Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
John 11:35
Jesus wept. A different verb from the weeping of everyone else in the scene.
John 11:35, in every translation this tool compares.
She was wailing. He shed tears. Two different sounds, and English has words for both.
Because the shortest verse in the English Bible uses a verb that occurs only here in the New Testament, and the mourners two verses earlier are described with a different one.
Every version reads Jesus wept.
δακρύω dakruo · G1145
Dakruo, to shed tears, occurs only here in the New Testament. The mourners at verse 33 klaio, which is loud lamentation. The contrast between the professional wailing and the quiet tears is in the vocabulary.
English wept covers both, so the contrast is invisible and the verse reads as the same activity as everyone else's.
When a narrative uses two different verbs for what looks like the same action, the difference is usually the description.
Wept is universal.
- Only occurrence of dakruo in the New Testament
- klaio at John 11:31, 33; 20:11
- The professional mourners at John 11:19, 31
