "the one believing into me, even if he dies (κἂν ἀποθάνῃ), will live (ζήσεται)"—addressing the case of the believer who has died physically, like Lazarus. Second, "everyone living and believing into me will absolutely never die into the age (οὐ μὴ ἀποθάνῃ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα)"—the οὐ μή construction is the strongest negation in Koine Greek; "into the age" is the eschatological "forever." The two statements together define resurrection on two registers: physical death is reversible because Jesus is the resurrection; the deeper "death into the age" is impossible for the believer because Jesus is the life. The closing question πιστεύεις τοῦτο; transforms doctrine into demand: faith must move from eschatological commonplace to personal christological confession.
Martha's reply in v. 27 is one of the great confessions of the Gospel, ranking with Peter's at Caesarea Philippi: σὺ εἶ ὁ χριστὸς ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἐρχόμενος. The perfect ἐγὼ πεπίστευκα ("I have believed and continue believing") makes faith a settled state rather than a momentary response. The threefold predicate (Christ + Son of God + Coming One) bundles every messianic title in Johannine vocabulary into one breath. Martha cannot follow Jesus' "I am the resurrection" exposition philosophically, but she answers the question put to her—she believes who He is, and from that confession the rest will follow. John uses Martha here in exactly the way Synoptic tradition uses Peter at Caesarea Philippi: the climactic confession that triggers the death-arc.
Vv. 28-32 transition by deliberate parallelism. Mary is summoned λάθρᾳ ("secretly")—Martha protects her sister from the public spectacle that the mourners' presence would create. Yet the secret cannot hold: the mourners notice Mary's hasty exit and follow, supposing she is going to the tomb to keep weeping (v. 31, ἵνα κλαύσῃ ἐκεῖ). The misreading is unwittingly providential—it brings the witnesses Jesus needs to the place He has chosen. Mary's posture (ἔπεσεν αὐτοῦ πρὸς τοὺς πόδας, v. 32) is more visceral than Martha's standing reception; her words are identical to Martha's, but her body has spoken what her words cannot. John records no further speech from her in this chapter; her testimony is grief and feet.
Vv. 33-37 register Jesus' inner turmoil with unusual specificity. Two verbs are paired: ἐνεβριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι ("He was indignant in spirit") and ἐτάραξεν ἑαυτόν ("He troubled Himself"). The first is rare and forceful, denoting snorting indignation; the second is reflexive, with Jesus as agent of His own agitation. The combination resists sentimentalization: this is not generic sorrow but a complex emotion in which grief, anger at death, and resolve are inseparable. The shortest verse, ἐδάκρυσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς, is dense with theology. The verb δακρύω (silent tears) differs from the κλαίω of the mourners (vv. 31, 33)—Jesus' grief does not adopt the conventional Mediterranean wail. The bystanders interpret His tears as φιλία (v. 36, ἐφίλει), and they are partially right: He did love Lazarus with personal affection. But the second group's question (v. 37, οὐκ ἐδύνατο… ποιῆσαι ἵνα καὶ οὗτος μὴ ἀποθάνῃ;) shifts the register from sympathy to challenge. The reference to "the one who opened the eyes of the blind" links chapter 11 explicitly to chapter 9—the same Isa 35:5/42:7 messianic-restoration vocabulary that the σχίσμα of 10:21 had invoked. The challenge is theologically precise: if the works are truly the Father's works, why this death? The answer the chapter gives is that there is a greater glory than prevention—there is resurrection itself.
The Greek leaves no escape: Jesus does not merely promise resurrection on the last day, He is resurrection itself, present-tense and personal, so that the question of what to do with death becomes the question of what to do with Him.
Daniel 12:2 (MT): וְרַבִּים מִיְּשֵׁנֵי אַדְמַת־עָפָר יָקִיצוּ אֵלֶּה לְחַיֵּי עוֹלָם וְאֵלֶּה לַחֲרָפוֹת לְדִרְאוֹן עוֹלָם ("And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt"). LSB: "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt." This is the canonical Hebrew Bible's clearest articulation of bodily resurrection unto a final, two-fold judgment, and it is the textual ground of Martha's confession in v. 24. The verb יָקִיצוּ ("they will awake") echoes the κοιμάω/ἐξυπνίζω pair Jesus used in vv. 11-12—those who sleep will be awakened. Isaiah 26:19 supplements: "Your dead will live; their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy." Ezekiel 37 furnishes the corporate-Israel resurrection vision (the valley of dry bones), where the same anastasis vocabulary takes covenantal form.
Jesus does not deny Martha's eschatological doctrine; He intensifies and reorders it. The "last day" she names is not abrogated (cf. 6:39-40, 44, 54) but anchored in His own person: the One who will raise the dead at the last day is the One standing before her. This is precisely the Johannine pattern of "realized eschatology"—the future hope is not delayed but inaugurated. The Daniel passage therefore stands not behind Martha's confession only but behind Jesus' "I am" as well: He is the One who, in Daniel's vision, shines like the brightness of the firmament (Dan 12:3), and He is also the One who awakens those who sleep in the dust.
"Deeply moved" for ἐνεβριμήσατο (v. 33) — LSB renders the verb's emotional intensity without flattening it to "groaned" (KJV) or "sighed" (RSV). The Greek's animal-snorting force resists soft translation; "deeply moved" preserves the agitation while acknowledging that English lacks a single word for indignant-grief. The marginal note that the verb can mean "indignant" is theologically important: Jesus is not weeping only in sympathy but reacting against death as enemy.
"Wept" for ἐδάκρυσεν (v. 35) — preserves the brevity of the original Greek's two-word sentence (ἐδάκρυσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς) while making the lexical distinction from κλαίω in v. 33 invisible in English. The footnote-conscious reader should note that LSB does not gloss the difference between silent tears (here) and audible wailing (the mourners), but the verbal distinction stands in the Greek and matters for the reading: Jesus weeps differently from those whose grief He shares.
"I am the resurrection and the life" for ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἀνάστασις καὶ ἡ ζωή (v. 25) — preserves the articular nouns (the resurrection, the life) rather than indefinite "a resurrection." The articles function as predicate-restrictive: not one resurrection among many, but the eschatological raising itself. LSB also preserves the bare ἐγώ εἰμι without adding "He" or smoothing—the divine-name resonance with Exod 3:14 and Isa 43:10-13 is allowed to stand.
"He who comes into the world" for ὁ εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἐρχόμενος (v. 27) — LSB preserves the present participle with full attributive force ("the one coming"), rather than past-tense smoothing ("who came"). The participle echoes 1:9 (ὁ ἐρχόμενος εἰς τὸν κόσμον) and 6:14, where the same construction is messianic shorthand. Martha's confession therefore links across the Gospel's macrostructure—she names Jesus with the same title the Baptist's witness and the Galilean crowds had reached for.
The narrative structure moves from Jesus' emotional state (v. 38) through human objection (v. 39) to divine promise (v. 40), then from public prayer (vv. 41-42) to commanding word (v. 43) and finally to miraculous result (v. 44). The repetition of λέγει ('he/she says') in verses 39-40 creates a rapid dialogue that heightens tension, while the shift to ἦραν ('they removed') and ἦρεν ('he raised') in verse 41 marks the transition from debate to action. The present tense verbs throughout give the narrative an immediacy—we are not merely told what happened but are made to witness it unfolding.
Jesus' prayer (vv. 41-42) is structurally remarkable: it is entirely thanksgiving, not petition. The perfect tense ἤκουσάς ('you have heard') indicates completed action with ongoing results—the Father has already heard, and that hearing remains in effect. The explanatory clause introduced by ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸν ὄχλον ('but because of the crowd') reveals the pedagogical purpose of the spoken prayer: not to inform God but to instruct witnesses. The ἵνα ('so that') clause articulates the ultimate goal—belief that the Father has sent the Son. This is Johannine theology compressed into a prayer: the works of Jesus reveal His identity as the sent one.
The command 'Λάζαρε, δεῦρο ἔξω' ('Lazarus, come forth') is grammatically simple but theologically profound—a vocative, an adverb of motion, and another adverb. No verb is needed; the imperatival force is carried by δεῦρο ('come here'). The economy of language mirrors the effortlessness of divine power. The response in verse 44 uses the aorist ἐξῆλθεν ('he came out') to mark the completed action, followed by perfect participles (τεθνηκώς, 'having died'; δεδεμένος, 'having been bound'; περιεδέδετο, 'had been wrapped around') that emphasize the state of the one who emerges—he is the dead man, still bearing the marks of death, yet alive. The final imperatives (Λύσατε, ἄφετε, 'unbind, let go') transfer agency to the witnesses, making them participants in the liberation from death's trappings.
Jesus does not merely reverse death; He commands it to release its captives. The loud cry that summons Lazarus is the same voice that will one day call all the dead from their graves—and none will remain bound.
The unit divides cleanly into the council scene (vv. 45-53), the strategic withdrawal (v. 54), and the festival pre-staging (vv. 55-57). The narrator opens with the bifurcated reaction that has been the chapter's thesis: πολλοὶ… ἐπίστευσαν εἰς αὐτόν, but τινὲς δὲ ἐξ αὐτῶν ἀπῆλθον πρὸς τοὺς Φαρισαίους. The verb θεασάμενοι (v. 45, "having beheld") is precise—John uses it (and the related theaomai) for sustained, contemplative seeing rather than glance. Those who beheld believed; those who reported did not. The same evidence produces opposite verdicts, and that is John's whole theological problem of vision.
The council's deliberation in vv. 47-48 is one of the most theologically loaded passages in the Gospel, and it is delivered without authorial intervention—John lets them indict themselves. They concede the σημεῖα explicitly: οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος πολλὰ ποιεῖ σημεῖα. They acknowledge, in other words, that the Isaianic-messianic signs catalog is being fulfilled. They concede the trajectory of belief: πάντες πιστεύσουσιν εἰς αὐτόν. What they fear, however, is τὸν τόπον καὶ τὸ ἔθνος—"the place and the nation." Τόπος ("place") is technical Second-Temple shorthand for the Temple (cf. 4:20, Acts 6:13-14, 21:28); ἔθνος is the Jewish polity under Roman tolerance. The irony is exquisite: they choose to kill the One whose works prove He is sent in order to preserve the Temple—and within forty years both Temple and nation will fall to the Romans they invoke. By saving the Temple by killing Jesus, they will lose the Temple anyway. Tacitus's Histories 5.13 and Josephus's Wars 6.300-309 will record what they could not foresee: AD 70 confirms that they read the political calculus exactly backwards.
Caiaphas's intervention (vv. 49-50) is a piece of cynical realpolitik. The contemptuous ὑμεῖς οὐκ οἴδατε οὐδέν is condescension to colleagues; οὐδὲ λογίζεσθε ("nor do you reckon") accuses them of failing the basic political arithmetic. His proposal—συμφέρει ὑμῖν ἵνα εἷς ἄνθρωπος ἀποθάνῃ ὑπὲρ τοῦ λαοῦ—is presented as expediency: better one death than national catastrophe. The preposition ὑπέρ ("on behalf of, instead of") will be reused in the chapters ahead (10:11, 15:13) for sacrificial substitution; Caiaphas means it utilitarianly, but John (v. 51) hears it sacrificially. The title ἀρχιερεὺς ὢν τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ἐκείνου ("being high priest of that year") is repeated three times in five verses—an emphasis. John knows perfectly well that the historical Caiaphas served continuously from AD 18 to 36, not annually; the phrase marks the year as the year of that specific high priesthood—the one in which the true High Priest was to be sacrificed. Cf. m. Yoma 7.4 on the ritualized solemnity of the high-priestly office; John's threefold "of that year" is liturgical rather than chronographic.
V. 51 makes the irony explicit: τοῦτο δὲ ἀφ' ἑαυτοῦ οὐκ εἶπεν, ἀλλὰ… ἐπροφήτευσεν. The high priest, by virtue of his office (ἀρχιερεὺς ὤν), spoke truer than he knew. John appeals to a Second Temple tradition (cf. Josephus, Antiquities 11.327, on Jaddua's prophetic dreams; b. Yoma 73b on the high priest's discernment via Urim and Thummim) that the high priest could prophesy in his official capacity, regardless of personal worthiness. The substitutionary force—εἷς ἀνθρωπος… ὑπὲρ τοῦ λαοῦ—is given Levitical-typological depth. V. 52 then pushes the prophecy beyond what Caiaphas intended: not for the ἔθνος only, but to gather the τέκνα τοῦ θεοῦ τὰ διεσκορπισμένα into one. The participle διεσκορπισμένα (perfect passive, "scattered and remaining scattered") echoes the prophets' diaspora-vocabulary (Ezek 34:5; Isa 56:8) and anticipates the gathering of the one flock from many folds (10:16). Caiaphas's local utility-calculus is reframed by the narrator as cosmic gathering. The decision to kill (v. 53, ἐβουλεύσαντο ἵνα ἀποκτείνωσιν αὐτόν) is rendered with deliberative middle—they took counsel together; the resolve is settled and corporate from this day on.
V. 54 marks Jesus' tactical retreat to Ephraim, identified by Eusebius (Onomasticon) and confirmed by survey work as likely et-Taiyibeh, about fifteen miles north-northeast of Jerusalem on the edge of the Judean wilderness. The verb περιεπάτει ("He was walking around") with οὐκέτι παρρησίᾳ ("no longer openly") signals that the period of public ministry has effectively closed. The withdrawal is not flight but timing: Jesus is conserving His hour, not avoiding it. The Passover staging in vv. 55-57 prepares the next chapter's anointing and the triumphal entry. Pilgrims come up early ἵνα ἁγνίσωσιν ἑαυτούς—to undergo the seven-day purification rites prescribed for those defiled by corpse-contact (Num 19) or other ritual impurity (m. Pesahim 9.1; Josephus, Wars 6.290 records that Passover crowds in Jerusalem could exceed two-and-a-half million, almost all of whom underwent some form of pre-festal purification). The crowds in the Temple (ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ) ask the precise question (τί δοκεῖ ὑμῖν; οὐ μὴ ἔλθῃ εἰς τὴν ἑορτήν;) that the council's order will answer in the affirmative—the next chapter opens with Jesus arriving at Bethany six days before the Passover. The juridical pluperfect δεδώκεισαν ("they had given, with ongoing effect") in v. 57 makes the dragnet pre-existing as the next chapter's events unfold; Jesus walks toward His arrest with His Passover-trajectory fully in view.
Caiaphas thought he was choosing politics; John tells us he was unwittingly speaking liturgy—the high priest of that year declaring, in the precise idiom of substitutionary atonement, the very thing he meant to deny.
Isaiah 53:8 (MT): מֵעֹצֶר וּמִמִּשְׁפָּט לֻקָּח וְאֶת־דּוֹרוֹ מִי יְשׂוֹחֵחַ כִּי נִגְזַר מֵאֶרֶץ חַיִּים מִפֶּשַׁע עַמִּי נֶגַע לָמוֹ ("By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?"). LSB renders my people in the singular—a key marker. Caiaphas's συμφέρει… ἵνα εἷς ἄνθρωπος ἀποθάνῃ ὑπὲρ τοῦ λαοῦ is in fact the council-room paraphrase of Isaiah 53's substitutionary structure: one stricken for the many. The high priest cannot avoid speaking in Isaianic vocabulary because his office, however corrupt, is bound to the Temple's atonement-grammar.
The "scattered children of God to be gathered into one" (v. 52) draws on Ezekiel 34:12-16: כְּבַקָּרַת רֹעֶה עֶדְרוֹ… כֵּן אֲבַקֵּר אֶת־צֹאנִי וְהִצַּלְתִּי אֶתְהֶם מִכָּל־הַמְּקוֹמֹת אֲשֶׁר נָפֹצוּ שָׁם ("As a shepherd cares for his flock… so I will care for My sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered"). LSB preserves "Yahweh" in the surrounding context (Ezek 34:11) and "scattered" for נָפֹצוּ. Jesus' Good Shepherd discourse in chapter 10 prepared this: the διεσκορπισμένα of v. 52 are the same as the πρόβατα ἃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τῆς αὐλῆς ταύτης of 10:16, the other-fold sheep. Caiaphas's "scattered" prophecy and Jesus' "other sheep" prophecy point to the same Ezekiel 34 future. Beneath both passages stands Lev 16:7-22 and the Day of Atonement, where the high priest cast lots over two goats (one for Yahweh, one for Azazel) and laid the people's iniquities on the substitute—a typological grid Caiaphas enacts unwittingly when he proposes a single ἄνθρωπος dying ὑπὲρ τοῦ λαοῦ.
"Convened a council" for συνήγαγον… συνέδριον (v. 47) — LSB does not translate συνέδριον as "Sanhedrin" here, leaving "council" because the gathering is informal and ad hoc rather than a full juridical session. The technical Sanhedrin (the seventy-one-member supreme court) met under specific procedural rules (m. Sanhedrin 1.6; 4.1); what John describes is a strategy meeting of senior priestly and Pharisaic leaders. The lower-case rendering preserves this distinction.
"Expedient" for συμφέρει (v. 50) — LSB retains the older Latinate "expedient" rather than smoothing to "advantageous" or "good for you." The choice is theologically loaded: "expedient" carries the moral coolness of the Greek—Caiaphas is not weighing what is just but what is profitable, and English "expedient" preserves that ethical chill. The same verb συμφέρει is used by Jesus Himself in 16:7 ("it is expedient for you that I go away"), and the LSB consistency lets the reader hear the echo.
"Prophesied" for ἐπροφήτευσεν (v. 51) — LSB does not soften to "predicted" but keeps the technical religious term. The verb in this context is doing theological work: it asserts that Caiaphas, in his official capacity, spoke a Spirit-given word despite himself. Rendering as "prophesied" preserves the prophetic-office function even when the prophet is unwilling.
"Gather together into one" for συναγάγῃ εἰς ἕν (v. 52) — preserving the prepositional εἰς ἕν ("into one") rather than the smoother "into one people." The neuter ἕν here is the same neuter-of-essence as 10:30 ("I and the Father are one") and 17:11, 21-22. The unity into which the scattered are gathered is not merely organizational but participatory in the Father-Son oneness. LSB's literal rendering keeps the cross-reference intact.